Growing your own vegetables has so many benefits. They are:
1. Allows you to experiment with vegetables and varieties not available in shops.
2. Saves you money in grocery bills each and every week during the year. It adds up!
3. Tastier vegetables are grown from home in your own backyard. Say good bye to tasteless vegetables from the common grocery store.
4. You can choose to avoid artificial fertilisers, pesticides and genetically modified varieties. Much healthier for you and your family. You know what you are eating.
5. A great hobby while enjoying the fresh outdoors and exercising. Digging in the garden preparing the soil for example won’t hurt you. Hard work often won’t hurt a person.
6. Gives you the pleasure to serve them fresh from your own controlled garden.
7. Gives your backyard a colourful and decorative look to your property.
Even in the coldest climates, a good range of summer and winter vegetables can be grown successfully. All plants need three main things in order to grow successfully; sunlight, soil and water.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
pH Soil Testing - Naturally
Normally, you would measure the pH of soil with a purchased chemical kit from a garden nursery or have it professionally tested in a science lab. However there are simple and natural ways of testing the aproximate pH of your soil in the vegetable garden.
Observing the existing types of plants growing naturally in an area can be a guide of what your soil pH is. Common weeds such as sorrel, plantain and bracken normally indicate an acidic soil. The flowers of the hydrangea plant will be pink if the soil pH is alkaline (range of 7 to 7.5) and blue if it's acidic (between 4.5 and 5).
A simple way to determine soil pH is using purple cabbage. Here is how you do it:
Observing the existing types of plants growing naturally in an area can be a guide of what your soil pH is. Common weeds such as sorrel, plantain and bracken normally indicate an acidic soil. The flowers of the hydrangea plant will be pink if the soil pH is alkaline (range of 7 to 7.5) and blue if it's acidic (between 4.5 and 5).
A simple way to determine soil pH is using purple cabbage. Here is how you do it:
- Boil 500g of purple cabbage in 1 litre of water until the water turns a rather dark purple colour. Drain the water into another bowl and put it aside.
- Mix two teaspoons of the soil you want tested in 200ml of distilled water and stir it vigorously. Allow it to settle overnight.
- Fill a clear glass three quarters full with the purple cabbage water, then with a syringe, suck up and inject 50ml of water from the soil you mixed in with distilled water into the glass of purple cabage water.
- The colour of the cabage water will change giving an indication of your soils pH. Colour indications are:
Colour = pH
Magenta = 3
Violet = 5
Blue = 7
Blue-green = 9
The above is a rough guide, showing you what your pH is in your own patch. Of course you can obtain a commercial testing kit of you warrant an accurate diagnosis. Enjoy.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Important Notice - How to keep weed free!
What's worst than having heaps of weeds in your vegetable garden. They seem to come out from nowhere, and are extremely resilient. They compete with your vegetable plants for the very nutrients that currently exist within your soil. The more weeds you have, less nutrients are left for your plants.
Here is how you can take a few steps and reduce the weeds.
You will need newspaper, mulch, a fine spray hose nozzle and a rake.
Firstly lay two layers of plain printed newspaper over your topsoil. The newspaper acts as a weed barrier. You could use the commercial weed barrier but newspaper is fine. The newspaper is porous enough for water and nutrients to pass through.
With your newspaper spread out over your entire garden, use your garden hose and set your nozzle to mist and lightly water the paper.
Next cover the newspaper with a black mulch mixed with compost. This is a good mix because it will decompose into your garden and will add nutrients to the soil. Layer the mix over the newspaper at no less than two inches (50mm) thick. This provides weight to keep the paper down to cover it. This impedes weed growth while retaining water moisture in the soil, especially when it gets hot during the summer months.
Following the information above you will eliminate a majority of weeds that would appear in your vegetable garden. To keep up the pressure on the weeds, do a five minute scan every day or so to pull one or two weeds out. Easy! This will keep your garden 100% weed free.
Here is how you can take a few steps and reduce the weeds.
You will need newspaper, mulch, a fine spray hose nozzle and a rake.
Firstly lay two layers of plain printed newspaper over your topsoil. The newspaper acts as a weed barrier. You could use the commercial weed barrier but newspaper is fine. The newspaper is porous enough for water and nutrients to pass through.
With your newspaper spread out over your entire garden, use your garden hose and set your nozzle to mist and lightly water the paper.
Next cover the newspaper with a black mulch mixed with compost. This is a good mix because it will decompose into your garden and will add nutrients to the soil. Layer the mix over the newspaper at no less than two inches (50mm) thick. This provides weight to keep the paper down to cover it. This impedes weed growth while retaining water moisture in the soil, especially when it gets hot during the summer months.
Following the information above you will eliminate a majority of weeds that would appear in your vegetable garden. To keep up the pressure on the weeds, do a five minute scan every day or so to pull one or two weeds out. Easy! This will keep your garden 100% weed free.
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