Herbs in your Garden

Herbs can really add to the beauty of your garden as well as flavor to your kitchen and a boost to your health.  Chives and Sage are featured in this video but also consider thyme, rosemary, dill, basil,coriander,and lavender. Click here for a delicious recipe for Parmesan sage pork chops. Some health benefits from herbs are: Lavender can be used as an antihistamine, sleep aid and scratch and burn ointment. Eucalyptus can aid breathing problems and asthma.  Peppermint is effective  for headaches, focus and sinus congestion.  

 

Storing and Organizing your Seeds

Those seed packets can really pile up and here's one way to organize them for easy use. I always check the date on the packet and use the oldest ones first. Keep your seeds in an airtight container in your frig or freezer. Remember this simple rule:  in order to grow, seeds need light, moisture and air... so do the opposite to store them...dark,dry and airtight.

How to Distinguish Weeds from Vegetable Seedlings

Growing vegetables in a Square Foot Garden has many advantages. One of them is almost zero weeding.  This is because we use a clean soil mix (Mel's Mix). When a weed does happen to show up probably blown in by wind, it is very easy to recognize. The soil is so loose the weed and all the roots will come out. 

 

A Small Covering for Seedlings

Someone tipped me off on this handy product she found at Big Lots. Its a small collapsible tent designed to cover your picnic food dishes from insects. They cost about $2 each.  I had a feeling these could come in handy so I went and bought some.  Sure enough, the size was almost an exact fit over a 12" square in my garden.  My tender seedlings had been disappearing and I couldn't figure out why.  I gently poked around the base of the plant to look for cut worms which had appeared in my garden in past seasons but saw no sign of any.  They do their damage at night and sleep in the day right around the plant base so they are easy to find and dispose of.  My cherry tree has been attracting the birds of late and I had a suspicion that they may be eating my seedlings.  I placed my new found protectors over the seedlings that seemed to be the most tempting to the birds; cucumbers,squash,beans,peppers and melons.   Now the seedlings have gotten large enough to hold their own and not be completely gobbled up!