Plants
March 17, 2010
Starter Fertilizer is organic and contains all the ingredients you need for success
Monrovia has a great organic fertilizer. It is pelleted for ease of use and can be sprinkled around container plants or along a row of seedlings in the garden. I particularly like that the bag itself is compostable. There's no waste and no throw away with this purchase. It's meant to get your plants off to a good start.
- Long-lasting, slow release fertilizer that is made from 100% natural and organic ingredients.
- A gentle organic fertilizer formulated for all types of transplanting.
- Contains: Feather Meal, Blood Meal, Bone Meal, Sulfate of Potash, Kelp Meal and Alfalfa Meal.
- Also includes 12 different strains of mycorrhizae.
- Available in 4 lb bag.
At Starter Fertilizer
March 10, 2010
Dr. Earth Organic Starter Fertilizer gives a good start for seedlings
This is a great fertilizer for your seedlings as well as your container plants. You can work it in around the plant or make a tea with water and pour around the plant. Quck and easy. The fact that it contains beneficial soil microbes is a big plus.
- People and Pet Safe
- 100% Organic and Natural
- For Your: Flowers, Vegetables, Trees, Shrubs, Bedding Plants, Potted Plants
- Contains Pro-Biotic Beneficial Soil Microbes, Ecto & Endo Mycorrhizae
- Feeds 55 Square Feet or 80 one-gallon Transplants
At Dr. Earth Organic Starter Fertilizer - 4 Pounds
March 9, 2010
Pelleted Organic Fertilizer is a great for the garden and for containers
Organic fertilizer should come from animals that have been fed only organic food. For years I bought Steer Manure from the nursery thinking that I was being organic until I realized that it came from feed lots where the animals were not fed organically and worse, were given hormones and anitbiotics. These toxins are in the manure of animals who are given them.
So now I get only organic fertilizer and potting soil. There don't seem to be any tests or standards for labeling organic fertilizer, but the basic rule that the animal is fed only organic feed.
The next few weeks I'm going to be analyzing various organic manures and their relative nurtrient values. The manure I mostly use is chicken manure. The Stolzman Organic Chicken Manure is what I used on the broccoli and primroses I planted this week. Chicken manure is a higher source of nitrogen, potassium, and potash than other animal manures. It is 4-1-1. When you see number like this on a package of fertilizer the first number is nitrogen, the second potassium and the last potash. When we had chickens it was such a delight to till it in early in the spring and then later plant corn and watch the results! Now I buy it which is less fulfilling but works just as well.
Raw chicken manure should be composted. Composting at 158 degrees destroys most bacteria, weed seeds and samonella which makes the manure save to use although it should not be used around seedlings, but always mixed with soil to avoid burning tender new growth. It will help with ph also, making acid soils more neutral.
This pelleted chicken manure is easy to handle and compact, thus reducing the work shoveling and spreading it and the odor is reduced when it is in this form. This package of three 12 oz bags is a good trial size.
At Organic Fertilizer Soil Conditioner,Odor Free and Pelletized for Easy Application-All Purpose Chicken Manure for Vegetables,Flowers,Fruit Trees,Lawn & Shrubs.Compost Production Process Destroys Pathogens and Weed Seeds,340g/12 oz Trial Size Set 3 Bags
March 8, 2010
Primroses and broccoli are my first plant purchases this year
I was in the larger market town this weekend so I had to go to a nursery to see what was being offered. I picked up three primrose plants and a six pack of broccoli. Just couldn't resist although freezes are by no means over here. I also bought a sack of composted organic chicken manure to mix with compost and soil in the holes I dig.
Primroses provide early spring blooms in almost every color of the rainbow and they really are easy to grow. They prefer cool temperatures, a rich humus soil (lots of compost and leaf mold) and partial shade. Once the weather turns hot, as it does here in the California mountains, they tend to die back. So I'm going to plant them where they will get shade in the summer. They are quite tolerant of being transplanted, even when they are in bloom.
They are so pretty, I'm sorry I didn't get a dozen.
The broccoli will go right into the garden in a short row which will grow larger when I can plant some broccoli seeds later in March. It always make me feel so happy to be starting the garden. I will have something to fuss with, to check on, to worry about and feed and care for all the growing season, and all the nurturing I do, is repaid me a hundred times, but the delicious fresh food I eat, and the beauty of flowers all around me.
The dog, Sammy, is hopeful this has something to do with his food bowl.
I've never grown primrose from seed, but interestingly, it needs sunlight to germinate.
At Forever In Blue Jeans Primrose 25 Seeds - Primula
March 5, 2010
Planting broccoli when the soil can't be tilled
My garden soil does not dry out well until April or May. But I get some vegetables in the ground anyway. My six pack of broccoli is in the ground. The process is something like this. I dig six holes in a row, which will later be extended by planting seed. Since the soil is wet, it does not fall apart when I hit what I have dug up with the shovel. So I break up the soil by hand, pulling out the weedy ground cover and crumbling the clods back into the hole. Then I put a half a shovel of composted organic chicken manure.
This bag of manure is not completely composted. It's the about $3.00 a bag at my local nursery and has a lot of what looks like wood chips in it.
Nonetheless, it has more nurtrients than my garden soil at the moment so I use it. Once the soil is broken up and the manure mixed in, I make a little hole and pop the seedling in. Really very simple. The next day it really poured rain and the garden was too soggy to walk in, but when it dries up a little, I'll put a mulch around the seedling to keep the weeds down.
It feels good to have the first vegies in the ground.
February 26, 2010
Sugar Snap Peas are the sweetest treat in early spring
If you live in a climate where the weather has warmed up and there's a space in the garden that can be dug, now is the time you could plant some snap peas and get an early harvest. I have grandkids coming this summer in June and want to have some garden vegetables for them to try right out of the garden, and snap peas would be perfect.
If, on the other hand, you are one of the ones still snowed in, you can plant these inside and let them get started until the weather warms up. Soil temperature should be 40 degrees for peas, lettuce and endive. And for peas seeds innoculant helps them establish vigor from the start.
At Peas Sugar Snap Certified Organic Seeds 85 Seeds
February 16, 2010
Some thoughts about what to do about leached out soil.
I went out into the garden today to check out what was still growing and viable. I was hungry for greens. The kale looked good and I wish i had planted more of it. It's so hard in the fall, when there are vegetables I'm trying to give away, to think about planting a couple of rows of kale. The broccoli was still putting out flower heads and I harvested some for dinner. I brought the pruners with me and trimmed the plants to they might produce more as the weather warms up. The small beets were ok, but the big beautiful ones had heaved out of the ground and been frozen. There were carrots, of course, and they are sweetest this time of year and have to be eaten soon as they will rot if it warms up.
But what a mess to clean! First dig!
Then take to outside faucet:
Rince off with the hose and voila! they are ready to bring inside
They will taste fantastic.
All in all, I have enough greens to eat if the road goes out and I am stranded for weeks. But the rains have been hard and the soil in the garden was muddy and compacted so that my boots got stuck in mud in a couple of places. I was very disappointed in the ground cover I planted. The quail must have eaten most of the vetch and legumes. Only some rye is growing and it adds the least amount of nutrients to the soil. It's going to take a lot of work to get a rich loam out of this mess, but I've done it for years so I know it can be done.
One of the things I'm going to try is to mix this Azomite with the compost and fertilizer I put in each row before I plant. I've never tried it, yet I'm sure after this winter, my soil must have been leached clean of minerals. So I'm ordering several pounds of Azomite and I'll report on it's usefulness. The rest will be up to the truck loads of manure and compost I'll put in the garden.
At 2 Lbs of Azomite - Organic Trace Mineral Soil Additive Fertilizer - 67 Trace Minerals: Selenium, Vanadium, Chromium
February 12, 2010
Johnny's Seed Catalog is unique among seed companies
Johnny's catalog just came and is very impressive. The company is employee owned and was started in the 70's by a 22 year old with $500 savings. The employees own 30% of the company and should own 100% by 2015 which is unusual and commendable. 
The company originates in Maine and as one might guess, is geared toward cool weather growing. The lettuce section is the most extensive I've seen, ten pages of familar and rare varieties, but a special section on baby salad mixes and another on micro mix varieties which are vegetable seedlings harvested while small and used for salad and gourmet cooking. They sell ounces and up to 25 pounds of seeds so they are used by large growers as well as home gardeners.
Many vegetable sections come with a very helpful chart showing the variety and the days to harvest, the color, disease resistance and other attributes of seed. The corn section is small, only three pages, but they advertise a an innoculant which should help corn survive in less than ideal conditions. There is a good explanation of SE, SE+, and Synergistic varieties which helped me understand what those labels mean.
This Spring Treat corn is a "slightly sturdier plant and better eating quality than Kandy Kwik, which Spring Treat replaces. Good cool soil vigor."
They have an extensive selection of herbs from Angelica to Wormwood, eighteen pages and about thirty pages of flowers which includes some wildflower mixes. The tools and supplies section ha a lot of season extender items. Agribon is featured as both a lightweight insect barrier and a heavy weight heavy freeze protection of down to 24 degrees F. They show plastic and biodegrable mulchers which I've never seen before. A white on black mulch keeps the soil cool and the black side down suppresses weeds. They sell a red plastic mulch developed by Penn State which suppresses weeds, keeps the soil warm and hastens the ripening of tomatoes. It's not recommended for hot weather states.
Lastly, they sell a range of harvesting knives and tools and are featuring a Tubtrug which is a flexible food grade plastic tub to use for harvesting or for mixing fertilizer.
They come in three bright colors and can be left outside with no harm from frost or UV.
At Johnny's Seeds
February 11, 2010
Stargazer Lily Collection blooms and is fragrant all summer
Day lilies, as opposed to dahlias, are easy to grow and are hardy over most of the US, from zones 3-11. This jumbo pack has 12 lilies of three different varieties in pink and white. They grow quite tall so plant them in against the fence or in the back of the border as they get as tall as 24" to 40". They are perennials and can also be grown in containers and make great cut flowers. Plant them 4" to 6" and space them a foot apart, sprinkle fertilizer and you're good to go. Only $23 from Holland Bulb Farms.
At Holland Bulb Farm
February 9, 2010
Weeping Willow Tree is a classic landscape addition and easy to grow
Weeping willows are beautiful additions to a yard. They can be used as windbreaks; they are fast growing, and are cold hardy over most all the the country. I am thinking of one near the pond I am planning near my new house. They add a soft and gentle ambiance to any landscape and I remember them from my childhood. One of the main features is they are fast gowing so you don't have to wait forever for the tree to mature. This one when shipped is 3 or 4ft tall so it has a good start on growth and they are easy to grow so dig a hole, throw in some compost and mix it up with some fertilizer, steer manure would do and plant the tree! It should really take off in the spring!
At Weeping Willow Tree, Hardy Green, 36-48-inch Tall
February 8, 2010
Gurney's Catalogue has it all
Gurney's Seed and Nursery company is located right smack in the midwest and carries every aspect of seed and plant and supply that a gardener needs. They have no particular ideology other than supplying what they consider to be the most reliable and the best. They have both heirloom and hybrid varieties. They sell fruit and nut trees as well as vines and shrubs, hedges and grasses. They have house plants and windbreaks, just about anything you could possibly want.
They are promoting a sweet corn called "You gotta have it" which they claim is the sweetest and stays the sweetest longest of any corn you can grow. It is hybrid but not sugar enhanced. One feature I like about their online catalogue is that they include comments from growers who have tried the seed and the comments are negative as well as positive. For example, after reading the growers comments you have a good idea that you need to wait to plant it until the soil is really warmed up--trying to rush the season will most likely end in failure or at least poor germination. This is a very helpful section for anyone interested, like me, in giving this sweet corn a try.
At Gurney's Catalogue
February 5, 2010
Aloe Vera is a plant that every home should have
The plant will be in a 3 1/2" pot and is about 8" tall. It's an easy plant to grow and has a long history. It flourishes in warm and dry climates, and many people mistake it for a cactus, but in fact it is a member of the Lily family. It stays moist where other plants would wilt and die, closing its pores to prevent the loss of moisture. It originated in Africa, today Aloe Vera is grown and harvested in many areas of the world. When the leaf is squeezed a soothing gel comes out which you can apply to rough, chapped or burned skin.
The History Ancient records show that the benefits of Aloe Vera have been known for centuries. Its therapeutic and healing properties have survived more than 5000 years. George Ebers first discovered its antiquity in 1862, in an Egyption papyrus dated 1500 BC. Greek and Roman physicians such as Dioscorides and Pliny the Elder used it to great effect as a medicinal herb. Researchers have also found the ancient Chinese and Indian cultures used Aloe Vera. Egyptian queens associated its use with their quest for physical beauty, while in the Philippines it is used with milk for kidney infections. . Nowadays, although chemical medicines are very effective in healing, long term use and complicated interactions with other drugs can cause terrible side effects for patients. Consequently more consumers and scientists are turning back to look at more traditional, and often natural, therapies which, for so long, have been neglected.
At 1 Aloe Vera - Medicine Plant -Burn Plant -Miracle Plant
February 4, 2010
Beautiful Weeping Cherry Tree blooms in early spring
The Dwarf Weeping Cherry is a gorgeous little tree which I would love to have in my front yard. It blooms in early spring and is adaptable to poor and compacted soils which makes me think it might survive near the new construction. It prefers moist, well drained soils of average fertility and does well in full sun. They claim it will grow about anywhere once started and will reach approximately10 feet at maturity with long weeping branches that will quickly grow to the ground. It is the most sought after tree in late winter or early spring when the pink flowers emerge. Fall color is a mixture of green, chartreuse, and yellow. The tree will be 2-3 feet tall when shipped. I'm going to give this tree a try.
At Beautiful Weeping Cherry Tree Live Plant
January 29, 2010
Burpee seed catalog brings the hope of spring
Burpee is one of the oldest and most venerable of seed companies. It made itself famous during WWII promoting victory gardens and in 1954 offered $10,000 for a white marigold. This is the company that developed the Big Boy Tomato and has continued to supply seeds and plants, both perennial and annual as well as garden supplies.
This year's catalog has a seed growing supplies and a tomato growing book as well. They have a raised bed 4' by 4' which can be doubled in size, and they claim any novice can set up it easily. There are all the flowers and vegies that any garderner needs and any homebound wishful thinker could spend hours enjoying and dreaming.
It's a great catalog, a classic, and one well worth perusing.
At Burpee seed catalog
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