DIY Garden Projects, Yummy Recipes, & Crafty Goodness
When the sun starts shining those seedlings will soon be reaching up to meet it. Some plants have nice strong stalks to hold them up but others need our help. Peas, beans, and other vining vegetables need some sort of trellis to support their growth towards the sky. This project shows you how to easily build a bamboo trellis with only one material. Yep, you guessed it…bamboo!
Are you deep in to planning your vegetable garden? Small space gardeners tend to get good yield and lot of variety with a square foot garden. Not only that, but also they tend to have less weeds and conserve water by being planted densely. Year after year you can rotate crops around the beds to ensure that there is no nutrient depletion nor diseases introduced.
Before you plan your garden, this handy infographic created by Atlantis Hydroponics helps to provide you with information on how much space you will need per vegetable, or how many of a kind of vegetable will fit in a square foot. Click on the image to make it larger so you can print it out or bookmark it.
To learn more about square foot gardening it is best to go to the source, author Mel Bartholomew and his book, All New Square Foot Gardening, Second Edition: The Revolutionary Way to Grow More In Less Space.
Spring is now so close that we can almost touch it, taste it, see it, smell it, hear it. Part of what makes spring so sensory is the fresh little green things that begin to grow in the vegetable garden. Whether you have garlic and broad beans popping up, or some overwintering Brussels sprouts from last year’s planting, there is a whole world of food awaiting those of us in the cooler climates. Spring is when it all starts.
All this thinking about spring has me flipping through what’s brand new in vegetable gardening on books shelves. There are a few new books out this year that I think are going to spice up my season just a little bit more.
by Barbara Ellis
Here is a good place to start: the seeds! This basic booklet is a pretty thorough guide on how to start your own plants from seed. Now I don’t agree with everything I read in this book as all seed starters have their tried-and-true methods. I have written about many of mine in The Ultimate Seed Starting Guide but there is really so much more that can be said and Starting Seeds says it well. You will find detailed information on starting seeds indoors and outside, including planning, germinating, and even seed-saving.
by Joseph Tychonievich
Now that you are an expert seed starter, I’m going to blow your mind! Imagine creating your very own vegetable varieties! Plant Breeding is just about the coolest sounding book that I have come across recently. Since it was just published 7 days ago I haven’t had a chance to get a copy but I did ask Joseph to share a little about the book for us and here is what he had to say, [Read more...]
Gardening in a small space sometimes leaves me feeling envy for the the expansive veggie gardens and fruit orchards that I seem to see on endless magazine pages and websites. My new home doesn’t have much room for a backyard garden and not a lick of room for one in the front. I have to pick and choose what I want to grow very carefully, be it things I love but are hard to find at the market, or veggies that just taste a whole lot better when picked fresh. I was just thinking about this today as I get ready to start my vegetable seeds and then I read an article in Martha Stewart Living’s March 2013 issue about professional forager, Tama Matsuoka Wong. Fascinating!
Photo: colinclarkphoto.com
I’ve often been interested in foraging, and have certainly gone on my fair share of mushroom hunts, but this is a great way to augment my limited garden production. I love that Tama not only collects a variety of wild edibles for restaurants but also teaches school children this skill. Tama has a new book out, Foraged Flavor: Finding Fabulous Ingredients in Your Backyard or Farmer’s Market (Clarkson Potter, 2012), that I’ll be rushing to pick up. Particularly when I can see the range of edibles she describes.
Photo: colinclarkphoto.com
If you propagated your basil from cuttings like I did this year, no doubt you have a boatload of basil to contend with. Here are some recipes that go beyond the norm and help that basil last throughout the year.
[Read more...]Hey Vancouverites, are you looking for a night market that’s actually good for you? Cool urban farmers, Sam Philips and Lisa Giroday of Victory Gardens have teamed up with the one and only Jessica Wadsworth to create the Mount Pleasant Victory Market.
The event is running in conjunction with the Livable Laneways Night Markets and features urban producers, growers and local small business. You’ll be pleased to find vendors like SOLEfood, Yummy Yards, Barefoot Farms, Backyard Buzz, Olla Flowers, Sugo Sauce, Patch and Victory Gardens.
The Mount Pleasant Victory Market takes place on Saturday August 4th from 5:00 – 10:00 pm in the laneway west of main and between 8th and Broadway. You won’t want to miss it.
If you neglected to put a tomato cage around your plants when they were small, it’s not too late to wrangle out of control stems back into an orderly form. In fact, it’s a great time to get out there are support your plants. What better way to get some garden therapy for Weekend Project #43?
For years now I have been growing my garden herbs in containers just down the deck stairs from the kitchen. While a few changes are made each year, the foundation of this garden is perennial herbs. The garden will continue to produce for much of the year allowing me winter harvests of sage, marjoram, rosemary, oregano, and sometimes arugula. Other herbs will pop up in their due time from chives in early spring to saffron crocuses in the fall.
This Sour Cherry Jam recipe is brought to you by Zoe over at Scout’s Stitches. She also helped review The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener by Niki Jabbour and I’m excited to have her back.
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Thank you, Stevie, for having me as a guest today. My name is Zoe and I blog over at Scout’s Stitches. I write about whatever I feel like, mostly cooking, sewing and crafting. Today I will share with you a recipe I made recently that was really delicious.
It’s a great day when you get to work with people you like and admire and today is one of those days! Steve Asbell from The Rainforest Garden is an amazingly talented illustrator so when he asked if I’d be interested in collaborating on an DIY post I jumped at the chance. To see more of Steve’s work check out his illustrations board on Pinterest.
