Garden resolutions for 2014

Tags

Beehive, compost, garden, gardening, Home and Garden, home grown, New Year, organic

• Start a compost bin
• Install a rain garden
• Plant more Natives
• Build an edible garden
• Use Natural Pest solutions
• Be more water wise
• Encourage wild life into the garden
• Acquire new bee hives
• Start seed saving
• Up-cycle more
• Relax and enjoy the garden

What are your resolutions?

Giant Winter Leek

May the year 2014 greet you with days as fragrant as roses, as colorful as rainbow, as bright as sunshine and as happy and cheerful as a lark.

 

Don’t throw that eggshell away

Tags

calcium, compost, Egg carton, Egg white, Eggshell, eggshells, Mortar and pestle, Potting soil

The next time you use an egg, don’t toss your shells. Eggshells have nearly as many uses as the eggs themselves. Here’s how to get the most from them.

Put them on your face
To restore a youthful glow to your skin, pulverize clean, dried eggshells with a mortar and pestle. Mix the powder with some egg white and spread on your skin. Allow the mixture to dry before washing it off.

Clean your house with them
Ground eggshells make a wonderful (and nontoxic!) abrasive for those tough-to-clean pots, pans, and thermoses. Mix them with a little soapy water for a powerful clean.

Unclog your drains
Keep a few ground eggshells in your kitchen sink strainer. They trap additional solids and when they slowly break down, they will help to naturally clean your pipes on their way out.

Fertilize your garden
Eggshells are rich in calcium and other minerals that help your garden thrive. Crush eggshells into tiny pieces and use them as compost.

Clear up your skin
Drop an eggshell into a small container of apple cider vinegar and let it soak for a couple of days. Dab the mixture on minor skin irritations or on itchy skin.

Start some seedlings
Fill an egg carton with empty, rinsed eggshell halves and poke a hole in each one for drainage. Then add potting soil and one or two seeds to each shell. When the seedlings are big enough for transplanting outside, just crack the shell at the bottom and plant them, shell and all. It’s biodegradable!

Fortify your pet
Dry eggshells in a 250-degree over for 30 minutes. Then put them in a plastic zipper bag, seal it, and crush the shells with a rolling pin until they are a fine powder. Put this into your dog’s food as a great calcium supplement to help its bones and teeth.

Scare away slugs
Crush eggshells and scatter them around your vegetables and flowers to fend off hungry herbivores, such as slugs, snails, and cutworms without using toxic pesticides. The smell of eggs will also deter deer.

Sweeten your coffee
Add some crushed eggshells to ground coffee before brewing it to make it taste less bitter. When you’re done, toss the grounds and shells on your compost heap!

Source :

15 surprising uses for eggshells

 

Related articles

• Eggshell Flowerpots (prescottnannies.wordpress.com)

Milk and Mildew

Tags

Agriculture, compost, gardening, green tips, Horticulture, milk, Okra, organic, Pests and Diseases, plant, Powdery mildew, Vegetable, vegetable plant

Powdery mildew resembles a light dusting of flour on top of the leaves of the vegetable plant, it is actually caused by a fungus that is airborne. It can occur on just about any vegetable, even some fruits such as sage, tomatoes, beans, watermelons, honeydew, pumpkins and marrows

 

Mildew on Sage

 
What to do?

 

Normal milk will actually control powdery mildew and contains a natural foliar fertilizer, boosting the plant’s immune system in the process. A mixture of at least 10% milk mixed with 90% water will significantly reduce the severity of powdery mildew when sprayed weekly on the infected plant.

 

Powdery mildew, a Biotrophic Fungus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Start an Elemental Organic Veggie garden – Workshop in Stanford

Tags

companion planting, compost, garden, Kitchen garden, Local Food Heroes, plant, soil preparation, Vegetable, vegetable garden, workshop

I have been asked by “Your Local Food Heroes”  to present a  vegetable and herb workshop  in Stanford on 16  November.

The workshop will be intensely practical and fun, teaching you how to start and grow your own vegetable garden covering soil preparation, composting, planning your garden, companion planting, seeds and seedlings.

Photo courtesy of Cath Croxton

Booking is essential as space is limited. Cath Croxton from Your Local Food Heroes can be emailed at croxton@gmail.com for details and bookings

Come along and learn how to put fresh, pesticide free food on your table all year round.

 

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• Install a vegetable garden (grassconsumeraction.wordpress.com)

Beer brewing and plants

Tags

Ale, Ancient Egypt, barley, Beer, compost, Eden Project, garden, home grown, hops, Humulus, Lager, Mesopotamia, Microbrewery, plants, St Austell Brewery

Ale is one of the oldest beverages humans have produced, dating back to at least the 5th millennium BC and recorded in the written history of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia

When next taking a sip of a pint, spare a thought for the plants that made it possible, Barley and Hops

Hops ready for harvesting

Hops fields

Hops (Humulus luplus)

• Hops can be grown in different ways: on hop hills (on 10-foot tall posts in a mound of compost) up sisal strings suspended from wires attached to chestnut posts trained by ‘butchers’ and ‘umbrella’ and ‘Worcester’ methods. Hop workers used to wear stilts to sort the wires out.
• Hops are susceptible to several pests and diseases and often require spraying.

Did you know that Louis Pasteur worked out that yeast was the magic ingredient in beer. Before this fermentation was regarded as Witchcraft or an act of God

Yeast fermenting in a vat at St Austell‘s brewery

St Austell Brewery

St Austell Brewery has a relationship with the Eden Project. The solid residue from the mash is given to Eden for composting, thus recycling the end product.

The Old Copper Kettle for brewing

Brewing was started by Walter Hicks in 1851 at At Austell Brewery.

Beer brewing journals

Varieties of beer produced

St Austel Brewery

Beer kegs waiting to be delivered

Delivery Van

The Hicks Bar

CHEERS!

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• Hops planted at London landmarks for new new city ale (dailymail.co.uk)
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The Lost Gardens – Woodland Stroll

Tags

comfrey, compost, environment, garden, nature, organic, Organic horticulture, plant, plants, Soil, tamworth pigs, The Lost gardens of Heligan

Hydrangea growing wild and very large. 

a deer?

The lands over the hill

Comphrey growing on the compost heap. Comphrey is an important herb in organic gardening. It is used as a fertilizer and as an herbal medicine.

A breeding box for the Woodpeckers .

Ancient Oaks covered in moss.

Blackberries, wonderful to forage. Full of wonderful tasty fruit.

Tamworth pigs foraging on the Blackberries.

Himself, looking at the height of the Hydrangeas.

Plants on steroids?

Tags

animals, compost, coriander, earthworms, food, garden, green tips, herbs, Home and Garden, home grown, key hole, organic, Vermicompost, winter savory, worm, worm castings, worm farm, worm garden

The lush Coriander in the container with a Mini worm farm installation.

The  mint after being fed with worm castings

The Winter Savory fed with worm castings.

 

Related articles :

Coriander Key hole worm garden

Keyhole Gardens

A new twist to a key hole/circle garden – mini worm farm

Winter Savory- the forgotten Herb

 

A Jacuzzi full of worms

Tags

Agriculture, animals, Cape Porcupine, compost, gardening, green tips, Jacuzzi, Red Wrigglers, Vermi-T, Vermicompost, worm

Two years ago my neighbour gave me her Jacuzzi.  Which  was placed in a nice shaded area to one side of my garden and turned into a worm farm.

The worm farm is covered over with black builder’s plastic. The plank is placed across it to deter the Cape Porcupine from raiding the farm.

A very tasty meal for the worms. People in the neighborhood bring their kitchen waste to re-cycle in the worm farm.

The worms are thriving and multiplying rapidly.

Bucket full of Vermi-T waiting to be harvested.

Related articles :

Worm farms/bins,earthworms

Order Worm compost and Vermi- T

 

July workshop garden – ZTL garden (Zero to landfill)

Tags

compost, food, Food waste, garden, gardening, Green waste, home grown, Landfill, organic, Waste management, workshops, ZTL garden

Meet our participants Tristan and Robyn.

The morning was perfect for gardening, nice and cool and some good hard gardening to warm us up.

This month we have planted a garden using a new compost product from a company called

ZTL Organics (Zero to Landfill).

Zero to Landfill was started in 2008 with a focus on recycling organic waste, in particular food waste, from hotels, restaurants and businesses in Cape Town

Zero to Landfill Organics food and garden waste compost is unique in that it contains high levels of nutrients which are broken down and stabilised during the composting process. Egg shells, seafood shells and bones supply high levels of Calcium, meat and fruit waste provides high levels of Nitrogen and Potassium, Coffee grounds are rich in Nitrogen and leaves and garden waste provide the carbon. Using food waste as an ingredient in our compost also saves water. The high moisture content of food waste makes it possible to compost dry material without using thousands of litres of precious water. Soil is mixed in to our compost to help to stabilise the nutrients and to make a rich potting mix that can be used in new beds and as a lawn dressing.

No need to add bone meal here! The chicken bone is evident there is enough Calcium in the mix.

Tristan getting stuck in with Robyn at his side.

We await to see how the garden will develop!

Workshop dates/booking

Learning to grow your own workshop 2 March

Tags

carrots, compost, eggplant, food, growing from food scraps, horseradish, lettuce, marjoram, nature, oregano, pineapple, planting, plants, preparing soil, propagation, rocket, rosemary, spinach, wild garlic, winter savory, workshops, worm castings, worm compost

We had a fabulous workshop yesterday. Jo and Janine arrived full of energy and enthusiasm.

We started by assessing the site in which we were going to garden.

We proceeded to improve the soil with compost made from straw, cow manure and mushroom compost.

We then planted some 2 liter bottles with small holes in the bottle to make sure we have water going down to the roots.

We then look around for plants we could propagate to plant . Rosemary,  wild garlic ( our companion plant), horseradish, winter savory, oregano and marjoram were chosen.

The worm farm was harvested for worm compost. Oh my word the girls just fell in love with the worms.

We then planted using the worm compost.

Seeds that were chosen to sow were : carrots, spinach, eggplant and lettuce. the carrots were sown directly into the ground, the others were planted up in seed trays which Jo has taken home to nurture until they are ready to be planted out.

Our piece of resistance for the day was planting a pineapple from food scraps.

We finished the bed by mulching with leaves and compost again and a thorough watering.

We all left thoroughly dirty and tired but thoroughly satisfied.

Book now for the next workshop in April

https://aristonorganic.wordpress.com/workshops-for-2013/

email aristonorganic@gmail.com