When it comes to survival gardening, it all begins with dirt. Once you’ve gotten yourself completely off the grid, you might be generating enough electricity to consider hydroponics. Until that time, you’re stuck with good old-fashioned dirt if you’re looking for a reliable medium to grow your veggies in good times, bad times, and worse times. For such an essential substance, dirt sure takes a beating in the English language. If you look the word up in your standard dictionary, odds are good that three out of four of the first definitions aren’t going to
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Growing your own food in your backyard garden is one of the most rewarding things you can do. The satisfaction that comes from feeding your family and giving them nutritious, organic produce is well worth the effort you put into your garden. If you haven’t done so yet, it’s time to start saving seeds from your plants for the following years. There are many reasons to save your seeds. Since you will not have to purchase new seeds or plants each year, you can save a lot of money. Also, when you save and use
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Diatomaceous earth, or DE, is substance that has been around for literally millions of years. In terms of human history, DE has been used for thousands of years. In the US, its usefulness in the home, garden, and on the farm has only been recently rediscovered. It came back into use around forty years ago
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To grow crops successfully, you need to have good soil. Some people are fortunate enough to live in an area in which the soil is rich with nutrients and perfect for growing vegetables. For the rest of us, there are many ways to recognize a nutrient deficiency or an inappropriate pH and easy ways to fix these issues. You can always take a sample of your soil for detailed testing. Many universities and commercial businesses will test your soil for grain size, moisture, compaction, permeability, nutrients, pH, and more, but this is not always necessary.
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The “three sisters” garden is a gardening technique taken from our Native American forefathers. It is a tradition where corn, beans, and squash are planted together. The corn stalks are used for the beans to climb up as they grow, while the squash provides a living mulch to keep the ground cooler and moister. They are also beneficial to one another for the nourishment they provide to each other. Beans fix nitrogen in the soil that is required by the corn plants. Not only are they good planting companions, they are also good companions for
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Making essential oils is done by extracting the natural oils from herbs and/or flowers. These extractions can be made with oils or alcohol. Extracting Oils with Oil Oil attracts oil, bringing it out of the leaves and flowers. Therefore, one relatively easy way of extracting essential oils is to soak them in oil. Use a
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Since about 2006, farmers, scientists, beekeepers, and casual observers have noticed sudden declines in bee populations. Beekeepers were seeing at least 30 percent of their bee populations die or disappear each year. Scientists began calling this phenomenon colony collapse disorder, or CCD. It describes the fact that colonies of bees mysteriously, suddenly, and drastically decline. In the years since CCD was first noticed, named, and described, intensive research has been done to find out what is going on with bees. The results have been mixed. Scientists are so far unable to pin the collapse on
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Every gardener that has developed their own “tricks of the trade” for getting the best results from their plants. Here are a variety of these tips and tricks I have heard and found on my own. Watering Practices: Unless you live in a tropical area, watering is a priority; this is especially true in containers,
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When planning your garden, you surely give consideration to what types of plants, vegetables, and herbs you will grow. You think about what your family needs and also what you all enjoy eating. For their wonderful flavor and their healthful properties, tomatoes should make up a significant portion of your vegetable garden. They are great eaten fresh, but they can also be canned, pickled, and made into sauce to preserve them for eating throughout the year. Before you grow your next crop of tomatoes, think about going with heirloom varieties. An heirloom variety of any
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All gardens need to be pollinated, and bees are the usual suspects for this task. Unfortunately, they are seriously lacking in our gardens, as most of us live in urbanized areas. So let’s plant a garden that will invite them in and give them place to live and prosper, and they will make our other gardens yield more produce too. Though we think of pollinators as just the bees and butterflies that visit our gardens, they actually come in many shapes, sizes, and varieties. There are garden-friendly varieties of bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, flies, birds,
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