Archive | Tools, Products & How To RSS feed for this section

Protecting the goods

by on April 30, 2008 in Plans & Getting Going, Tools, Products & How To

For some reason, our recycling hasn’t been picked up for 2 weeks and it ended up being a good thing, I took out all the gallon milk jugs I could get to and washed them and cut their bottoms off. These are going over the tomatoes at night, and I got some stakes cut out of a 1″x2″ board we have and stuck in the ground to hold a tarp up over some of the other plants that need weather protection. I can’t do much about the animals yet, but I need to try to do everything I can to protect my babies from the cold! I need to take a picture of my crazy set up now lol.

I ordered lemon cucumber seeds from dirtworks.net – I looked at burpee, territorial seed and lots of organic sources but they all charged crazy shipping. $8 ($3 for seeds and $5 for shipping) for a packet of seeds that costs at most $1 with a stamp and enveolpe to ship? No thanks. dirtworks.net was free shipping.

Now I’m looking at Earth Juice fertilizers…lots of research…with as bad as the soil’s nutrients are, I think it’d be a good idea.

Sunset New Western Garden Book 1981 to 2008

by on April 8, 2008 in Tools, Products & How To

My dad has/gave me a 1981 edition of the Sunset New Western Garden Book…I grew up with the book in our house, I’d spend hours looking at all the plants (wish some of the knowledge had absorbed).. unfortunately it’s very outdated. Many varieties of plants don’t exist anymore. So I went looking for the newest edition, I originally found it at Amazonbut when I was in Costco yesterday, I found it for $21 :D If you can’t get it locally, get it from Amazon…it’s so worth it if you’re on the west coast!!

Tiller

by on April 6, 2008 in Tools, Products & How To

I finally broke down and ordered a tiller – a Mantis 2 cycle. They have a 4 pay plan that is easier to work then then one big chunk. I was prompted to finally get one when I went out today and tried to rake, hoe and otherwise break up the dirt further and get it ready for planting. I simply couldn’t. I have to get the strawberries planted pronto, so I might have to do part of it, but there’s no way I could do it all.

Artificial light

by on March 23, 2008 in Plans & Getting Going, Tools, Products & How To

I transplanted some of the broccoli seedlings to see if they’d grow better in the bunches or singled out, which might also depend on if they can handle being transplanted…then I did some research on artificial lighting and it seems seedlings do best with lots and lots of light (I assumed they needed breaks of dark and cool for some reason) so we brought the shop light in, cleaned off a counter and put them under it for the times the sun isn’t on the kitchen garden window.