Happy Farming . com

Photo by tanakawho.

It’s February and it’s time to start germinating onions around here. Old plastic boxes that were used for storing candy have proven to be very handy for starting seeds:

I use special mould for germination and mark where I want the seeds to go in. In this case it’s 4 x 4:

To get the most out of my bag of seeds I use a pair of tweezers to put in the seeds:

I’ll spray the mould with water and place it in a windowsill and wake up excited each morning to see, if the small fellows have decided to live

I have this bamboo growing like crazy on a south facing wall. I cut it down every year, but it keeps coming. I thought about removing it completely, but it turns out to be pretty useful:

I cut down all the shoots at the ground and cut them into smaller lengths. They’re perfect for marking your rows after sowing seeds, and for some reason they’ll  last several years. Bamboo sticks are quite expensive in our local supermarket, so I’ll leave the bamboo where it is for now.

A tip on chitting potatoes: Use egg trays to keep the potatoes in place. They’re much easier to handle this way, especially if you need to move them around.

What kind are you growing?

If you want to make it hard for fungus to grow on a peach tree it’s best to set up some kind of canopy over your tree during spring and until flowers are gone. This will keep the tree warm and dry. It must be open in the sides so pollination can take place.
I have moved my peach tree to an east facing wall to delay flowering. Last year the peach tree was growing on a south facing wall which was warmer but the flowers were surprised by late frost. The tree has already put out buds:

I’ll be using the roof as part of the canopy and two planks for the structure:

One end of the plank has been dug down:

The upper end is fastened to the roof with iron and screws:

The peach tree has shoots going in towards the wall, which I’ll have to remove:

And now it can grow vertically closer to the wall:

This is the pruned tree:

It’s possible to stay inside the wooden frame:

I’ve mounted a plank horizontally to stabilize the construction:

It’s mounted with a couple of screws at each end:

Then I just need to mount some clear plastic between the planks to form the shield against storm and rain:

I’ve left a length of plastic at the bottom to be covered with dirt the help keep the plastic in place:

Uhm, nice and cosy, shielded from the rain :

Hmm, maybe the tree should have been fastened to the wall… But the plastic will only stay on until the flowers are gone, so it will be okay for this season:

Get ready for some serious city raised bed gardening. The way she uses PVC pipes to build a small greenhouse over her raised beds is just brilliant. And very simple. See if you can spot the hens:

Here’s another video from the city. I love how happy and enthusiastic the kids are. Look at the skyscrapers, what a contrast:

There really is no reason why you can’t grow your own food in dense city areas.

Photo by aussiegall.

It’s easy to get impatient and stressed because of the ultimate deadline in gardening: fall and winter. You want to get as much out of the season as you can before it’s over. Your impatience may drive you out in the garden to work when the weather conditions are no good. Maybe you start digging before the hard frost is over or maybe you force yourself to work under the burning sun in the big sandy cloud that arises, because everything is so dry. This is when garden work turns into actual work: Things you do when you would prefer doing something else. So why do it?
Gardening is about learning and having fun. Spring will come. The rain will find its way to the dusty soil. The weather will get better. It always does. And you will accomplish so much more when the timing is right and you’re happy.

It sure is an easy way to build a trellis for beans. You just put a stick horizontally in the top and tie everything together in the joints. You let each of the 10 plants run up each bamboo stick and it will soon look like this:

The problem is that the beans are hanging inside this monster, like in the drawing below, looking in from the side of the bed:

Reaching in, finding the beans and cutting them loose is hard to do. (Having a cat hiding inside the bush pretending you are a bird is also kind of problematic – it will cost you some blood unless you’re wearing gloves ).

A better way to build a bean trellis is like this: (and this is now seen from the end of the bed)

This will cost you 5 more bamboo sticks and one more hour of building but harvesting beans will be much easier. And the yield will even be a little higher since you’ll be able to grow beans on the horizontal sticks too plus more sun will reach the leaves.

Update 2009-02-28 20:24:

Another drawing seen from the corner of the bed:

(Totally Commodore 64 graphics, I can’t help it )

The top horizontal sticks with beans are not on the drawing, just to keep it more simple.

Are my drawings making any sense to you? Please let me know in the comments section below.

Update 2010-02-04:

Adele sent me the following two photos of a new beautiful bean trellis that her husband built according to the trellis plans above:

The palm leaves on top of the trellis in the second photo is for shade during midday. The trellis is 3 feet by 12 feet (90 cm x 4 m). Rocks are used instead of planks as sides for the raised bed below, since termites are common in this particular location. Yard beans and pickling cucumbers have been planted – the bush near the end is basil.

Very nice!

Throughout the winter I’ve been looking out the window watching the soil in my raised beds shrink more and more into the ground. Maybe it’s because a lot of horse manure and straw were mixed in last year and are now compacted, or maybe it’s because a big part of the soil has been converted into vegetables which then have been removed and carried inside to the kitchen table, thereby removing mass from the beds, I don’t know. But it looks rather silly with a raised bed missing all the soil above ground level. Only the wooden frame is left. It will soon be time for the frost to leave the soil and time for digging. I’ve already built two raised beds with wooden frames and I’m planning on building three more large ones this spring. I’m going to need soil for all of this, more specifically 6 cubic metres, but I’m a bit picky about what I put into my garden. Who knows what chemicals might be present in the soil you buy in big quantities from a gravel pit. Soil in these quantities are awfully expensive from nurseries. What I would really like to do is to make my own from compost. This way I know exactly what goes into my beds and vegetables.
I have already got three composting boxes each about 1 cubic meter with two of them full, but for this to work out I have realized that I need better boxes. At first I was very delighted with the ones I have now, since they have several advantages:

• Low weight
• Easy to assemble
• Low cost
• Looks great

That’s all very good – if you put in your organic garden waste and leave it alone for the next ten years, kinda like a local disposal site.
But that’s not what I want to do. I want to be able to begin taking some compost out from the bottom and see what’s going on. Maybe some of it is ready to be put into the raised beds or maybe it needs to take another round in one of the other boxes and wait another year. Maybe the whole heap needs to be turned and mixed with more highly reactive ingredients.
But this is not possible with this kind of construction. If you want to recycle your organic matter in the form of compost in your garden, you’ll need a more flexible construction, which you can open in the front in an easy way. The ones below are better suited for the process of using compost in the garden:

Photo by Collin Anderson.

The type of box you hammer together (in the first picture) is more static by design, which is fine if you just want to temporarily get rid of grass clippings and leaves, and then once every ten years or so drive the whole pile away and start all over. It sure is capable of eating a lot of waste but it’s hopeless if you want to work that waste into usable compost for your kitchen garden.

Are you making your own compost or would you like to try it? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts, questions or experiences.

Photo by dawnzy58.

This is a guest post written by Jenny. Check out her blog at http://seeded.wordpress.com.

“It’s dark, it’s cold, it’s winter, and seed-saving season is over. No reason to think about it for at least another six months. Right?

Wrong. Even if you don’t have bowls of dried seeds around that still haven’t been winnowed, like me, forethought now will make this summer’s seed-saving activities much more efficient and fruitful.

Most seed catalogs have been sent out already, or if you don’t get them, the new year’s listings will be up on websites. Ordering now will get you prompt service and delivery; if you wait until March and April, the seed companies will be deluged with orders and your seeds will take much longer to get to you. So if you can, now’s the time to think about ordering. Likewise, it’s getting close to the time to plan out this year’s garden. Choosing what seeds to buy and, ideally, where in the garden they’ll go, leads directly to your later seed-saving experience.

One key item in choosing your seeds is knowing which types of seed cross and which don’t so you can plan accordingly. If you want to grow two kinds of spinach this year and save seed from both, you’ll need to either let only one go to flower at a time or plan on more effortful methods of seed-saving, such as alternate-day caging. If you want to save ten kinds of lettuce, all you really need to do is write down which one is planted where. (For caution’s sake, you may want to plant them some distance apart, too.) Once you know what your needs are, you can figure out the logistics of how to plant in order to keep your seeds pure within the space of your garden.

Also important in planning for seed-saving is knowing whether you’re buying open-pollinated or hybrid varieties. There’s no reason you can’t save seed from hybrids, but you do need to know that those seeds almost certainly won’t produce plants like their parents. If you want to try breeding a new variety of vegetable, go for it–but if you want to know exactly what you’re getting when you plant those seeds, stick with open-pollinated.

Finally, you’ll want to be prepared to keep records. Saving seeds loses some of its charm when you’ve forgotten which type of heirloom bean you planted and have to mark “Beans – white with brown spots” on every packet you keep or trade. It may not be vital until you start planting, but it’s better to be prepared with a notebook or a spreadsheet rather than having six sheets of scratch paper in your pocket on planting day, scrawled with dirt-smeared notes as you move from bed to bed.

Later in the year there will be the actual planting, the beauty of the plants as they grow and mature, and the anxiety of making sure you actually collect those seeds rather than letting the birds or the ground get them. But a little planning now will make those joys easier to come by–and may help get you through the winter doldrums, too.”

Photo by skyseeker.

Planting

• You can grow a peach tree from seed if you’re patient enough to wait 3 to 4 years for the fruits. You’ll need to stake the small tree for the first year.
• If you don’t want to grow from seed you can buy a small tree from a nursery
• Choose a sort that matches your local climate
• Plant the tree where it will receive full sun, for instance at a south facing wall. If you live in a place where the blossoms will be exposed to freezing temperatures, plant the tree in a colder place i.e. east facing wall.
• It’s a good idea to use wires on the wall to support the peach tree
• Shield the tree with clear plastic from mid-winter until late spring to avoid peach leaf curl

Soil

• A peach tree needs a soil pH level of 6.5
• Dig a hole 90 cm (3 ‘) wide and 60 cm (2 ‘) deep and mix in lots of compost. Let the soil rest for a few months before planting.
• The soil must be well-drained. Mix in some concrete sand if the soil is too clayey.
• Keep weeds away from the base of the tree so that the nutrients are not stolen from the peach
• Spread out compost annually as surface mulch

Pests

• Regular spraying with water will keep Red Spider Mites away
• Earwig traps can be made from rolled-up corrugated cardboard. Empty the traps daily

Fruit

• A peach tree will blossom in early spring
• The blossoms must be protected from frost
• The blooms are self-fertile. You can speed up pollination using a small brush or a piece of cotton wool.
• The more fruit you have on your tree the smaller each one will turn out to be in the end.  Correct thinning takes years of practice to get the fruit size just right. Thin four weeks after blooming stops, leaving only 1 peach every 15 cm (6 “) on a branch.
• Remove any peaches that have been damaged by pests
• If birds are a problem keep them out using a pests net

Pruning

• Pruning results in a higher yield
• No pruning from October to January
• Prune when the freezing temperatures are gone but before new growth on the tree
• Prune annually
• Peaches are produced on 1 year old wood
• Remove dead and unhealthy branches and limbs
• Prune bushy areas to increase sunlight and air and keep the centre of the tree open
• Grow the peach tree in a large Y-shape
• Remove vertical growing branches, since they rarely produces fruit

Harvest

• Give the peach tree extra water 2 to 3 weeks before harvesting
• Harvest your peaches before they are completely ripe
• You should be able to harvest peaches from your peach tree for 25 to 40 years

Photo by Savannah Grandfather.