Organic Living and Lifestyle Blog

Tips To Keep Your Organic Garden Healthy While You’re On Holidays

Some gardeners worry how their garden will survive while they are away on holidays. With a little organization and preparation, you can go on holidays without worrying about facing impending doom in your veggie patch when you get home.

1: Plan the timing of your holiday. Don’t decide to go lay on a beach somewhere when you know your gorgeous tomatoes will be turning ripe. You’ll miss out on your harvest and be so disappointed (well I would!). I find the best time to go – if I must go in summer – is mid-summer. My spring vegetables are finished and my summer vegetables aren’t ready yet.

2: Adjust the planting of your garden. If you know you’re going to be away later in summer, then plant everything later so that it matures later – when you’re back and refreshed. This works well for tomatoes, capsicums / peppers, beans etc.

3: Harvest before you leave. If you’re going to be gone a week or so, pick all your beans, even the ones that are too small to use. Beans stop producing when they are allowed to mature, so pick those that will mature while you’re gone. Do the same with eggplant. Tomatoes and peppers can generally either stay on the plant or fall onto the ground without harming the plants. Pick all the female flowers from your summer squash plants. It’s amazing how fast a zucchini can grow into the size of a house when you’re not looking.
Take any fresh veggies along with you, especially if you’re visiting friends or relatives. I’m sure they’ll love it.

4: Get on top of the weeds. Pull out any larger weeds. You don’t want to come home to find your garden taken over by triffids. And gardeners know that one season of weed seeds, means seven years of weeding!

5: Water deeply. Even if it has rained recently before you go away, you still should give your plants a healthy watering before you leave. Even better, is to have an irrigation system set up, with a timer – set and forget.

6: Apply mulch. Mulch thickly (15cm / 6inches) with moistened pea-straw or similar after a good watering. Add some compost under the mulch as an extra bonus for your plants. The mulch will conserve water and prevent weeds.

7: Enjoy your holiday. Now you can leave your garden knowing that it has already been well cared for.

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2 comments June 1st, 2008

Vegetables as Art - Organic Growers Show Off Their Gardens

Vegetables as art Beautiful cabbages, ruby and gold chard, deep green kale and red leaf lettuce are ready for picking in Jim Woodruff’s raised bed garden.

The Stavareks also periodically plant green manure crops such as clover that take fix nitrogen from the air into the soil through their roots and add organic matter when tilled in. Their raised beds, covered for winter with row cover over PVC hoops… Click to read more of the Stavareks’ organic gardening tips & see the picture that inspired “Vegetables as Art”.

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Technorati Tags: organic gardens, organic gardening, tips, beautiful cabbages, ruby chard, gold chard, deep green kale, red leaf lettuce, organic

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Add comment March 11th, 2008

How To Grow Organic Pumpkins - One Of The Top 10 Super-Foods

Pumpkin – provides fibre, contains potassium and carotenoids (the antioxidants found in orange, yellow, red and dark green vegetables).
It is wonderful as a cooked veggie, makes great soup and delicious pumpkin pie.

Pumpkins are so easy to grow that you most likely know the basics, but here’s a few tips for you anyway. Consider growing different varieties as there are many interesting pumpkins to choose from.

Pumpkins are warm-season vegetables that don’t like to be transplanted. The seeds are large, so are best sown directly in the position that they will occupy for the summer. They will need between three and four months of frost-free days to reach maturity.

Sow your pumpkins seeds in a well drained, fertile soil, in a sunny position, as you want them to grow quickly. They prefer a soil pH of around 6.0. Add organic matter to the soil before planting and follow up with a measure of organic fertilizer half way through the growth cycle.

Pumpkins do well planted three to five in small mounds. Push each seed into the soil about 2cm / 1inch deep. In a month or so, thin to the healthiest two or three plants per mound. Space your mounds about 1metre / 3feet to 1.5metres / 4.5feet apart. Or you could try growing them in rows, placing two seeds per hole about 1metre / 3feet between seeds.

Pumpkins don’t like sitting in wet soil so only water when necessary, but water deeply. Powdery mildew can be a problem for pumpkins, so watering from below is helpful in preventing this disease.

There are several pests that will attack pumpkins, so it is best to grow in a companion planting situation such as with corn, beans and radishes.

Keep weeds at bay by adding organic mulch to the soil surface around your pumpkins once the soil has warmed enough.

Male and female flowers appear on the same vine. The fruits develop from the base of the female flower, which soon withers and drops off. Most pumpkins take around 50 days to mature, so you’ll be harvesting in autumn (fall).

Wait until the vine starts to die off and the fruit has developed a rich colour. The stem right next to the pumpkin should be dry and hard before removing it from the vine. Make sure the stem remains attached to the pumpkin or it will not store for very long.
It is best to “cure” your harvest for between 7 and 10 days at around 25°C / 80°F, then store in a cool, dry place.

There are so many wonderful varieties to choose from, with such varying shapes and sizes. Remember to save the seeds of your most successful pumpkins so that you can grow even better ones next season.

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3 comments November 1st, 2007