Grow Like Crazy

What kinds of veggies will you be growing in your garden this year?

Most of us pick vegetables we like or that we know our families will eat, and that’s a wise choice. However, we don’t always put enough thought into what vegetables we should grow for our bodies and our nutritional health.

This year, pick a few vegetable plants to grow for nutritional health. Here are a few excellent choices of veggies that pack a nutritional punch:

1.  Asparagus

While asparagus takes a few years to establish before you can safely harvest it, it is well worth the wait. Asparagus is loaded with all sorts of wonderful vitamins, like vitamin A, C, E, and K. It is also a great source of manganese, copper, iron, and potassium.

2.  Broccoli

You can grow broccoli in late summer as cool temperatures are on the horizon. Broccoli is full of healthy sulforaphane – a nutrient that fights against cancer-causing agents. It is also packed with potassium, calcium, manganese, and all sorts of vitamin A, B, C, E, and K.

3.  Cabbage

Did you know that cabbage is an excellent source of vitamin C? It is! It is also filled with potassium, iron, phosphorus, and manganese.

4.  Carrots

They’re good for your eyes and so much more. Carrots are loaded with vitamin B6 and vitamin C. They are an excellent source of beta-carotene and potassium.

5.  Greens

Lettuce greens, kale, spinach, mustard greens – there are so many greens out there, so why not give a few a try? Delicious and packed with vitamins A and C, iron, and calcium, greens are welcome in any nutritional garden.

6.  Peppers

Bell peppers are tasty and they are filled with large amounts of vitamin C and K. Red peppers are high in vitamin A.  Plant an assortment and “eat the colors of the rainbow” for maximum health and nutrition.

7.  Tomatoes

Tomatoes are a gardener’s favorite for so many reasons. But they are also nutrient-dense. Packed with vitamins A, B6, C, E, and K these little red beauties are a good source of lycopene and potassium.

8.  Squash

Squash is loaded with calcium and magnesium as well as many vitamins like B2 and vitamin C. You can grow enough to feed an army too boot…so share the nutritional wealth with family and neighbors.

Use an all-natural fertilizer to boost your crop even further!

All-natural fertilizers, like ProtoGrow will help you get the maximum nutrition out of your vegetable plants this summer. ProtoGrow increases your plant’s mineral uptake and increases microorganisms in the soil, thus adding to the overall nutrition of your food.  Feeding your plants a natural fertlizer like ProtoGrow is a vital step in veggie growing you should not miss.

Before feeding with ProtoGrow:

After applying ProtoGrow, the all-natural 100% safe chemical-and-toxin-free fertilizer:

The plant has grown taller than my lattice now…and blooms are popping out which means we will have sugar snap peas to eat very, very soon! I’ve also noticed that my pea plants are a darker, healthier green in addition to the added growth. ProtoGrow is helping them reach their optimal potential.

As you can see, ProtoGrow really does work. My sugar snap peas are growing like crazy, and I couldn’t be happier about it! Stay tuned for more before & after ProtoGrow pictures.

Juicy. Robust. Mouthwatering. Just a few words that come to mind when I think about my homegrown heirloom tomatoes.

When I was a new gardener about twelve years ago, I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. “Tomatoes? Sure, I’ve eaten them before. Fresh from the grocery-store produce aisle. What’s the big deal?”

Well, after that first summer growing my own tomatoes I learned EXACTLY what the big deal was. Homegrown tomatoes were just better. They were fresher. They had a taste like no tomato I had tasted before. And they were more colorful, too.

Just one summer growing them and I was hooked, immediately. I’ve grown tomatoes each year since that first summer and I can promise you this – I will grow homegrown tomatoes every year of my life that I am able. If I can’t grow anything else in my garden, I will still grow tomatoes. There’s just something about them I don’t want to miss.

Now that I’ve become a little more experienced as a gardener, I only grow heirloom tomatoes. 

Heirlooms?

An heirloom tomato is a tomato variety that has been passed down through several generations. Heirloom tomatoes (and all heirloom seeds & plants) are valued like treasured antiques because they have superior characteristics gardeners don’t want to lose. In short, growing an heirloom tomato is like growing a little piece of the past – keeping all of the good traits that make homegrown tomatoes so much better than their commercial, grocery-store counterparts.

Why Heirlooms Matter

With the rise of commercial farming and agribusiness, we’ve lost many of our heirloom varieties, along with the many smaller family farms that supported growing heirlooms. Sadly, many heirloom varieties that had lasted for hundreds of years have been lost, forever. Those beautiful gems grown by our ancestors for centuries have been replaced with hybrids and lab-created varieties that have commercially attractive characteristics, but little flavor or nutrition.

At the same time, we’ve lost much of our farming and gardening culture. As heirlooms and small family farms have disappeared, only to be replaced by “big-box” stores we have slowly released the ownership of our food supply.  We’ve traded heritage for convenience, and put the responsibility of our food supply into the hands of someone else. However, when you choose to grow a few heirloom tomatoes or veggies of your own at home, you are slowly reversing the trend away from commercialism.

That’s why I only use heirloom seeds now. And I grow them the old-fashioned, organic, all-natural way to boot.

Growing heirloom tomatoes may seem silly to some people. But it makes me feel like a responsible steward of the earth. It makes me feel more in touch with my heritage and my past. And, nothing tastes better on a tomato sandwich than a juicy, fresh-from-the-garden homegrown tomato, any way you slice it.

Straw bale gardens are perfect for folks who don’t have a large area of land that is tillable or workable. It’s also great for wanna-be gardeners who have physical limitations that make bending and kneeling difficult.

To grow a straw bale garden, you need several bales of straw – depending on how big you want your little garden to be. Any kind of straw or hay will work, but do not use pine straw. Tightly baled straw bales work better, too. And if you can score bales with natural twine, all the better. The twine will rot as the bales rot, and synthetic twine does not rot. Synthetic twine will be okay, but you would prefer natural if possible.

Arrange your bales in rows or in an open square. Make sure you have room to walk around the bales to maintain your garden as you will still need to weed, water, and perform basic garden chores.  If you will need to mow between your bales, make sure they are spaced wide enough for your lawnmower to pass through without causing damage to your garden or plants. Also, make sure your bales have room to drain water away from the garden.

You may want to place newspaper or cardboard at the edges of your bales of hay to keep grass from growing into the bale.

Placing your bales outside before you begin the garden is a good idea. It gives them time to soften up before you add the plants. If you are in a hurry, a week to ten days should be enough time to prepare your bales for planting. To prepare your bales, water them daily to encourage them to soften and begin breaking down.

Transplant your veggie plants directly into the bales, using a trowel to help crack open a spot for each plant.  Place the plant down to the first leaf, and add potting mix around the the plant.

Here is a rule of thumb on the number of plants to grow per bale:

• 2-3 tomato plants
• 3-4 pepper plants
• 2 sets squash/zucchini
• 3-4 cucumber sets
• 3-4 okra plants

You will need to stake, support or trellis your tomato, pepper, and bean plants like you would if you grew them directly in the garden.  As your plants grow, you may see them push out of the bottoms of the bale. This is usually okay. Some straw bale gardeners like to give their gardens a “haircut” every few weeks to keep it looking nice. Just make sure you don’t cut a taproot, and you’ll be okay.

You will need to fertilize your straw bale garden with ProtoGrow when you transplant your plants and again every 4-6 weeks as needed.  Liquid natural fertilizer like ProtoGrow is great for a straw bale garden and will really help increase your harvests.

At the end of the season you can re-use the bales for mulch in your garden, and replace with new fresh bales for the next growing season.

Straw bale gardening is a great way to “ease” into food gardening and to take control of your family’s food supply. You can enjoy the benefits of gardening without the intensity of tilling and without the expense of building fancy raised beds. It is easy, fun, and inexpensive to try.

Growing roses at home can be tricky for some gardeners. And for others, they grow with ease. It’s really kind of funny and curious how that works.

My grandmother could literally grow any rose she wanted. She’d stick them in the ground, cross her fingers, say a prayer — and she would be blessed with roses every single time. That was it. She didn’t have to do anything special to care for them.

Me, on the other hand, while I am a “green thumb” and a seasoned gardener, have had less-than-the-best results with my roses. One bush just up and died and I have no idea why. Another rose bush got a powdery fungus and died after burning up in the sun and looking anything but beautiful. But on the other hand, three of my rose bushes have thrived without much intervention and are still doing great now, a few years since I planted them. And my “crowning glory” as a rose gardener has been my New Dawn rose that has not only thrived, but has grown like gangbusters – providing beautiful and copious amounts of roses with nothing more than a little bit of natural fertilizer. (Pictures to come later when they bloom in a few weeks.)

I don’t know what category you fall into, but there are some general tips for growing roses you might find helpful.

1.  Selecting the right site for your roses. Sun is a must. Roses need at least 4-5 hours of sun.

2. Don’t overcrowd your roses. Roses will grow beautifully alongside your bushes and other flowers and plants. However, they are a bit stingy about space. They don’t mind the company but they don’t like to be too crowded. Make sure you do not plant roses near invasive plants.

3.  Make a rose garden. Like we said above in #2, Roses are a bit picky about their neighbors. However, roses love to mingle with other roses. So, you can’t go wrong with a dedicated spot for growing all your roses together!

4.  FRESH soil is a must.  Roses don’t do well with old soil that other plants have been planted in. Make sure you give your new rose bush a healthy area of fresh soil to start growing in.

5. Container roses are a good starting point.  If you’re afraid of growing roses, start with a container variety (usually miniature roses) and grow them on your porch or patio.

6.  Soak your roses before planting.  Bare rooted plants should be soaked before planting. Potted roses should be watered thoroughly an allowed to sit before transplanting.

7.  Dig a good hole.  You need a nice deep hole for planting your roses.  Fifteen to eighteen inches deep is a general rule of thumb.  The hole should also be wide, and like we said in #4 above, fill it in with FRESH soil.

8.  Fertilize with ProtoGrow, a natural fertilizer.  After planting give your roses a feeding of ProtoGrow. Apply again as blooms appear, and repeat every 4-6 weeks during your growing cycle. You may want to apply one feeding during early fall and late winter.

9.  Water well. New roses need a good amount of water as they are establishing roots and beginning to grow in their new homes. Make sure you water them enough and keep them happy during the hot summer months. For this reason, transplanting roses during the hot heat is not recommended. You can transplant during early spring and before temps get too hot, but during the heat of the summer transplanting should be avoided.

Giant rose

I’ve been using ProtoGrow in my garden for the past three months. I’m excited to see how much my plants have responded to the all-natural fertilizer. When the summer food garden gets in full swing I’ll be sharing lots of before & after ProtoGrow photos, but I thought I’d give you a little tour of our yard and garden and show you what is going on now, with the help of this amazing natural fertilizer.

Here are my tomato, squash, zucchini and tomatillo plants all grown up and ready for transplant sometime this week or next. (We are a bit behind here due to the cool temps and days of rain.) They will get a good feeding of ProtoGrow as soon as they go in the garden.

Lemon Balm is coming up nicely. It really sprung up with a early-spring ProtoGrow application. I use lemon balm leaves in cooking, sweet iced tea, and for all sorts of things.

The potato bin is coming up nicely. I fed the bin an application of ProtoGrow when green shoots began to emerge forth from the soil.

My purple Japanese Irises. In addition to food gardening, I love flowers. These were my grandmother’s irises and I transplanted them here to my home after she passed away. The transplants are doing well, and I am sure ProtoGrow has helped them adjust and thrive in their new environment.

More iris transplants from my grandmother’s house. These are actually from her mother’s house, making them four generations old.

Dwarf Sugar Snaps coming up nicely…did you know you can eat the plants now before the pea pods form? Microgreens are all the rage in gardening and culinary circles. These sugar snaps will grow to full plants, but I will be growing some as microgreens very soon as well.

I have 25 strawberry plants. I see two red strawberries almost ready to pick, and a bajillion (or so it seems) green berries ready to pick before too long! I can’t wait to have homegrown strawberries. Time to give these babies another feeding of ProtoGrow.

Cute chicken photo. I couldn’t resist. I love my chickens almost as much as I love my plants. That’s why I love all-natural gardening products like ProtoGrow. I can let my chickens free range all over the yard and garden and never once have to worry about chemicals or toxins. It’s great.

The herb garden is a hodge-podge of buckets, bins, and even cinderblocks of herbs, carrots, lettuces, and so on. I don’t feed my herbs as often as I do my other plants, but a feeding this time of year will help boost production all spring and summer long.

We’ve got more lettuce than we can eat ourselves! It’s a wonderful problem to have. I give the lettuce ProtoGrow when they are a few inches high. Really boosts production of the leaves.

Can you see the 3-inch mark? We have had 3 inches of rain in just a few days. Which means it is time for me to get outside and enjoy today’s sunshine! Hope you enjoyed my little ProtoGrow tour. I’ll have more pictures soon…stay tuned!

I have been wanting to show off pictures of my front yard survival garden, alas the weather has not cooperated with me. This cute picture of a bunny hanging out in my backyard will have to suffice for now.

Here in North Carolina where I live, we have been having cooler temperatures along with buckets and buckets of rain for the past two or three weeks. Everyone here is a bit behind on getting their gardens in because of it. I for one, don’t like it one bit. I feel like I am behind…but in reality I know that I am not. Spring may be a bit “late” this year for me, but it is on the way, and come August when the temperatures are hot, hot, hot…I’ll be thankful for all this rain in the spring. So what if my tomatoes didn’t get in the ground May 1st? They will do just fine when I get them out this week or next. Besides, tomatoes won’t grow in the cool, rainy weather anyhow. They just sit in the ground waiting to rot.

I keep telling myself that good gardeners exercise patience. It’s a hard lesson to learn.

So, what can you do in the garden when the weather won’t cooperate?

Here are a few May Gardening Chores to keep you busy until the weather cooperates for MAY-HEM planting in the garden:

1. Build a new raised bed for the veggie garden. Or two, or three… Warning: Raised beds are addictive.

2. Clean-up around spring bulbs that have already peaked. Some varieties like daffodils, the foliage should be left to “die-back” so that the bulb is nourished for the next season. That doesn’t mean you can’t pull off the completely-dead and dried-up blooms.

3.  If you’ve already started seeds, begin to harden them off. Take the trays outside for longer periods of time so that the seedlings will adjust to the temperatures and weather before being transplanted directly into the garden.

4.  If you’re experiencing cooler spring temps, continue to sow carrot, radish, lettuce, cilantro, and other spring-loving seeds that will die off with the warmer weather.  Enjoy it while you can!

5.  You can usually direct-sow your beans at this time – just check and make sure your variety is okay to be directly sown in the ground.

6.  Make a plan for mulching your veggie garden this season. Purchase baled straw, collect grass clippings, and think about organic compost as mulch.  Now is a great time to start composting if you’ve never done so before.

7.  Buy your ProtoGrow now so you have it to use all season long. Natural fertilizer is your best fertilizer choice for your summer garden!

8.  Clean up your flower beds and plan what new annuals you will plant this year. Plan to give the new bed a feeding of ProtoGrow too.

9.  Make a plan to plant your summer bulbs, like cannas, dahlias, caladiums, and so on. They can go in the ground as soon as your final-frost date passes.

10.  Direct sow any flower seeds for mid-to-late summer blooms.

11.  Pot a pretty container for your patio or porch. Buy a fern or two to spruce things up in your “outdoor living” areas.

12.  As you begin to mow your yard, don’t bag or rake your clippings. Let them lie on the ground to help return nutrients like nitrogen to your soil.  Save some grass clippings for mulching your flowers and veggies. (Make sure your grass is NOT treated with any chemicals before you do this!)

13.  Begin taking houseplants outdoors on warmer days. Many houseplants can and should spend the warm summer days outside. Best to transition them slowly so that they do not suffer from shock.

Tomatoes top the list of favorite veggies for most gardeners. In fact, tomatoes are the reason many people take the plunge into gardening at all. They’re relatively easy to grow and do well in containers, so even suburban patio gardeners love them.

If you follow a few simple growing tips this season, you can have the most flavorful and juicy tomatoes ever.

1. Location, Location, Location

Tomatoes do best in full sun. They need at least 6 hours of direct sunlight for optimal results. If your garden gets partial shade, make sure your tomatoes get enough hours baking in the sun.

2.  Choose Heirlooms

Choose heirloom varieties of tomatoes. While genetically modified seeds might say they are resistant to certain diseases, or mix the best traits of different varieties, they are still genetically modified. They are not the “God-given” plants our ancestors planted and consumed. Stick with heirloom for long-term food security and food safety. Plus, with heirlooms you can save your seed from one season to the next, unlike GMO seeds which are typically modified to only last one season.

3. It’s All About Timing

Often we plant our tomatoes too soon. We just can’t wait to get them in the ground so we can enjoy the harvest a little sooner. Truth is, planting too early often means the soil is too cool and that can only lead to problems. Best case scenario: the plants sit in cool soil and wait for warmer weather.  Typical scenario: Plants are exposed to adverse soil & weather conditions and can actually rot or damage the root system, leading to less-than-abundant harvests. Planting too soon can also lead to nutrient deficiency in your tomatoes. In short: BE PATIENT. Check your local recommended planting date and try your best to hold off.

4. Mulch & Water With Care

Use grass clippings (not chemically treated grass), straw, or compost to mulch your tomato plants an inch or two deep.  This helps keep water in and disease spores out. Also, when watering your tomatoes, try and water your roots directly as much as possible to keep your plant as healthy. The mulch will help keep the water from evaporating.

5. Fertilize at the Right Time

Fertilizing too soon will promote leaf growth, not fruit (tomatoes). Wait until your plants are mature enough and nearing their bloom cycle to feed them a natural fertilizer like ProtoGrow. If you’d like, you can fertilize with an initial feeding when you plant, since ProtoGrow is all-natural and chemical free, but you will want to repeat the feeding when signs of blooming appear. Repeat every 4 weeks during the growing season.

6.  Support Your Plants

Tomato stakes or cages will keep your tomato plants from falling to the ground, where moisture can destroy them. Supporting your plants keeps them healthy and disease-free, and makes harvesting the tomatoes much easier.

7. Prune Your Plants

Prune weak or immature stems (often called “suckers”) that are not producing fruit once the plant begins to bloom.  This will help with overall air circulation and will help make sure the plant socks away its nutrients towards the producing stems. Also prune off any stems that look like they might be rotting or succumbing to disease.  Keep an eye on diseased plants – you may need to remove them from the garden immediately, depending on the disease.

Fresh parsley…

It’s a versatile herb that is a culinary delight. It’s a favorite on potatoes, in pasta dishes, and is used in all sorts of meat, egg and vegetable dishes. Chefs adore parsley for homemade herbal butters and use it frequently in fresh salads for a burst of flavor that can’t be matched.

Lucky for you and I, we can grow our own parsley at home cheaply and with ease.

GROWING BASICS

Parsley has beautiful green foliage and because of it’s lush look, it can be planted alongside your annuals and perennials for both color and purpose. It grows well in the ground and in window boxes or containers. You can plant parsley as an edible edging to any garden bed or landscaped area.

Today is May 1st…traditionally known as May Day.

That means spring is officially here and summer is just out there on the horizon. (Apologies to those of you in the USA who are currently still getting snow showers!) When the calendar flips to May, to me that means it is really time to start digging in the garden. Sure, I’ve been working out there for weeks getting things ready, starting seeds, clearing out beds, and so on. But on May 1, it means it’s time for some serious gardening to begin.

One of my favorite May gardening chores is to plant some lovely flowers and annuals in my garden. No yard would be complete without a few lovely flowers to admire as you work in the vegetable patch or mow the lawn.

Marigolds are a tried-and-true flower in the garden.  No annual is easier to grow than marigolds. They are healthy, sturdy and attractive flowers. They grow easily, even in unpleasant conditions or surroundings. Marigolds are not demanding flowers, in fact they require very little aside from sun and water. They can even tolerate fair to poor soil quite well.

Marigolds offer gorgeous “pops” of color in the garden – hues of gold, red, orange, and even brass make them rather majestic to the landscape.  Best of all, they bloom brightly all summer long and will keep blooming until the first fall frost with adequate care.

Marigolds have typically have daisy or carnation-shaped flowers.  Some grow in single bunches and others grow in clusters. It really depends on the variety and growing conditions.  Some marigolds are tall and others are small. There are even dainty varieties that are edible.

All marigolds do well in containers – and are a favorite with patio gardeners.

Marigolds have been given a somewhat bad reputation for their smell. Some people find it pungent but I find it to be a fantastic aroma. It is said that the natural scent of a marigold will keep pests like deer and rabbits eating out of your garden. Some gardeners have found this to be true, while others say it doesn’t work. Your mileage may vary.

Marigolds are great for natural pest control. They will deter beetles, aphids, squash bugs, tomato hornworms and several other pests in the vegetable garden.  They are also known to repel nematodes (microscopic worms in the soil). The root of the marigold produces a chemical that will actually kill the nematodes. Farmers and gardeners love to plant them near their veggies and edible plants for this very purpose.

Giving your marigolds a single feeding of natural fertilizer like ProtoGrow will keep them happy and healthy all spring and summer long. You may want to repeat ProtoGrow feedings every 6 weeks depending on heat, draught, and soil conditions in your area for a mid-season “grow like crazy” boost.