#172: Mike talks with Carol Niec and Kerrie Rosenthal About the Seed Keeper Project

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In this week's episode, Mike talks with Carol Niec and Kerrie Rosenthal about the Seed Keeper Project.

The Seed Keeper Project, now in its 4th year, is a way to recognize the outstanding work schools are doing in getting kids from Kindergarten through 12th grade, involved in vegetable gardening.

People are noticing the fabulous work these two ladies are doing as their efforts have been recognized on a national level that is discussed in the podcast. You won't want to miss this episode!

In this episode, here’s what we’ll cover:

• What is the Seed Keeper Project
• Getting your school nominated
• What your school will win if chosen in the Seed Keeper Project
• A special prize each school will win - JUST ANNOUNCED IN THIS PODCAST!
• Which schools are eligible
• Where do you send your nomination
• How you will be notified if chosen

Items mentioned in this episode include:

• The Seed Keeper Project
• Seed Keeper Project Facebook Page
• The Seed Keeper Home Farmer
• The Dunbar Garden Project
• The Peterson Garden Project
• P. Allen Smith
• Seed Keeper Chronicles
• Chicago Flower & Garden Show

About this week's Guests, Carol Niec and Kerrie Rosenthal of the Seed Keeper Company:

The Seed Keeper Project is our opportunity to recognize school gardens across the country. Each year we award a Seed Keeper Home Farmer and a Certificate to a school in every state and the District of Columbia highlighting their dedication to gardening.

Beginning February 3, we will post 10 States each week for 5 weeks in alphabetical order on our FaceBook Page The Seed Keeper Company.

During the week we ask you to nominate a K-12 school, any type of school, and post it on our FB Page.

We will draw a winner using random.org at the end of that week and announce them on our FB page.

When we send the Seed Keeper and Certificate to the winner, your name will be mentioned in the Certificate as the person who nominated the school.

We believe it our responsibility to take part in educating coming generations about the benefits of gardening and particularly growing your own food.

In the meantime, we hope you'll peruse this page where we share some of the responses and accolades our project has received ( including The U.S. Department of Education) along with the 2010 and 2011 winners lists. 2013 list coming soon!!

Is the word “Organic” losing it’s meaning?

I recently read in an issue of Mother Earth News magazine a great quote. “Every time you buy organic, you’re persuading more farmers to grow organic.” This quote goes well along with my lines of thinking. I am a true believer of not buying a product or hiring someone to perform a service from a business if that product or service does not meet my expectations for what I am paying.

In this case that product is freshly grown fruits or veggies. I grow a lot of my own food, but lack the space to grow it all. So, for the items that I am unable to grow in abundance I will search out quality farms in my area, that do not use chemical pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. I am willing to pay a little more because I am getting quality food, great customer service and get what I am paying for.

What I have also noticed in my search for local farms, is the term organic being thrown around a lot. The question I was mulling over, is that term overused? Has it become nothing more than a marketing gimic?

My dad, and grandfather before him, practiced organic methods when tending to their gardens. No use of pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, heck they did not even use gas powered tools. Everything was done with a little elbow grease and plenty of sweat. They each kept compost piles, and since my dad was (and still is) a big fisherman, all of the fish waste went into his garden beds. Everything was natural.

But one thing was common, you never heard them use the word organic. If you asked them if they practiced organic methods, they probably would be the first to tell you they have no idea of what you are talking about. They used safe, healthy methods to grow their food, not because they wanted to be “organic”, but because they wanted to put good food on the table.

In order for someone to use the word “organic” they must meet some criteria as outlined by the USDA. You can read up on what it takes to become certified organic on the USDA website.

Me personally, I think the word “organic” is quickly a word that is being overused. But what do you think? I understand the importance of needing to certify items to be organic, but do you think “organic” is being overused?

How do you Stake your tomatoes?

How do I stake up my tomato plants is a question I receive all the time. My answer is, whatever works for you. When I was a kid, my dad would use my broken hockey sticks, cut off the blade, or what remained thereof, and use them as stakes for his tomato plants. He would then secure the tomato plants to the hockey stick by loosely tying them with some type of string, twine, old t-shirts and even mom's ripped pantyhose. He was a resourceful guy.

There are various other ways to stake up tomatoes and I wanted to cover just a few. First I wanted to start with the method I use to prop up my tomatoes, and that is the use of tomato cages. Regardless of whether you use the round tomato cages, triangular tomato cages or square tomato cages, the concept of their use is the same. Simply push your tomato cage into the soil so that your tomato plant sits in the center. As the tomato plant grows, you will have to do some maneuvering of branches so they don't get "stuck" as they try and grow upwards.

As mentioned earlier with the method my father used, you can use stakes or poles to prop them up. As with the tomato cage method, you will have to do some maneuvering. With the stake method, you have to attach them to the tomato stake with string or twine. They even sell velcro plant ties which are great. You can move them rather easily when you have to make adjustments.

Although I have not used these myself, I have seen in use spiral tomato plant supports. The way these work is very simple.The idea is to eliminate the part where you tie them to the stake by weaving your tomato plants as they grow, through the spiral. They come in heights of 4 to 6 feet, which is ideal for most varieties of tomatoes.

Another excellent method is creating your own trellis where there are poles on each end with some twine at various heights connected between them. This tomato propping method is most commonly called the Florida weave. As the tomato plants grow, you weave them in between the strings on the trellis.

Finally, just let them be. Some gardeners I know do not even stake up their tomatoes at all. They lay down some black plastic tarp over the soil, then let the tomatoes simply grow along the ground. Of course this method makes your plants susceptible to a lot things, but if going 100% natural is what you are looking for, then this is it.

Grow Your Best Peppers Yet!

I do very well here in New Jersey growing peppers. For the past two season, I have had peppers grow (and thrive) well into November, even after a couple of frosts also with no cover protection.

I grow a lot of sweet peppers and some hot peppers, but as a total, I grow a boatload of peppers. Enough to share with the neighborhood my wife tells everyone.

With that said, I wanted to share some of my tips on peppers, that I believe has lead me to have such great pepper harvests. Of course I can’t control the weather in the cooler months that would do peppers harm, I do believe that by using these tips, I am able to have my peppers grow very hardy, and that helps out a great deal.

Your Site
As with any other fruit or vegetable plant, peppers are no different, and that is, good peppers start with an excellent foundation. In this case, the foundation for your peppers is the soil itself. Obviously some might disagree and say “no, Mike, it starts with the seeds you use”. While I do agree with that statement, that good peppers start with seeds from a reputable company (or a friend), I am assuming that you have already completed that step.

Before you plant your pepper transplants (or direct pepper seeds), make sure to mix in plenty of compost. I like to do a mix of compost from my compost pile, vermicompost from my worm bin, and seasoned livestock manure (cow manure). I would like to add that I use so much vermicompost that I added a worm tower this year to my yard and plan on adding another worm tower next season. They can be a bit pricey.

As a side note. If you started your peppers from seeds indoors, be sure to harden them off, that is acclimate them to the outdoors before you plant them in your garden bed.

Bring the Heat
Pepper plants love heat. Which bodes well for us here in New Jersey, because around July to August, between the heat and humidity, it can become unbearable for humans in the summer. If you live in a cooler climate, you can always help increase the temperatures around the plant using cold frames, greenhouses and so on. You want to keep the temperatures for your pepper plants above 60 degrees Fahrenheit (roughly 16 degrees Celsius).

Spacing
Peppers are abundant producers when given plenty of space. You may produce bigger or more quantities of peppers if you grow just a few, spaced out wider. With that said, I have done well spacing them out eight to ten inches, although one gardening friend of mine has his spaced out further (more like 12 to 16 inches), and does great.

Care
Keep your pepper area weed free. I like to use newspaper as a weed barrier, then place some straw on top of that. I won’t go into all of the benefits of using straw in the garden, but in this case it further helps keeping the weeds at bay.

Be sure that your pepper plants receive plenty of water in the early stages and then a maintenance watering of at least 1 to 2 inches of water weekly. Water a little more often if your conditions are extremely dry and/or hot.

The straw we used a couple of paragraphs up also help in retaining moisture in the garden.

To build a healthier, sturdier plant, pinch off the first few flowers in the early going. You want your pepper plants to direct their energy towards growing the pepper plant itself, not peppers just yet. This will pay big dividends later in the season.

Harvest and Enjoy
Once your peppers reach their full maturity, gently pluck them from the plant making sure you don't damage the plant itself. Some people like to use scissors to cut the stem, me I will simply pull the pepper with one hand while holding the branch that it is on with the other hand. Whatever works for you!

#96: 5 Power Fruits to Grow at Home

Listen in as Mike continues his series on power foods to grow at home. Once again he talks to experts in the nutrition field on 5 fruits that you can add to your garden and of course how to grow them.

For a full transcript of this podcast, visit: http://averagepersongardening.blogspot.com/2011/10/5-power-fruits-to-grow-in-your-garden.html

5 Ways to Maximize the Germination Rate of your Vegetable Seeds

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As a vegetable gardener you absolutely love it when the time rolls around that you can get your vegetable seeds started. However, nothing is more frustrating when the seeds you plant take either too long to germinate or in some cases, not at all. Here are 5 tips that Mike uses to help increase the germination rate on vegetable seeds. For more information on vegetable seeds be sure to visit Mike’s website athttp://www.averagepersongardening.com

About the Author

Mike Podlesny is the author of Vegetable Gardening for the Average Person: A Guide to Vegetable Gardening for the rest of us, the moderator for the largest vegetable gardening page on Facebook and creator of the Seeds Club.

Watch the video below to learn more about Mike`s Seeds of the Month Club:

7 Ways Vegetable Gardeners Can Beat the Winter Blues

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This is the time of year when those of us in the Northern hemisphere become envious of those in the southern part of the world. They are in full vegetable gardening mode, growing great tasting fruits, vegetables and herbs, from seeds and potted plants. But rest assure, even though old man winter is biting us in the a, er um, I mean rear, there is still plenty of things we vegetable gardeners can do to get us to where we start planting our indoor seeds. Here are seven that I have chosen as some of my favorites.

Organize Your Vegetable Seeds
As the owner of the Seeds of the Month Club, this one is a no-brainer for me. I have to keep our company’s seeds well organized all year round. But for many of our Seeds Club customers, and those that have purchased seeds through catalogues and online, now is a great time to organize those seeds. I find what works best for me, is to organize the seeds by variety first, i.e. tomatoes with tomatoes, cucumbers with cucumbers, etc., then organize them by date. Members of our vegetable gardening page on Facebook, take it a step further and organize by companion planting, rotations and so much more.

Learn
The weather outside might be frightful but the delightful comforts of your home is a perfect setting to research and read up on vegetable gardening topics that can enhance your skills. Want to learn more about composting? Pick up a good book on the topic and learn as much as you can. A favorite of mine that I read, is Chris McLaughlin’s book The Complete Idiot`s Guide to Composting. Chris’ book keeps composting simple yet introduces you to variety of composting styles and techniques.

Maybe you are already a compost expert and want to learn more about specific vegetable gardening techniques, tips and tricks. There are books for that as well. A search on Amazon.com will yield you plenty to choose from.

Plan the Garden
My garden plans will change more than the weather before I finalize it and start actually planting, but now would be a great time to at least put down on paper a list of vegetables you would like to grow from seed this year. A garden plan is a great way to organize your space and thoughts. As a side note I always recommend adding at least one new item to the garden that has not been tried before. I believe it keeps vegetable gardening, fun, exciting and challenging. Hopefully it will for you as well.

Soil Sample
As as long as you can still dig up your soil, now would be a perfect time to take a soil sample. Sure, it may fluctuate based on certain weather conditions but you will have a basic idea of what is in your soil, what it needs and so on. A low cost soil test kit can be found online for anywhere from $3.00 (US) up through $21.00 (US). However, if you are lucky enough to have a co-op in your area, for a small fee, you can take them some of your soil and they will run the tests for you.

Gardening Mentor
Whether you are talking to a neighbor about getting them to start a vegetable garden or you need some helpful advice yourself, the winter is a perfect time to talk about vegetable gardening. If you are a vegetable gardening enthusiast like me be sure to strike up a conversation about it with a friend or loved one who may not have a garden at all and convince them it is worth the time and effort. If everyone you know already has a garden but you had some issues last season, talk to someone in your area to see if they experienced the same thing and if they did, what did they do to fix it.

Up to this point everything has been about what you can do indoors that requires absolutely no growing or getting your hands dirty (for the most part). Is there any gardening you can do? Yes, as you will see below.

Cold Frame Gardening
Not too long ago I wrote an entire article on vegetable gardening with a cold frame. I was fortunate enough to get some professional input from the author of How to Build Your Own Greenhouse, Roger Marhsall. Roger was nice enough to share photos of his own cold frames and give us some great advice as to which vegetables you can grow. A cold frame protects vegetables from the elements and is an excellent way to do some home gardening in the colder months. You can read that article, here.

Window Sill
This one is an oldy but a goody and one of my favorites. I have been successful in the past growing such things as basil (pretty much any herb), spinach, and lettuce on my window sill. I choose a spot that receives sunlight first thing in the morning. Even if you grow only 1 or 2 items this way, it at least scratches that vegetable gardening itch you might have.

About the Author
Mike Podlesny is the author of Vegetable Gardening for the Average Person: A Guide to Vegetable Gardening for the rest of us, the moderator for the largest vegetable gardening page on Facebook and creator of the Seeds Club.

Watch the video below to learn more about Mike`s Seeds of the Month Club:

5 Power Fruits to Grow in Your Garden

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In my last post I talked about the five power vegetables you can grow in your home vegetable garden that contain the maximum amount of nutrients for a healthier eating lifestyle. Continuing on in this series of health, nutrition and the home vegetable garden, I wanted to turn to fruits today.

Who doesn’t like a good bowl of mixed fruits to start a morning or along side your lunch. Of course, who wouldn’t want that bowl of fruit to come from their own garden. As I noted in my previous post, studies have shown that vegetables grown at home is far more healthier than what you can buy in stores, I believe the same would hold true for fruits as well.

Again I turn to nutrition expert Todd Cambio, BA, BS, CSCS, Sports Nutritionist who is also the author of the book Reducing Pain and Everyday Inflammation: How to Feel Better, Have More Energy, and Increase Flexibility. Todd specializes in sports recovery methods and nutritional counseling. “{fruits} Loaded with Natural Anti-Oxidants & Anti-Inflammatories,” says Todd. “Think colors? Mix them up. Also, fruits help protect our body from free radical damage, they lower your risk for cancer, they aid in regenerating your Vitamin E stores, they improve wound healing, they increase your ability to fight off colds and they help with the absorption if Iron.”

Todd recommends the following five fruits for daily consumption. Blueberries (all berries really), oranges, pineapples, mangoes, and avocados. For those of us who can not grow citrus fruits, Todd recommends replacing oranges with peaches, pineapples with either papaya or watermelon, and mangoes with apples. You can also replace avocados with tomatoes, which botanically is a fruit.

There are a variety of berries you can grow, all of which range in ease of growth and soil types. Blueberries do best in a sandier soil where as I have had some recent success with raspberries in a traditional soil. Berry vines (and in some cases trees) can be purchased at any home or garden center for a couple bucks up through twenty dollars.

Apple and peach trees will grow (for the most part) pretty much anywhere, but take time before you will receive fruit from them, so be patient.

Watermelon, and other melons, can be grown each season, but many varieties do take up a lot of room, so plan accordingly.

For more information on what super fruits you need to add to your eating plan so you know exactly what to grow, be sure to check out Super Fruits by Paul M. Gross.

About the Author
Mike Podlesny is the author of Vegetable Gardening for the Average Person: A Guide to Vegetable Gardening for the rest of us and the administrator for the largest vegetable gardening page on Facebook.

Watch the video below to learn more about the Seeds of the Month Club:

Home Vegetable Gardening: The New Prescription from Doctors and Nutritionists

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While finishing up a project I was working on the other night, I was flipping through TV stations to at least put something on that was watchable as background noise. I came across an infomerical selling some new great weight loss product that is guaranteed to give you those 6 pack abs and rock hard muscles in as little as 20 minutes a day.

As luck would have it, I was able to catch the fine print after the narrator uttered those words that read, “results may vary and were based on a combination of proper exercise and eating 3 healthy meals every day for 12 weeks.”

I am not a dietitian or nutrition expert but common sense would leave me to believe that a healthy eating regimen combined with exercise would yield a healthier “you” with or without that piece of equipment that costs 4 easy payments of $99 per month.

The commercial, if nothing else, did make me think about something and that was how can you tie in a home vegetable garden with a healthier eating lifestyle. I mean, after all, fruits and veggies by definition are healthy for you.

I recently brought up this topic to food and nutrition expert Jill Nussinow, MS, RD, author of the book The Veggie Queen: Vegetables Get the Royal Treatment and the creator of the DVD, Pressure Cooking, A Fresh Look: Delicious Dishes in Minutes.

Jill is a registered dietitian who also teaches cooking classes. She recommends to her students that they should always grow their own fruits and vegetables. She had one student who grew a large garden and was able to lose 10 pounds by adding into her healthy eating habits the fresh fruits and veggies she grew herself.

Freshness, flavor, likeliness of consumption and pick what you need are just some of the reasons why Jill recommends to her students that they grow their own. Vegetables you grow yourself will always be fresher than what you can buy in the store and have a better flavor too. She says that you are more likely to consume what you grow since you will be growing what you like to eat and she says that waste will be at a minimum because you can wait and harvest only what you will consume.

Jill also recommends, “anyone who can grow their own fruits, vegetables and herbs do so in an effort to be sure that they are getting the freshest, best and unsprayed produce. The flavor and freshness will be much improved. Also in the growing process, people get a lot of spiritual nourishment. You can't get that from buying your vegetables. And almost everyone can grow a small pot of herbs of some sort.”

There is enough research out there to prove that adding fresh fruits and veggies to each of your meals is a great way to excellent health. So, is having a home vegetable garden the new prescription from doctors?

Yes, says, Dr. Nathan Daley a member of the International Association for Ecology and Health and the American College of Sports Medicine. “As a physician I do a great deal of nutrition and lifestyle counseling. I often recommend that patients grow their own vegetables, or at least some of them, in order to maximize the nutritional value and minimize the toxicant burden of their produce.”

In an environment where “fast” food is becoming the norm, doctors prescribing home vegetable gardening as a remedy is a great start in moving away from unhealthy eating habits. Everyone listens to their doctor right? Once prescribed though it becomes the challenge of parents everywhere to not only take and use that advice themselves but also instill that lifestyle into their children so they can then pass it on to future generations.

As a father of two children myself, I know it is important to me to do this as many other parents out there I spoke with. Registered dietitian Marcia Crawford, works with her clients to focus in on getting their children to enjoy the benefits of a “farm to fork” lifestyle. “The process always ends up with kids eating more produce. Inevitably the whole family gets involved. Meals begin to be planned and produce becomes the star of the plate, not an afterthought,” explains Marcia.

“I love the fact that you can garden at any age in any place and really impact your health - be it herbs that give flavor to foods that previously would have been drowned in fat for flavor or no fat, big flavor berries or some seriously healthy vegetables. "Fresh" and "local" cease to be marketing words; there is nothing more rewarding then eating the fruits of your labor.”

Ms. Crawford, along with Dr. Daley and Ms. Nussinow, all agree that once you make fresh home grown produce the focus, the calories will decrease and nutrient density will increase with every meal.

To determine the best way to incorporate your home vegetable garden with you and your family’s healthy eating style, evaluate a few areas first, so says nutrition expert and author of the book Nutrition Simplified: A Realistic 7 Step Workbook to Jump Start Your Metabolism , Betsy Markle, RD.

“What are the fruits and veggies the individual likes/dislikes? Are there any particular meals or foods that they would like to make? For instance, I love making my own salsa so I try to plant most of those ingredients. How much space do they have? How much time do they have to spend on their garden? Where do they live (weather/garden time period)?” says Betsy. You must be able to honestly plan this out in order to make it be affective and work.

If you can walk into your doctor’s office and get a prescription for pains and aches why not get a prescription from your doctor to grow your own fruits and vegetables? Maybe if more doctor’s made this prescription a staple to every office visit, more people would live a healthier lifestyle.


About the Author
Mike Podlesny is the owner of Mike the Gardener Enterprises, LLC, the exclusive home for the Seeds of the Month Club, which has appeared on NBC, ABC and MSN Money as a great way for consumers to save money.

Watch the video below to learn more about the Seeds of the Month Club:

Fresh asparagus today. Yum!

Spring? Finally?

Planting season is finally here in USA Zone 5. Time to get ambitious and not forget the basics.

Be frugal. Grow from seed. Trade seeds with friends. Don’t overpay for plants from anywhere.

If you can’t resist the urge to start from plants, and didn’t start your own, spend the extra few dollars at a locally owned farm stand or garden store. Chances are, the proprietor is behind the counter and really appreciates your business.

Amend your soil. In my Clarence, NY area, a dairy farmer dries and bags cow manure, creating a high quality fertilizer for $5 per bag.

You can even go cheaper. Look for a sawmill in your town with excess sawdust of other sources of inexpensive or free organic matter.

This is the third year for my 18-by-25 foot vegetable garden in its current location. Years one and two I worked in three yards of double-screened mulch ($18 from Amherst, NY, loaded in my pickup). I also worked in half a pick-up load of horse manure (free but with a bit more weed-seed).

I also left all the leaves from my yard to rot on the garden in the fall and tilled them in when spring came. I turn the whole thing over once with my trusty spade and once with my 45-year–old Merrytiller (the best thing about it was I garbage picked it.)

This year, I worked in the aforementioned cow manure. My garden soil is luscious. In fact, I just repotted a house plant in some of it. I will use more mulch, sawdust and newspaper, to lay paths in another few weeks. Those paths will decompose and be tilled in next year.

Gardening is a never-ending experiment. Keep trying new things.

Here’s one more: Spend $3 on four tomato plants from that farm stand or grocery. Bring them home and plant them. Direct seed four tomato plants, following planting directions.

You may get an earlier yield for your $3, but total yield will be even by season end and watching the miracle is like raising your own child there is nothing better.

Another nice thing is that psychologically, no one wants to waste anything. Admit it. We’ve all done it. Pay $12 for a flat of vegetable plants. Get home. You can’t resist. You plant them too close together rather than discarding or giving away the extras. Then you end up with a lower yield and a tangled mess of tomato plants.

Grow from seed and you won’t have such worries because the psychological construct is different – you will save seed rather than over plant.

Lastly, as you do anything, keep a diary. Record mundane details like when you -planted and what the weather was like. Make notes of what you added to your soil or how the pH tested when you took it to the Cooperative Extension stand at the town farm market. It will give you an important record you can use for future reference.

Joe Genco is a contributing write for Mike the Gardener Enterprises, home for the Seeds of the Month Club. You can e-mail him at joegenco@gmail.com.

Spring is Coming

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The days are getting a little longer. In our Zone 5, Western New York neck of the woods, the sap is running. The arrowwood shrubs are red. The willow twigs are bright yellow. Snowdrops have been peaking through. It can only mean one thing. Spring will be here soon.

As long as people have been gardening, they have been chancing it, pressing their luck with the weather, sometimes with great success and sometimes not so much.

The important thing about being a “seed gardener” is you can experiment, set your own timetables and next month, if you’re like me, four new packages of seeds will appear in your mailbox. If you have a package of 30 or 60 seeds, you can experiment with 10 or 20 and still have plenty left to use.

There are two ways to stretch the front-end of the season: Indoors and outdoors. Today, we’ll talk about indoors.
Indoors, recycled containers and a sunny windowsill are a fine place to start. Also, don’t start tomatoes too soon. They will get leggy and not be as hardy. If you do make that mistake, turn them sideways at planting time and bury the stem.

The home improvements stores have eight and 10-quart bags of seed starting mix available for about $3.50. Use it for planting indoors if you don’t have soil ready to go. You can even splurge on little peat pots and seed starting trays with plastic covers. You still will end up economically ahead.
There is something awesome, however, about using your own compost, containers and soil and growing a bounty for the cost of the seeds (less than $2.50 per month).

Many seeds do fine in cooler temperature, but they will be slow to germinate, so after you have planted a container, set it somewhere warm until you see signs of growth. Artificial lights can be a great help, too.
A warming coil, available in many stores and catalogs, can offer a good assist but is not totally necessary.
Starting things indoors like broccoli, spinach and lettuce will give you a small jump. Follow the seed package instructions about how much before last frost to start, but don’t be afraid to push the limits.

Also, if you’ve decided to take a shot at a longer-season plant, like artichoke, plant now and try to get it going indoors. It may take 180 days to produce and in many areas, our growing season is too short. Still, it can be done.
The important thing is there is little risk in experimenting. Keep a garden diary with dates and specifics so you can refer back and remember what worked and what didn’t.

Joe Genco is a contributing writer to Mike the Gardener Enterprises, the exclusive home for the Seeds of the Month Club, and an avid vegetable gardener himself, who works for New England Financial as a financial services representative. You can contact him at joegenco@gmail.com.

Vegetable Gardening 1st News for Monday March 7th, 2011

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Gardening classes, boot camps that will show you how to maximize vegetable production, back yard chickens, raised beds and inexpensive gardening, all make up the topics of this morning's first news in vegetable gardening.


Chester County gardening news
Penn State Cooperative Extension in Chester County will hold a workshop, "Thinking of Starting a Vegetable Garden?," for residents interested in growing their own food.
http://pottsmerc.com/articles/2011/03/04/news/green/doc4d712734e828d653407086.txt

Vegetable gardening boot camp May 1 in Milan
University of Illinois Extension's Veggie Boot Camp offers information on how to maximize fruit and vegetable production to get the most from a garden.University of Illinois vegetable and herb specialist Charles Voigt...
http://qconline.com/archives/qco/display.php?id=533747

Vegetable gardening: Raising the bed improves your odds
There is a good chance you are among the multitude considering planting a vegetable garden this year. You may find yourself wondering where to start. Over the years I have humorously said ... http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-02-28/classified/sc-home-0228-garden-veggie-20110228_1_local-garden-club-soil-vegetable-gardening

Toward self-sufficiency: Family fills backyard with chickens, vegetable garden

As the weather warms and the brown landscape turns green, Stephanie Weyenberg's thoughts turn to planting for her family's early spring garden.
Gardening is more than just a hobby: She and her husband, Matt, grow most of the fruit and vegetables they eat. They also rely on...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jQ7yuhLwSb_jb1Y5MHLaLhHPHRPA?docId=6120792

Free Spring Gardening Classes Coming Soon

It's time to think about planting tomatoes, tending to rose plants and harvesting citrus. Spring in Calabasas is afoot. Free information and advice for the novice to experienced gardener will be offered in the form of...

http://calabasas.patch.com/articles/free-spring-garden-classes-in-calabasas

Gardening made easy, and deliciously inexpensive

Gagliardi is a horticulturalist for the American Horticultural Society, whose headquarters are located on land where George Washington's relatives used to farm. But like any backyard gardener, he says...

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/fitness-food/story/2011/03/Gardening-made-easy-and-deliciously-inexpensive/44563286/1

How to Control Corn Earworms in your Home Vegetable Garden

Earworms are also referred sometimes as the fruit worm. They look like caterpillars and can grow over an inch in length. Their color range can be green, brown, yellow or tan and have black or brown stripes on their sides.

They lay their eggs in the spring then continue to eat the silk of corn before it gets to the actual ear. However, this pesky insect does not just limit itself to corn. It also goes after beans, peas, peppers, potatoes, squash and tomatoes.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5425042_control-earworms-home-vegetable-garden.html

Home Vegetable Gardening: Concentrate on Planting

What does it mean to concentrate? By definition it means to focus in on something and ignore the surroundings. In home vegetable gardening the definition is fairly similar, except we do not ignore anything.

Think for a moment the last time you packed for that long vacation to the Caribbean to lay out on the sunny beaches to work on that tan. With all the travel restrictions these days, waiting in long lines at the airport, extra fees for that large red hard suitcase that you have, you make the most of every inch of space in your luggage so you can get through the airport “experience” rather quickly and without extra cost.

You stuff the sandals in pockets in your piece of luggage that you never knew existed, and then of course your favorite blue flowered Hawaiian shirt gets rolled up and stuffed into the sandals. In other words you make use of every inch space that you have.

Getting back to home vegetable gardening, concentration gardening is similar to packing that suitcase and that is to utilize every inch of space that you have available. Lets’ face it. For most of us that grow home vegetable gardens we do not have the land of Farmer Bob, although some people I know have the blue jean overalls and yellow straw hat, but we’ll save that for another conversation.

Because our space is limited and we want to grow lots of vegetables to feed our families, or help out friends, we have to make use of the space we were given. That is why we use concentrated planting in our vegetable gardens. This allows us to use all of the space without sacrificing the amount of vegetables and fruits produced by all of the plants.

To utilize the concentrated planting technique you have to plant vegetables that are deep rooted next to ones that are shallow rooted. For example, you can plant tomatoes next to radishes. When you do this you eliminate the space where weeds can grow and that is always a good thing. The soil retains more of its moisture and of course you get more produce.

Just make sure that when you do concentrate your plantings that you choose plants that will not compete for space and nutrients. Also, concentrated planting makes it difficult to use tools and machinery to pull out any weeds the garden may have, so those that do grow will need to be pulled by hand. If you have a small area that shouldn’t be a problem, and if your plantings are in a raised bed, it makes the efforts quite easy.

Concentration gardening gives us another tool and technique in our repertoire to make the most out of our growing seasons. Here in the Mid-Atlantic region of the country, our growing season starts around mid May and runs through mid October. Albeit a pretty good length of time for a growing season that has varying seasonal temperatures we still need to make the greatest effort to produce an abundant harvest.

If you are not using concentration methods in your garden then there is no better time then the present to start. When done correctly you will get more vegetables and fruit and pick fewer weeds and both equal a happy home vegetable gardener.

About the Author
Mike is the author of the book Vegetable Gardening for the Average Person: A guide to vegetable gardening for the rest of us. He can be reached at his wesbite: AveragePersonGardening.com where you can sign up for his free newsletter and he will send you a pack of vegetable seeds to get your home vegetable garden started.

Make Sure you are growing your home vegetable garden correctly!

Gardening: Tips to Better, Healthier Tomato Plants

Nothing screams vegetable garden more than a row of nice tomato plants. To me tomatoes are one of the easiest vegetables to grow. With a little know how, basic gardening skills and the tips I am about to give you, you should have no troubles either.

Go “Green” House that is
If you are looking to start your tomato plants by seed before your growing season begins, look towards a portable plastic greenhouse for best results. You can find them in any home or garden center for just a couple of dollars. They replicate the greenhouse affect on plants and allow for better germination. Once they come up they are ready to be moved outside.

Space
Now that you are ready to plant the tomato plants, regardless of whether you started them from seed or you bought them already up and ready to go, tomato plants need their space. I have my best success when they are at least 6 inches or more apart. Of course if space is limited you can go down to 4 but I would not go any less than that. The last thing you want is for the roots of your tomato plants to be fighting for space and nutrients.

Sun
Tomatoes love sun, especially the heat also. I have had great success planting my tomatoes in direct sunlight and when the temperatures warm up in the summertime there seems to be no end to the production. Find a nice sunny spot in your garden so your tomatoes will flourish.

Deep Planting
When it comes to bury your plants, you will want to plant them up to the first set of leaves. Tomatoes have deep rooting systems and the deeper they can get the better your plant will be.

Upright
I like to keep my tomato plants upright throughout the season. This will require the use of either a tomato cage or driving a stake in the ground next to the tomato plant that measures at least 4 feet out of the ground and sits no closer than two inches to the plant. If going the cage route you simple plant the tomato plant, and place the cage overtop. As the season progresses and your tomato plant gets larger just readjust the plant so it is growing up through the center of the cage and not out of one of the sides. If you are using the stake option, you will want to pound the stake into the ground first (I recommend no less than one foot deep), then plant your tomato plant. When the plants get large enough and start to look like they are falling over you should gently tie them to the stake with some soft cloth and readjust throughout the season as necessary. Both options are fine and it is really a matter of preference.

Prune
Once your tomato plants reach near 3 foot tall it is time to give them a good pruning. You should remove all of the bottom most layer of leaves to avoid any fungus problems that can occur. Remove any growth that occurs in the elbows or v shaped areas of the plant branches and the stem. They will not produce any tomatoes and are just using up valuable energy that could go towards fruit production.

Water
You should be watering all of your vegetables with a deep root watering technique which is watering the plants for a good 45 minutes to an hour. The roots of the plants need to get strong and a great way to do that is with deep watering so they have to reach for those deep water pockets in your soil.

So there you have it, my seven tips for better tomato plants that you can use in your next gardening season. Once you have great tasting tomatoes you will wonder why you never tried these methods sooner.

About the Author
Mike is the author of the book Vegetable Gardening for the Average Person. It is a practical easy to follow book that teaches gardeners everything from composting techniques, aeration and frost conditions, to choosing the right tools and picking the right seeds.