How to Grow Radishes
By thomas | July 2, 2009
Photo by foodistablog.
Radish is also known as Raphanus sativus in Latin and is a member of the Cruciferous family. It’s an easy crop to grow making it ideal for kids starting their first garden.
Soil
Radishes will grow in average soil that has been worked down to 15 cm (6 inch) with any stones removed. Fresh compost should be avoided.
Sowing
The seeds should be sowed 1.5 cm (0.5 inch) deep and 2.5 to 5 cm (1 to 2 inch) apart. Rows should be 20 to 25 cm (8 to 10 inch) apart.
Growing
Radish seeds will germinate in a few days. When the seedlings are 5 cm (2 inch) tall thin them to 5 cm spacing. Remove weeds as the radishes grow. They are likely to bolt in hot weather and won’t bulb above 28 deg. C (82 deg. F). If they grow too slow the taste will be bitter and hot.
Harvest
It takes 20 to 30 days before the radishes are starting to mature. Summer varieties takes about 3 to 8 weeks to mature, but winter varieties requires 3 to 5 months.
Storage
Radishes don’t freeze well, so keep them in the refrigerator. Remove the tops before putting them in the fridge to keep the moisture and nutrients in the roots. They can be stored for about 5 days in the fridge.
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Garden Layout
By thomas | July 1, 2009
Okay, I’ll admit that it looks nice with the sharp edge between the raised beds and the lawn. It’s soft on the knees when you sow or weed, but I’m beginning to realize that there are some rather annoying disadvantages by alternating between lawn and beds like this.
First, this is what always happens near the edges of the raised bed, when the grass has been allowed to grow for some days. Water meant for the soil spills over onto the lawn part and the grass at the edges thrives big time. So go fetch a grass trimmer or a pair of scissors, because the lawnmower won’t go that close to the edge.
If there’s no wood and raised bed you’re doomed. It takes a lot of energy to keep the grass out of the soil meant for vegetables:
And these bastards (slugs) are having a great time hiding in the moist grass waiting to attack your vegetables at night:
Then there’s the water issue; as much as half of the water lands on grass making it grow like crazy, extracting nutrients from the soil. So that’s why I’m planning on starting from scratch with a part of my lawn / vegetable garden and buying a truckload of concrete slabs to lay out like this:
Yellow = house, grey = concrete slabs, brown = vegetable soil, green = hedge.
Several advantages comes to mind:
- Easier to fight the killer slugs, and they don’t like dry concrete
- The lawnmower goes on eBay
- The grass trimmer goes on eBay
- Only vegetables are provided with water
- Much easier to walk on the paths in all kinds of weather
Each concrete slab will be 50 x 50 cm (20 x 20 inch), making each bed 1 m (3.3 feet) across and making it easy to reach the middle.
Now make sure you follow up on this because this is going to be hard work and I might get lazy 
But this would be so good for the food production.
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Podcast 1: About Potatoes
By thomas | June 16, 2009
Here’s my first podcast and it’s all about potatoes:
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How to Use Self Watering Tomato Boxes
By thomas | June 1, 2009
The type of boxes I use are meant to be used together with a grow bag. Grow bags are available in local supermarkets around here. If you are serious about growing organic produce only you should consider the contents of the bag carefully.
Leave the box dry for now:
The self watering boxes have tubes going all the way to the bottom of the box:
A plastic bag can be put into the box to avoid a mess if the box is somehow damaged:
The grow bags have usually been stacked and if you get a bag that has been stored in the bottom of the stack, the soil inside can be quite compact:
Shake the bag thoroughly and loosen the soil, so the roots can develop easily:
Cut three holes in the top with a knife:
Dig out the soil in each of the 3 holes with a small spade and put the soil into a bucket:
Cut three big X’s in the backside of the growing bag:
Fill the three tubes with the soil from your bucket. Only fill the tubes so there’ll be room left to plant the tomato plants. Plant the tomato plants using the remaining soil:
Water a bit on top of each hole. Fill the box with tap water to provide enough calcium for the tomato plants.
Let the water level drop to minimum level regularly to avoid drowning the plants.
The boxes can of course be used for other crops, like cucumbers, bell peppers etc. Take a vacation and let your imagination run wild. Your tomatoes will be safe until you come back
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Chitting Potatoes Experiment
By thomas | May 26, 2009
I did a small experiment with my potatoes this year as I wanted to know more about chitting. I left several potatoes in an egg tray in the kitchen and as expected they put out several shoots each after a couple of weeks. Generally I find 1 cm (half inch) shoots to be the easiest to handle:
On half of them I removed all the shoots except one, and put those in one half of my “raised bed” (the soil was apparently very loose when I prepared the bed and later it sunk under its own weight. Guess I have to throw in more compost to justify the name ). In the other half of the bed I put the rest of the chitted potatoes, which had several shoots each:
It turns out that the difference is not that big. Sure the ones with several shoots immediately puts up several stems (lower half of the picture), but the other half with only shoot is not limited to having only one stem. So both kinds are growing at the same speed and are equally robust:
(Notice my experiment with a soaker hose; it’s not working that well in my particular set up )
These are the ones that had single shoots:
And these had several shoots before planting:
As time goes by it’s getting even more difficult to distinguish between the two. It will be interesting to see the difference in yield when time comes to harvest.
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How to Make a Simple Slug Trap
By thomas | May 25, 2009
This is my newest weapon against killer slugs: A small pie tin with a slight modification:
Cut an entrance hole for the slugs:
Fold the top of the entrance hole a bit to avoid sharp edges:
Turn the tin upside down, put some slug “poison” under it, and secure it by leaving some weight on top. It will keep the rain from reaching the pellets, so they’ll stay dry:
I’ve set up one trap at both ends of each bed that I have.
And as usual the cat just wanted to point out that I shouldn’t be exercising too much control over nature, so it flipped one of the traps open during the night and played with the pellets. It must be really boring around here during the nighttime
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HappyFarming.com 1 - Peach Leaf Curl 0
By thomas | May 24, 2009
Okay, maybe it’s not essential or life threatening if you can’t grow peaches in Scandinavia, but boy do freshly picked peaches taste good. And it seems like my little peach tree have survived with all its leaves still on the tree. Earlier I’ve had problems with peach leaf curl but I put up a plastic shield to protect the tree against the rain:
There was certainly a greenhouse effect due to the shield and the tree is now full of small fruits in development:
Some of the leaves that were close to the plastic on the inside of the plastic cover look like they are affected a bit still but overall it seems like I have fended off the peach leaf curl:
Time will tell if the fruits will mature properly. I sure hope so. I took care of the pollination by hand with a small piece of cotton wool at the end of a bamboo stick:
Oh, and I found this little fellow sleeping behind the plastic at the foot of the tree:
Maybe it’s not warm enough for cockchafers yet…
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How To Keep Cats From Ruining Your Garden
By thomas | May 23, 2009
That cat is driving me insane. It’s just too helpful sometimes when I’m out working in the garden. But I can’t blame it, it is just behaving naturally like a cat, playing, being curious, expressing its love. Can’t help wondering what people with dogs do, as dogs will dig just for the fun of it. Well the cat has started doing that and it’s very annoying when you have been crawling on your knees for hours sowing and the next day you wake up to a true mess. I can’t even imagine how it manages to find so many beans in the ground.
This is not a normal cat I have to say. Some weeks ago it joined me in the shower. But normally cats hate water. And I think this is the solution to the problem with the seeds:
Remember to water your patches of soil where seeds have been sowed.
There’s a difference between dry and wet soil. Mud is just not that attractive from a cats perspective. Especially if everything else in the garden is dry. I’ll try this principle some more but so far it looks like it’s working.
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My Bumblebee Nest Box Trial
By thomas | May 22, 2009
It was supposed to be easy. Build a wooden box, put it up in the garden, and the bumble bees will move in to pollinate your plants on a daily basis. Well they haven’t arrived yet. I’m still crossing my fingers though. Or maybe I came too close with lawnmower.
I made the mistake of using raw untreated wood with no protection from the rain, so the nest box has been deformed in the bottom, which is not good.
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Top 50 Food Growing People
By thomas | May 17, 2009
This is my highly subjective list of people who I think have contributed the most to the “grow your own food” community. If you know of someone I’ve missed please leave a comment below the list:
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Jules Dervaes
* Founded the “Dervaes Institute” in 2006 * Creator of the public urban homestead model “Path to Freedom” |
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D. G. Hessayon
* Wrote gardening manuals “Expert Guides” (50 million printed) * Guinness World Record for “bestselling non-fiction author of the 1990s” * Awarded the Royal Horticultural Society’s “The Veitch Memorial Medal” |
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John Jeavons
* Developed the “Grow Biointensive” method * Wrote “How to Grow More Vegetables” (500.000 copies) |
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Eliot Coleman
* Wrote “The New Organic Grower” (1989) * Co-owner of “The Four Seasons Farm” * Executive Director of the “International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM)” |
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Alan Titchmarsh
* Awarded the Royal Horticultural Society’s “Victoria Medal Of Honour” in 2004 (RHS in UK) * Runs his own charity: “Garden for schools” and “Seeds for Africa” * Host of TV program “Gardeners’ World” in UK |
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Kent Whealy
* Co-founder of “Seed Savers Exchange” * Received “The Genius Award” |
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Amy P. Goldman
* Wrote “Melons for the Passionate Grower” (2002) (American Horticultural Society 2003 Annual Book Award) * Wrote “The Heirloom Tomato” (2008) * Wrote “The Compleat Squash” (2004) (American Horticultural Society Book Award) |
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Barbara Damrosch
* Co-owner of “The Four Seasons Farm” * Wrote “The Garden Primer” * Co-hosted the TV-series “Gardening Naturally” |
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Jeff Lowenfels
* The world’s longest running garden columnist (32 years) * Wrote “Teaming with Microbes” * Founder of “Plant a Row for The Hungry” |
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Maria Thun
* Publishes an annual biodynamic gardening calender in 18 languages * Wrote “Gardening for Life” (2000) |
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Mel Bartholomew
* Wrote “Square Foot Gardening” (1981) * Created the “Square Foot Gardening Foundation” |
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Michael Pollan
* Wrote “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” (2006) * Wrote “Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education” (1991) |
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Carol Klein
* Own plant nursery, “Glebe Cottage Plants” * TV show “Grow Your Own Veg” * In the TV show, “Gardeners’ World” |
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Carol Cox
* Ecology Action’s Garden Research Manager * Co-author of “The Sustainable Vegetable Garden” |
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Toby Hemenway
* Wrote “Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture” * Associate editor of “Permaculture Activist” from 1999 to 2004 |
| |
Barbara L. Bowling
* Wrote “Berry Grower’s Companion” (2005) * Was chairperson of the “American Society for Horticultural Sciences’ Viticulture and Small Fruit Working Group” |
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Joy Larkcom
* Wrote “Grow Your Own Vegetables” (2002) * Was in 1993 awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal for her services to horticulture by the RHS, and was also Garden Writer of the Year in 1993 |
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Charles Dowding
* Wrote “Organic Gardening: The Natural No-Dig Way” (2007) * Created a market garden in rural Zambia * Gave lectures to the RHS in Tokyo |
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Eric Toensmeier
* Wrote “Perennial Vegetables” * Co-author with Dave Jacke of the two-volume permaculture design manual “Edible Forest Gardens” * Manages the Tierra de Oportunidades new farmer program of Nuestras Raices |
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Shane Smith
* Wrote “Greenhouse Gardener’s Companion” * Director and a founder, in 1977, of the Cheyenne Botanic Garden, Wyoming’s only public botanic garden |
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Stella Otto
* Wrote “The Backyard Orchardist” (1995) * Benjamin Franklin Award winner (1994) * Fruit farm owner |
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Fern Marshall Bradley
* Author of Rodale’s Vegetable Garden Problem Solver (2007) * Co-author of “Vegetable Gardening” (2006) * Managing an organic market garden in western New Jersey |
| |
Mike
* Blogs about a 2 acres market garden * His blog has 1400 daily readers * 1300 links back to his blog from other websites |
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Rose Marie Nichols McGee
* Co-author of “McGee & Stuckey’s Bountiful Container” * Blogs about gardening and food (100 links back to her blog) * Rose Marie is President of Nichols Garden Nursery |
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Joe Swift
* Wrote “Joe’s Allotment” (2009) * Wrote “Joes Urban Garden Handbook” * Host on BBC’s “Gardeners’ World” |
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Steve Solomon
* Wrote “Gardening When It Counts” (2006) * Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades (2006) * Wrote and self-published “Growing Vegetables South of Australia” (2002) http://www.soilandhealth.org/05steve%27sfolder/05aboutmeindex.html |
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Gayla Trail
* Wrote “You Grow Girl: The Ground Breaking Guide to Gardening” (2005) * Blogs about gardening * 2200 links back to her blog from other websites |
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Marjorie Harris
* Wrote “Seasons of My Garden” (1999) * Wrote “The Healing Garden” (1996) * Wrote “In the Garden: Thoughts on the Changing Seasons” (1995) |
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Jerry Baker
* Wrote several books on gardening * Host on gardening TV and radio shows |
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Liz Primeau
* Wrote “Front Yard Gardens: Growing More Than Grass” (2003) * Founding editor of Canadian Gardening magazine * Former host of Canadian Gardening Television on HGTV |
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Steve Ott
* Wrote “Homegrown Vegetable Manual” (2009) * Co-author of “The A-Z Guide to Growing and Cooking Farm-fresh Food” (2008) * Editor of Kitchen Garden magazine |
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Sarah Raven
* Wrote “The Great Vegetable Plot” * Guest presenter on BBC’s “Gardeners World” |
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Alys Fowler
* Wrote “The Thrifty Gardener” (2008) * Horticultural researcher on “Gardeners’ World” on BBC in the UK |
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Suzanne Peabody Ashworth
* Wrote “Seed to Seed” (2002) * Owner of “Del Rio Botanical” |
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Stu Campbell
* Wrote “Let it Rot: The Gardener’s Guide to Composting” (2003) * Wrote “Mulch it!” * Wrote “Improving Your Soil” |
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Anais Dervaes
* Blogs about urban homesteading in California * 1900 links back to her blog from other websites |
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Andy McKee
* Wrote “The Polytunnel Handbook” (2009) * 500 links to his blog from other websites |
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Carleen Madigan
* Wrote “The Backyard Homestead” (2009) |
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Carole B. Turner
* Wrote “Seed Sowing and Saving” (1998) |
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Dick Raymond
* Wrote “Joy of Gardening” * Head vegetable gardening specialist at Garden Way Gardens |
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Edward C. Smith
* Wrote “The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible” * Wrote “Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers” |
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Kenneth E. Point
* Internship on a forty acre organic farm (1985 - 1994) * Blogs about gardening (2005 - 2009) * 800 links to his blog from other websites |
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Tonopah Rob
* Owner of 2,800 square meters farm in Tonopah, Arizona * Sold more than 550 kg produce in one weekend at Tonopah Rob’s Vegetable Farm stand |
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Gillian Carson
* Blogs about gardening * 1000 daily readers * 800 links to her blog from other websites |
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Sally Jean Cunningham
* Wrote “Great Garden Companions” (2000) * Has a TV and radio show on gardening |
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R. J. Ruppenthal
* Wrote “Fresh Food from Small Spaces” (2008) |
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Emma Rawlings
* Co-author of “The A-Z Guide to Growing and Cooking Farm-fresh Food” (2008) |
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Jeff A. Hartenfeld
* Co-author of “The Farmers’ Market Book” (2007) |
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Cavagnarok David
* Co-author on “The Complete Vegetable & Herb Gardener : A Guide to Growing Your Garden Organically” (1997) |
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Sharon L. Lovejoy
* Wrote “Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children” (1999) * Serves on the National Children and Youth Garden Advisory Panel of the American Horticultural Society |
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