Fine Gardening Videos from The Home Vegetable Gardener Blog

Image via Wikipedia

There are some great gardening videos on the FineGardening.com website that I would recommend to anyone who has a home vegetable garden.  Along with the videos, they have hundreds of articles from preparing your garden soil to growing exotic vegetables.  Check out the videos here.  I would recommend the How to Prune Tomatoes video to start off.

Related articles

• Fine Gardening Videos from The Home Vegetable Gardener Blog (thehomevegetablegardener.com)
• My Vegetable Gardening Journey Begins… (thehomevegetablegardener.wordpress.com)
• So Long, Flowers… I’ll Miss You! (kenradaniels.com)
• Vegetable Garden Planner at Mother Earth News (eatdrinkbetter.com)
• Your Questions About Vegetable Garden Plans (glenns-garden.com)

Everything You Need To Know About Seeds – Part 3

Read our new article on our new domain, thehomevegetablegardener.com  If you are returning to our site as a WordPress.com member, please sign-up on the new website to continue getting notifications of our new blog posts.  We hope to see you soon.

New website for The Home Vegetable Gardener is Live

I just wanted to let everyone know that the new website for my blog, The Home Vegetable Gardener, is now live and on its own domain.  Please update your bookmarks to http://www.thehomevegetablegardener.com so you don’t miss anything.  Please sign up on the new site to continue getting emails from my blog.

I will also be working on the 3rd installment of the Everything You Need to Know About Seeds series so keep a watch out for this new post in the coming days.  I will be back to my regular posting schedule soon.  There are so many new things going on right now.

Future home of The Home Vegetable Gardener blog

It has been a couple days since my last post but don’t worry, I’m not gone.  I’ve been busy configuring my new home for this blog at http://thehomevegetablegardener.com and http://thehomevegetablegardener.info.  It should be up soon.  Don’t worry if you have this site bookmarked because I will also be transferring visitors to this blog site on WordPress.com over to my new home.  Hope to see you there soon.

Waiting stinks!

So my wife and I are buying a new house, well, a foreclosure actually.  But it will be new to us.  The problem seems to be the time it has taken for this process to get completed.  It’s still not completed and my patience is wearing thin, very thin.  We started this process in October of LAST year and the seller (big bank) didn’t properly foreclose on the home so the deed wasn’t executed into their name properly.  We have been waiting for them to sign the foreclosure deed (also known as an Executed DUP (deed under power of sale)) which was FINALLY signed last week and certified valid by their attorney.  The problem is they did not send the deed and the paperwork for closing to my closing attorney yet like they said they would do last Thursday.  It could be another couple weeks according to my mortgage company so another round of hurry up and wait is projected.

Now you are probably asking yourself “what does this have to do with gardening?”  A lot!  This new house will be MY house which means I can finally have my own garden.  I’ve been renting for 3 years now a nice home from a good friend but I have been reluctant to dig up his yard for a garden.  Instead,  I built two 4×8 raised beds for my gardening needs.  Although I have had good success with this setup, I really want to have a much larger garden so I can plant more varieties.  I’m not sure what I will do with the two raised beds at this point.  I will probably leave them for the next renter.

I’m so sick of waiting but waiting we must do it seems.  Just think of the great posts I will have when we finally move into the new house.  From garden prep to composting options to planting some asparagus for my wonderful wife to enjoy for years to come.  Please pray for us but not for the house to close soon, but for patience.  The house is an object that I doubt will interest the Lord Almighty into action but to pray for patience is just the thing that the Lord would grant.  :)

Community Gardens

According to the American Community Gardening Association (ACGA), there were 20,000 community gardens nationwide in 2010.  With the economy still in decline in the US, I would guess this number has grown considerably.  If anyone is interested in forming a community garden in their area, the ACGA offers some tips on starting a community garden.

• Form a planning committee to determine the interest level
• Choose a site – taking sunlight, soil quality and water availability into consideration
• Organize the garden by determining, among other things, plot sizes and conditions for membership
• Consider insurance
• Consider a formal leadership structure to make decisions and raise money

Community Garden Survey

Curious to know more about the state of community gardens in North America? The American Community Garden Association and Rutgers University invite you take part in a survey of ACGA members across the U.S. and Canada. We began an online survey in November, and to date, we’ve received survey responses from 186 organizations representing 145 cities. Thank you to all who filled out the survey. And to those who haven’t: there is still time!

Click on this link to see an interactive map of the information we’ve collected to date.

We’ve developed a shorter survey to encourage as many responses as possible. This survey will be open from December 15 until February 15, 2012. Please follow this link to complete the survey, (password: acga). Thank you for your time and input!

---

Everything You Need to Know About Seeds – Part 2

In part 2 of the series “Everything You Need to Know About Seeds – Part 1“, we will discuss how to start seeds in your garden or in starter trays.

How to Start Seeds

Some basic items that you will need to start your garden from seed are containers such as purchased pots, seed flat trays, peat pots, egg cartons or yogurt cups (eat the yogurt first of course).  You can use just about anything that has good drainage and can hold soil as a container for starting your seeds.  You should also use a good quality, soil-less mix, whether you mix this yourself or purchase it from the home goods store is up to you.  You should also invest in some good quality labels (I use Popsicle sticks from a craft store) because without a label, you will easily forget what was planted.  Trust me.  I would also recommend some clear plastic bags or plastic covers to help hold in moisture and heat until the plants pop up through the soil.  The obvious additional items needed would be water and a light source (the sun is great if you have a bright window or grow lights if you don’t).  Finally, you will need some seeds.

To Compost or Not to Compost

I have always wanted to build a compost bin so I can harvest “black gold” for my garden vegetables.  But, this concept has alluded me for years now.  I know it is supposed to be very easy to compost garden and yard waste (waste as in plant materials), but I have just been too lazy to start a compost bin.  Every year I review dozens of composting bins that you can buy as well as build and I promise myself that I will start composting.  I also spent hours reading about worm composting, also known as vermiculture, but there has always been some reason to not pursue it.  This back and forth is going to stop this year though.  I will build a compost bin.  I will do it this year, after we purchase our new house……There I go again, excuses.

I need some help from my readers now.  Since this is the year to build that compost bin, I would like to hear from my readers on the best BUILT, not bought, compost bin that works for you or someone you know.  I have a dozen plans in my head and have read hundreds of articles on composting but I don’t trust some of the websites that I have read with telling me the absolute truth about the matter.  Has anyone tried worm composting?  What worked for you or didn’t work?

I’m still working on the 2nd article of the “Everything You Need to Know About Seeds” series and will have it up sometime this week.  Stay tuned.

Diatomaceous Earth and You

I watched an interesting video this morning about an organic and natural solution to killing insects on your garden plants.  I don’t know if I would ever use this product but it seems like a good way to organically kill those pesky pests without resorting to chemicals.

Check out the video here Diatomaceous Earth

Time For a Garden Tiller – Reviews

It’s almost that time of year again.  You know the time I speak of, right?  Garden Time!  As of this writing, we are about to close on our new house and I will need to break ground on a new garden.  I have been researching garden tillers for about a month now but I haven’t found the perfect one yet.  There are so many to choose from.  I would appreciate any advice on which tiller to purchase.

Soil Testing

The size of a garden usually helps to dictate the size of the garden tiller.  In my case, I am planning on a modest 30×50 that gets plenty of sun and is not shaded except in late evening when the sun dips behind the house.