If you’re in the process of doing Spring Cleaning, odds are, at some point, you’re going to hit your closet and find a pair of pants you don’t want anymore.
If you’re like me, you have a favorite pair of jeans that you just can’t part with. Well, Chow.com has an easy way of turning them into a gardening apron, perfect for carrying stuff around.
A pair of cargo pants works just as well, though…
One of the best things about the gardening community is the sheer willingness to share information, walk through step by step how to solve a problem, and the overall good-natured support provided.
This Spring, there have been a bunch of solid guides for making seed starting soil blocks. While I’m content with making use of my Aerogarden for its hydroponic seed starting or the Jiffy pods, one of the most common methods for getting gardening going is by using soil blocks (pictured below).
Soil Blocks
Here are five links that you should read, use, and bookmark:
1. Daphne’s Dandelions – Soil Block Tutorial: I’m hesitant to use this word, but what an epic post by the Harvest Monday ringleader. She really covers the process, end to end, everything from soil to using a commercial blocker.
2. Annie’s Kitchen Garden: I’m sharing this one because she goes through, step by step, on how to make a soil blocker from pieces from your local hardware store or that you might have in your basement. As a huge supporter of ‘found-gardening’, I recommend this since it re-purposes discarded items.
3. From my bookmarks, Instructables has another guide for making a beefier soil blocker. Another potential for re-purposing.
4. Treehugger.com’s John Laumer has another great step-by-step guide with clear and concise photography.
5. Gardening Channel’s post has a great list on how to improve the longevity of your soil blocks.
Bonus video:
While I love soil blocks for their use-of-use factor, they do take time to make. However, they help reduce clutter and waste that you would get from buying seed flats, from your local hardware store or gardening center. Soil blocks are extremely easy to transplant. Plus, you can make bigger blocks and transplant the smaller cubes to fit inside the bigger ones. It’s like a puzzle! Or not.
While it’s great to receive free seeds, what should you do with them after receiving them? Should you plant them directly in the ground? Should you run out and buy some Jiffy pods? Should I get some potting mix and used my saved yogurt containers? Do I need to add special nutrients to my soil?
Soil Mix
The answer to all of those is ‘yes, you can do that’. As you get more acquainted on the topic of gardening, a topic that comes up every year is how can you prep soil or soil-free mix to plant in.
Everyone has an opinion, on the matter, and there really is no right or wrong answer. Here are five resources to help you get started down the path of seed starting:
1. Colleen Vanderlinden, a great organic gardening writer, over at About.com, shares her recipe on The Perfect Soil-Less Recipe for Seed Starting. For the most part, the recipe can be extended to container gardening, in general.
2. Sharon Astyk, at Scienceblogs.com, takes a more philosophical, thoughtful approach to her process. She shares her thoughts, not only on seed starting mix, but the entire starting business.
3. One of the biggest controversies in gardening is the use of and diminishing of peat moss. If you read any blogs about gardening and homesteading, you need to add Root Simple to that list. Here’s a great Peat-free Planting Mix Recipe With Coconut Coir. The post does a FANTASTIC job of explaining the different ingredients that they use, many of which you should consider, for your garden (especially the worm castings).
4.Of course, the Gardens Alive website has a great Q&A/FAQ on preparing soil for window boxes.
5. A big question for Year Two and beyond, especially for container gardeners: Can I Reuse Old Potting Soil? Gayla Trail AKA YouGrowGirl writes about one of the tougher topics and how she recycles her soil. Nutrients need to be replenished and adjusted, based on what you’re growing. Many plants have different needs.
Bonus Video:
Here’s an organic potting mix recipe, if you have about 10 minutes:
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Are you an anal gardener? Do your plants have to be a certain distance apart? Especially your flowers? Are you a carrot or a radish planter? Are you bored in the winter, and you’re looking to interact with gardening, in some way?
Well, then seed tape is for you!
Seed Tape Roll
Over at HGTV, there’s a quick and easy guide on how to make seed tape. Materials you’ll need:
Then it’s as easy as cutting, measuring, adding a dab of glue, and then placing the seeds. You can plant the tape immediately or store it until you’re ready.
I’m not particularly proud to admit that I’ve had plenty of fruit flies, bite-mes, and/or annoying, black, flying bugs zipping around my home, since Fall finally set in. I apparently did a poor job of cleaning my peppers and herbs off before bringing them into the basement.
A little fruit fly humor to lighten the mood
As a result, I’ve been battling all the fun of aphids and the occasional stinkbug (which I just leave to the cat). Somehow, even a Lady Bug made her way into my basement, which I took as a sign that I truly have a problem. Spiders have set up shop in hopes of an easy meal.
Inverted soda bottle trap
A while back, I read some posts on cutting up a plastic bottle and inverting it (pictured above); I’ve read about fly paper; I’ve read about paper funnel traps; I’ve read about rotten fruit traps; I’ve read about buying an entire assortment of traps. None of these appealed to the laziness in me. Luckily, I found a super-simple solution to really keep the population under control.
Fruit Flies In Apple Cider Vinegar Trap
I settled on a hybrid, which has worked extremely well for me (pictured above) and required almost no work or attention from me. Gross. The process involves Apple Cider Vinegar, which I just love for many home uses. Here are the five easy steps to better peace of mind:
Once, I left the glass sitting on the counter and probably collected 50 dead flies, over the span of three days. For the last three days, I’ve placed it on my garbage can lid, and I’ve probably collected another 100. I am SO NOT proud of this, but at least I’ve found a way to effectively combat the nuisances until I can get my herbs back outside.
Probably need to bleach and/or torch the kitchen trash can(s), too, but that’s a chore for a better day.
Since I’ve had to spend a giant chunk of the week fighting mother nature, I whipped up a quick batch of Capsaicin spray to ward off whatever beasts are mauling my delicious produce. Squirrels, raccoons, etc. don’t like pepper-based sprays. Their noses are so sensitive. So, I sprayed this all over my plants and the surrounding area. Those 200 squirrels that surround my yard will suddenly be very unhappy. I hope.
1-capful of Murphy’s Oil Soap ($4 for a bottle)
1 ounce hot sauce (I used butt-burner hot sauce. It’s jalapeno-based)
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Mix everything together, filter, and put the mixture in a 22 ounce spray bottle ($2). Fill the bottle to the top with water. Spray everything around where the squirrels are unwanted.
At the beginning of the summer, I wrote a post on how to apply calcium into the potting mixture as you plant tomato seedlings, at the beginning of the growing season. This is normally good enough for about a month, at a time, in my experience. Hopefully, at this point, your plants have tons of blossoms and lots of fruits. Maybe even some ripe ones!
Well, it’s time for another calcium application to help avoid things like blossom end rot, seen here:
Blossom End Rot
ARGH! Luckily, this round only managed to take four little fruits. No sweat. I have dozens more across my plants.
Materials needed:
Calcium Mortar Pestle Jug
Steps for application:
Calcium Supplement Tablets
Crushing The Calcium Supplement Tablets
Calcium Powder
Streaming Water
Diluted Calcium Solution
Calcium Solution Next To Tomatoes
Since I have sub-irrigated containers, I just pour the solution into the reservoir, and the roots soak up the calcium directly. You can apply this top-side, by just watering, if you don’t have self-watering or sub-irrigated planters.
I divide the mixture between the four tomato plants. For me, there is a little bit of powder in the bottom. I fill the container up with a quart of lukewarm water. Then I swirl the container vigorously and apply to my cherry tomato plant. I don’t love it enough to give it a full serving. It’s my red-headed step child.
If you need/want to skip the calcium solution, you can directly apply to the planting medium.
You can also buy other organic mixes that you can use that might add other nutrients to the plants, as well.
If you have a favorite method of applying calcium, please let it in the comment section!
Tomatoes are a plant that requires more of some nutrients and less of others. One of the ones that it requires more of is calcium.
Plants like tomatoes use the calcium to produce strong cell walls, which help protect the plant from attacks by evil pathogens that cause disease. In addition to fighting disease, tomatoes also process the alkaline metal for enzyme activity and metabolism.
One of the biggest plagues to tomato plants is blossom end rot (or BER). This funky-sounding plague is a develops in tomatoes due to a calcium deficiency (or a watering issue). It manifests itself as a watery spot near the blossom end (the bottom, the butt, etc) when the tomato has begun to develop. Eventually, the spot will spread like a cancer. And it will be game over for that fruit.
Roma Tomatoes That Fell To Blossom End Rot
I’ve been down this road before, mostly with Roma tomatoes, when I first started gardening. It really killed a bumper crop before I realized what was going on. Lesson learned!
So, here’s how to start off your tomato plant right! Putting the calcium right at the root ball means that it’s going to get drawn right in. The process is extremely simple.
Here are some good calcium sources: limestone (caution on that one, apparently), gypsum, Tums, egg shells, powdered milk, and bone meal tea. Me, I prefer to use old calcium supplement tablets.
Here is how I apply the calcium, to start:
1. Crush the tablets up into a fine powder. Make it look like cocaine. if you want to, cut it with a razor and pretend it is mountains of cocaine from Scarface. Just don’t snort it? Your parents would be mad at me. I used a mortar and pestle. These tablets are fairly weak.
Ground Calcium Tablets
2. Prepare your planting container. Since it’s a tomato, make sure the container is deep.
Prepare Your Tomato Container
3. Dig a hole for the tomato. Don’t worry about making the hole deeper than the root ball. Tomatoes are, like, the only plant that you can bury the stem, and the plant will benefit from it. The stem will begin producing roots, and the plant will grow bigger and stronger.
Dig Hole For Tomato
4. Put the calcium in the hole.
Put Calcium Powder Into Hole
5. Place the tomato in the hole.
Place Tomato In Hole
6. Bury it and repeat as necessary!
Repeat Tomato Planting
7. Put up tomato cages and markers.
8. ???
9. Profit! In a few months when you have delicious fruits. You might need to apply more calcium every month or so. Find a way to deliver it from the soil. Make a tea from it. Fair easy!
