Garden coaching – watch how easy you TOO can have your very own garden!

10 May 2012 No Comments

Tami’s Growing Strong

For a first time gardener, Tami is doing AWESOME. In this bed you can see her plants look great—squash, peppers, tomatoes and basil are all thriving together in harmony. If you remember, she planted the basil right in between her tomatoes, because these two make wonderful companions in the garden. Funny, they make wonderful companions on the dinner plate, too. Coincidence?

She’s pinched tomato suckers and pulled basil flower heads to keep these two healthy and happy. To continue this progress, she can prune her tomatoes once they begin to grow past the top of her tomato cage. This will also help to keep them full and strong.

The next bed over is residence to her okra and lettuce AND her first harvest. Already! Can you believe it?

Okra and lettuce make great companions, especially here in Central Florida because the canopy of the okra shades the more delicate lettuce leaves allowing them to flourish with ease. (I’m about ready for a salad. Anyone else?)

Upon closer inspection, we notice remnant damage on her okra leaf from the aphids and ant battle. Not sure if this is from the diatomaceous earth of the aphids sucking the life out of the plant. Will have to get back to you on that one. But the plants appear to be fine in general, with no lasting trauma.

Next up is our pole beans which suspiciously resemble bush beans. Now these varieties can produce very similar bean pods, but the big clue? No climbers.

Hmph. Never know what’s in these bags we buy these days. Remember our weed plant inside the blueberry? It happens. Course in my garden it’s usually do the fact that I occasionally forget what I’m planting where—despite my fabulous excel program! Sheesh. Yet another reason to become self-sustaining! (Just keep your brain cells more organized than mine.)

Go figure. Anyhoo, everything looks great. Beans are plump and her cucumber and watermelon are bursting with life from their in ground “hill” site.

by gardenfrisk in Garden coaching - watch how easy you TOO can have your very own garden! Tags: basil, companion planting, good companions, home garden, how to, lettuce, okra, organic, organize, raised beds, tomato

25 Apr 2012 No Comments

Who Knew?

Tami is a first time gardener and doing quite well. Her plants are thriving, tucked away in beds that would rival the Grand Hotel. No longer lonely, her cucumber are now joined by watermelon.

Tomatoes and basil are happy as larks–as well they should be–these two are perfect garden companions!

Today she learned about pinching tomatoes. Pinching tomatoes? But doesn’t that ruin the fruit?

Nah, we’re talking pinching the suckers from her tomato plants. You know, those sprouts that shoot up between branches?

You want those pumpkins out. And like the term sounds, you simply pinch and pull. Easy!

Her peppers are divine. I lost my first batch due to a sprinkler malfunction. And if I wasn’t out gallivanting on a girl’s weekend, I may have noticed. But I was so I didn’t. Se pasa. Anyhoo, hers are beautiful, as is her nearby squash.

We learned another valuable lesson today. When you buy your blueberry plants from the big box store, beware of the “weeds included” aspect. While they don’t label it as such, we discovered it indeed happens. With no experience growing blueberries, Tami had no idea this monstrous growth coming out of her blueberry plant wasn’t a blueberry plant. She was just excited to see her plant take off so well! (We gardeners do get excited.)

But upon closer inspection, you can tell this is no blueberry plant. I’m no expert, but this looks like a weed to me.

Which she promptly plucked and disposed. Another issue she had to deal with was aphids and ants. Now at first glance, I thought maybe the ants were eating the aphids. I mean, I don’t know what ants eat, so it seemed logical. But upon further research (that’s what I do when I don’t have the answer) I learned that ants don’t eat the aphids. They eat what the aphids are secreting!

“Gross.”

Yes. That was my first reaction, too. But nature is what it is and when aphids attack a plant to suck the life blood from its veins, they secrete a sweet waste product known as honeydew. Are you still with me? We’re getting deep in “it” now. Well, we all know that ants like sweet stuff, right? Seems they LOVE the honeydew waste of aphids. They like it so much, they’ll protect the aphids against predators just to keep their stockpile producing! Yep, they’ll lash out and attack a poor little old lady bug for no reason–other than she’s after the same stuff they want. Doesn’t seem fair.

Survival of the fittest, I guess. Now how to rid your plant of these pests? Well, you can plant mint around your plants to prevent the ants from bombarding in assault. Or you can try diatomaceous earth. It makes a great barrier in and around your plants that ants aren’t interested in crossing. Talcum powder or chalk dust works, too. CAUTION: when using diatomaceous earth, be very careful not to inhale. These tiny crystals, or shards, are lethal to insects that have exoskeletons (ants, fleas and the like) because they “cut” their insides to shreds whereby the insect bleeds to death. As for humans, it can irritate mucous membranes not to mention can be drying to hands and feet. So be forewarned.

As for ridding your garden of aphids? Since it may be too late to call out the lady bugs, you can use your diatomaceous earth, a prepared garlic and oil spray, insecticidal soap or do like I do and simply “wipe” them from the leaves. If the damage is severe, I’d cut the entire leaf off.

On a lighter note, how about those beans?

Gorgeous. Just gorgeous.

by gardenfrisk in Garden coaching - watch how easy you TOO can have your very own garden! Tags: ants, aphids, diatomaceous earth, garden coach, gardening, honeydew, how to kill, organic, pinch tomatoes, suckers

07 Apr 2012 No Comments

Tami’s Garden is Doing Terrific!

Wow, what a couple of weeks will make. Just look at how much progress she’s made! Soaker hoses are in place and keeping the plants happy.

A couple of things to keep in mind when using soaker hoses is placement and hose material. When plants are young, be sure the soaker hose is close to the plant, as their root system has yet to spread out.

When plants grow larger, looping it around them (like she did with this cucumber plant) will work fine. Not only does it get the water where it needs to go, it wastes less. A good thing.

Also, Tami found she prefers the lightweight soaker hoses. They’re more flexible which translates into easier handling. A closeup for the stiffer hose can be seen here, in the photo below.

The more flexible hose appears below. She keeps it in place using a small metal anchor.

As I’ve never worked with soakers in my garden, I’m glad for the tip. It’ll save me from myself later when I head to the hardware store and dither over which is best! Another new concept to me is the use of oak leaves for acid-loving mulch as opposed to pine. At the moment we’re talking about her blueberry and strawberry plants, but I imagine the same can be used anywhere in your garden to achieve the same results. For example, acid-loving azaleas seem to delight in living beneath oak trees. And since blueberries like acid, shouldn’t it be reasonable to assume oak leaves will work for them, too?

Yes, and no. According to one gardener, the research is still out on this one. He says oak leaves may be acid when “fresh” but turn alkaline with time. Who knew? And pine needles? Seems the same applies and as they compost, their acid-producing benefits are neutralized. Well, live and learn! I say we observe how well her berries do and THEN decide. (Too much of what I read in regard to gardening “how-to” turns out NOT to exactly the case.)

Speaking of mulch, one excellent way to retain moisture in your soil is to line the dirt with newspaper, then cover with hay or leaf mulch. Not only will the newspaper decompose well and prove harmless to you and your plants, it’s a great way to recycle those old newspapers. I do love a multi-tasker!

Where Tami lives, mulch is extremely important because a few days without water and no rain can really spell disaster. Just look at this poor baby bean leaf. Now I’m only guessing here, and I’ll take any advice from the experts, but this looks to me like leaf scorch — the product of too much sun and not enough water. Bad combination.

One only has to glance at these little pumpkins (term of endearment — these used to be watermelon sprouts) to realize the effect one day of missed watering can have on your plants. Devastating.

But sprouts are fussy that way. Without enough volume of dirt and sun shelter, they are susceptible to your bouts of memory loss. Once in the garden though, they stand a much better chance. With a bit of mulch and deep even watering once every other day or so (depending on what you’re growing), your babies should be good to go!

And remember: these plants are like your babies. You must care for them until they can care for themselves. And you must keep predators away. While this part of her project is still in progress, she has secured her pipes to the outside of her beds.

All she has left to do now, is wrap this mesh around the corner pipes and she’s golden! Or neon orange—but who cares? The rabbits will be forced to go elsewhere!

Don’t worry. They’ll be fine. As in Tami’s garden.

by gardenfrisk in Garden coaching - watch how easy you TOO can have your very own garden! Tags: acid-loving, acidify, blueberry plants, garden coach, leaf scorch, newspaper mulch, oak leaves, pine needles, soaker hose, soil, water system

20 Mar 2012 No Comments

Tami’s Plants are Moving IN!

It’s moving day at Tami’s garden and the leaves are a wavin’ (very exciting day). You remember those glorious beds she prepared? She’s filling them! The first bed will be home to okra, aloe and lettuce, with okra providing the needed sun-relief for delicate lettuce leaves. In Florida, we like our salads, but tender lettuce leaves don’t like the blast of Florida heat. Enter okra and their lovely canopy of shade.

Next bed over we’ll find tomatoes, basil, bell peppers and squash snuggled together in a wonderful example of companion planting. These plants all get along well and it’s even believed that basil will improve the flavor of nearby tomatoes. Hm. Perhaps even sweeten our peppers? We’ll keep you posted! Note: No, your eyes do not deceive you. She has yet to fill this bed with dirt. It’s still in the layout stage. )

Along the fence line we’ll find green beans (and soon to be cucumbers). These folks love to climb so why not encourage them? Saves on space!

Tami also picked up some blueberry and strawberry plants (because gardening is SO fun and a gal can get carried away with little or no effort) at the store so we’ll place those together off to one side. Why together? Because strawberries and blueberries both like it acidic (think low ph) so they’ll get enjoy the same growing conditions. An easy way to acidify the soil is with pine needles–or bark. Either work and they both make GREAT mulch material for our sweet baby berries.

But Tami will need to get another blueberry plant or two if she wants fruit because these guys and gals need cross-pollination for best blueberry production. If they’re self-fertile, they can produce on their own, but she’ll get better results with more bushes and different varieties. Others are self-sterile (like Rabbiteye) and require cross-pollination in order to produce blueberries. Who knew? So check the varieties best suited for your region and make sure you have the necessary number of bushes and varieties to produce fruit.

Tami’s on her way to the plant store now! To round out her lovely backyard garden plot, she’ll transplant her tender watermelon and cantaloupe sprouts, both of which need plenty of room to roam–which is why she planted them OUTSIDE her planter beds.

They’ll thank her later (with plenty of delicious fruit!). Since it’s the vines that will spread, she’ll confine her energy and organic soil to the sprout area, and line her border with weed paper. This will eliminate some hoe work (no need to remove all that grass out there) and keep her vines happy and weed-free. A good thing!

And in her neck of the woods, rabbits tend to pose a problem, so she’ll attach these white tubes around her beds and line them with screen. No sense in going to all this effort to have the rabbits turn around and eat you out of garden and greens! Nope. No sense at all.

by gardenfrisk in Garden coaching - watch how easy you TOO can have your very own garden! Tags: backyard, beans, how to garden, how to grow blueberries, organic, planter beds, rabbits, strawberries, watermelon