Gardening

There are all kinds of companion planting books and charts out there you can buy or download, but for my purposes I just want to know what NOT to plant (because one, the other or both will fail as a crop) within 4′ of one another.

This reminders are helpful to keep in mind as you create your garden layout. Getting companion planting right could improve your production and minimize maintenance.

Well, here you are. This should go into your Survival Binder:

• Beans HATE garlic, onions, peppers and sunflowers.
• Corn Hates tomatoes.
• Onions Hate beans, peas and sage.
• Cucumbers Hate aromatic herbs, melons and potatoes.
• Peppers & Radishes Hate beans and kohlrabi.
• Cabbage Hates broccoli, cauliflower, strawberries and tomatoes.
• Carrots Hate anis, dill and parsley.
• Lettuce Hates broccoli.
• Tomatoes Hate broccoli, brussell sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, corn, kale and potatoes.

For more info, HERE is the Wiki article about this form of polyculture.

Diatomaceous Earth dusted lightly inside or outside will kill ants, earwigs, cockroaches, millipedes, centipedes, crickets and silverfish usually within 24 hours. It is a deterent of fleas and any creature with an exoskeleton. DO NOT get into your eyes. Don’t apply when windy.

NOTE: Diatomaceous Earth (DE) will KILL earth worms and nearly any type of worm – in various forms it is used as an organic wormer for livestock and humans. So, don’t just dust it over your gardens. Apply locally where you aren’t worried about keeping the worms.

Remember the bomb we made from baking soda and vinegar? This works on ants too! When the ant mound is damp (morning dew or after a rain) sprinkle with baking soda. About a half hour later come back and pour some vinegar on the mound. The ants have eaten the baking soda and now will ingest the vinegar – no more ants!

From the WE2s: “I make a “cup” out of tin foil, put a couple tablespoons of 20 Mule Team Borax and a couple tablespoons of granulated sugar, mix it up and sit it near the back side of my sink. They come in, carry the stuff to their nests and I don’t see them any more that year.”

I can honestly say that I never truly realized the benefits of Stinging Nettle before. I can tell you that I have a pasture fence that borders my garden and the vegetables near that stand of Stinging Nettle always do seem to grow better.

“It is to be hoped in this enlightened age that gardeners will invite this wonderful herb into their garden and not regard it as a weed.

Recent tests in organic gardening have confirmed that nettles make excellent companion plants, helping to produce healthy vegetables such as broccoli and conferring keeping qualities on tomatoes by impeding the fermentation process in the plant’s juices.

Nettles will increase the production of essential oil in peppermint and boost the potency of all nearby herbs. Nettles in your compost heap will not only add nutrients, but also accelerate the breakdown of matter into robust humus.”

On another note, if any of you are cultivating cannabis for its health properties alleviating arthritis, etc., Stinging Nettle is known as being a wonderful companion plant for that crop as well. Lots to be said about it on the internet.

Plus, you can actually steam and eat Stinging Nettle, and it’s pretty tasty! (yes, you read that right)

I believe that composting must be both an art and a science because there are so many conflicting viewpoints. So, you all know that I bought this barrel composter essentially for what it would have cost me to build it. I thought you might benefit from some of my research into this method of composting.

Since they all have finer points, I’ll tell you what I got out of my research:

1. Tumble composting is faster (Usually 30 days start to finish.) than bin composting. Smaller batches, but less work and somewhat more reliable. It is odorless and effectively eliminates the potential for varmints like rats and mice to be drawn to your compost site.
2. Use 1/2 “brown” material (Think dry leaves, sawdust, and stems.) and 1/2 “green” material (Think kitchen scraps, egg shells, garden refuse – no meat or dairy products.). Add water, tumble, if it wrings out like a damp mop you have it right.
3. Turn it once a week or daily anyway you can to get it to mix.
4. You can make it in one batch or add to it daily or whenever.
5. If it smells bad – not earthy – add more brown material.
6. New barrel? Until you get it broke in and have some start up microbes add some compost or beer to it to start the process.

FYI Mine has been going for less than a week and is very warm, so I know it is cooking!

HERE is a link to a pdf from a nursery about tumble composting.

I just added stubs of wood to mine as handles to make it easier to turn. What you don’t see are all of the holes drilled in it and inside there are some cleats to help turn the compost.

I see no reason why a five gallon bucket with a tight fitting lid with holes drilled around it could not be used for a small kitchen scrap composter by the back door. I’m thinking about trying it.

I ran across an idea to make a soda bottle green house for gardening. If you cut the bottom off, and remove the screw on top (but save it) you can put it over your young seedlings and have a mini-greenhouse.

1. After danger of frost is past, drill a hole in each of the 2-liter soda bottle lids (the smallest drill bit you have).
2. Screw them back on the bottles
3. Dig down into the soil next to your plant, and bury your bottle at least half way with the top down.
4. Fill the bottle with water and you have a trickle waterer down into the root area that should save water and eliminate the need for extra watering during hot summer days.

I haven’t tried this myself yet, but plan to as it makes sense to me. Hope it helps someone else. I think we all need to get out and plant something now and and get proficient in gardening before the bottom falls out.

This may not help a farmer with a layout of acres and acres, but maybe a senior doing container gardening will find it useful.

Remember, the best insurance for disasters large and small is to be prepared. Think about the 5 wise virgins from the Bible story!

When I was a little girl, a yearly ritual was when my Mother took us all out to hunt for blackcaps. Blackcaps are those delicious little wild raspberries that pop up everywhere.

Blackcaps like sun and usually grow on the edge of the woods. Horses and cattle eat berry plants, so they usually aren’t in the pasture.

We always took the dogs because it could be dangerous if you ran into rattlesnakes – which it seemed we always did. The dogs would usually spot them before we got near and a few barks would chase them off. But if you found a nice patch and got separated from Mom and the dogs, well, you better look down.

I’ve had ever-bearing raspberries for many years. I even dug up some of my plants when I was forced to move over here. And there is a little patch of blackcaps on a wayward part of this property.

Blackcaps and raspberries don’t mix, so when you’re making your layout, remember that you’ll need to keep them at least 300′ apart. That said, you will probably get them in your raspberry patch anyway, because the birds like to eat both and will transplant the blackcap seeds to your raspberry patch.

I am a lazy gardener; there is always lots to do on a homestead. On my homestead I planted them in an out of the way spot with sun, harvested the berries throughout the season (usually one large crop in late June and sporadically thereafter) and then just mowed them down in the fall.

The lady who had this place before me had raspberries too, but she got old and the grandkids just mowed over her whole garden every year trying to kill them and everything else. Well, I planted mine along her fence line and also planted hers that I could salvage.

Now I have a fence line of raspberries that I have to mess with – but this place is way smaller and I have more time now. But somehow time seems to be going faster – or I am going slower. The thought behind putting them by is fence is that you can tie them up and put bird netting over them if desired. I have found that to be too much work.

Raspberries are technically biennials. However, everbearing raspberries are a bit different.

Everbearers fruit twice on the same cane. These canes will fruit at the tip during the fall and then bear again the following spring farther down the canes. If one large crop is desired, cut the canes back to the ground after the fall crop. This will result in a single, large crop the following fall.

Not what I have found to be true with my berries, but what the experts say.

This year in Minnesota we seemed to have gone from winter to summer in 2 weeks! So into the raspberry patch I go.

How To Prune Raspberries

They are just beginning to leaf out and many haven’t yet, but I wanted to get some of the young ones back in line so that I don’t run over them with my garden tractor.

So here is the down and dirty of raspberries:

• They spread on runners. With a bad winter they will often not leaf out totally, but come back from the root stock like many roses did this year.
• Move the babies back in line and cut out the old dead canes.
• Watering in good and mulching will really help your survival rate.
• Don’t get the bright idea (I tried already and it didn’t work.) to lay plastic down in the aisle to keep the berries in place. You’ll just lose your babies and have a much thinner patch of berries.
• You can tell blackcaps from raspberries as they grow. Blackcaps will have more arching canes that will touch the ground, root and make more blackcaps. The canes are also slightly reddish compared to the everbearing canes. PULL THEM OUT!

Mine have already started to blossom in this heat. It only takes 4-6 weeks from blossoming to the first berries.