“A raised garden bed extends the planting season, offers versatility to the gardener and helps protect your knees by bringing plants up from a level position on the ground. Also known as garden boxes, raised garden beds are ideal for growing flowers and vegetables virtually anywhere. Knowing how to build them, how to use them and how to maximize the rewards you get from them is critical. Luckily,...
Source: Fix.com Luckily for all you green-thumb wannabees, gardening isn’t a passing fad. In fact, the act and art of growing flowers, vegetables, and herbs is only gaining in popularity. According to Greenhouse Magazine, nearly half of all people gardened in a year, while the Garden Writers Association found that edible gardening increased over 11 percent in 2013. For budget-smart gardeners like...
Spring is here… getting lots of messages about starting your first container garden. You are excited and nervous. And for good reason. You’ve lots to do in the next couple months! Why your garden will fail The 3 reasons your garden will fail this year. 1. You want to grow a farmers market in your small space. You want to grow tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, peppers, kale, onions, garlic,...
This is the absolute minimum amount of information you need to know about growing your own organic food. This post is brought to you by SeedsNow.com Think about the vegetables and herbs you enjoy eating. Make a list of those you enjoy most, and think about which are hardest to find or most expensive to buy in stores – those are the ones you’ll want to grow. Winter squash, tomatoes and...
A Practical Solution to Attracting Beneficial Insects Grow something that will serve two purposes. One for you to eat and one to attract the beneficial insects. This isn’t a post of every single plant that will attract every single insect. Those aren’t useful. It’s a post that will attract two beneficial insects that will help out most urban gardeners – ladybugs and lacewings. Both...
Mario Brothers Radish Head is brought to you by http://www.annathered.com 6 Steps: Step 1. Put a knife in the middle of a radish, and make a small incision. Step 2. Hold the radish, and spin the radish VERY SLOWLY, and cut all the way around the radish. Step 3. Make four incisions on the bottom side of mushroom like in the pictures. *Don’t cut past the half line! Step 4....
A post on Organic Connections Magazine called People Don’t Want to Be a GMO Experiment got us thinking about a few things. Why we should be concerned about GMOs Most people assume that GMOs are safe because they are so widely available, which is not true. GMOs have never been proven to be safe and no they aren’t feeding the world. It was some time in the late 1980s/early 1990s when they were...
“Companion planting is one of the best techniques to grow a better garden and naturally repel pests. Some plants thrive next to certain other plants, while being completely incompatible with others (much like humans!). This infographic tells you at a glance the combinations that work best. It highlights, for example, how thyme can be paired with just about any of the other plants in the list...
Summer is gone and September is upon us. You think you missed your chance to start your garden and will start it next year… …That’s just a lame excuse though. You’ve made dozens of excuses why you can’t start. I’m sick of them and you should be too. It’s not too late to start your garden! That’s true for most of you in the United States. Yes, your options...
For those of you that like the Urban Organic Gardener blog we also have a pretty active Facebook page where we offer tips, tricks, and other things you wouldn’t normally find on this site. One of our fans, Lillian, sent these pictures of her urban garden: Lillian writes: Hello! I wanted to share with you a photo of my balcony container garden. It’s my first garden and I was inspired by...
You want to start your garden and feel overwhelmed, not knowing what you can grow. Finding that information in an easy to follow format is damned near impossible. You need a degree to read the charts, maps and graphs that are out there. How would you like to know what you can grow in your garden today without the confusion? The Veggie Virgin Formula Luckily for you, I have scoured dozens of sites and...
This question comes up every single year: Q. It’s June, did I miss my opportunity to plant for spring? A. Well, it kinda depends. It depends on where you live, what you wanted to grow, and how quick the plant takes to actually grow. Next time, you might want to do some more prep work, but for the time-being there are actually a handful of things you can plant right now! You may have already...
You might not have listened in the beginning of the summer… …Or in September when I told you it’s not too late to start your garden. It’s now October and guess what? It’s still not too late to start your garden For most of you in the US, your time is running out this year, but you still have some. Utilize it! The selection might be small, but there is a selection. Just grow one thing right now. Then come the spring, you’ll be more comfortable and be able to grow that much more. It’ll be easier...
Mint is a weed… …that means it grows like crazy and should be kept in a container. If you are growing mint, you likely have more that you know what to do with. You can easily harvest it to encourage more growth too. There are lots of posts out there that give you dozens of ways that you can use mint. How many of them can you actually use everyday though? How to use mint from your garden…everyday That’s...
Summer is gone and September is upon us. You think you missed your chance to start your garden and will start it next year… …That’s just a lame excuse though. You’ve made dozens of excuses why you can’t start. I’m sick of them and you should be too. It’s not too late to start your garden! That’s true for most of you in the United States. Yes, your options...
