Waterloo

Plants Have Preferences The key is to match plants' needs with your conditions, 

and to help them get established. It's good to know where to put what kind of 

plant, knowing what a plant needs will allow it to thrive.

One sign that they are thriving is their physical health

Succulents like aloe do not need a lot of water, while lucky bamboo practically 

lives in water; but these are both very different plants from quite different 

regions of the world. Pay attention to your plant's preferences when potting it; 

if your plant likes water, try using a water absorbent additive like prelate or 

perhaps vermiculite. Alternatively, if you plant needs good drainage, you may 

want to add more sand or rocks to your mix.

Before I knew much about proper soil mixes, my over-watering habit led to the 

idea of me putting a tube from an air pump into the soil of a potted plant. 

Experimenting and practice taught me how to over-water my plants less often, but 

the plant really loved getting extra oxygen to it's roots.

Another habit I've developed for checking soil moisture is sticking bamboo 

skewers into the soil (away from the roots of course) and pulling it out, then 

checking it like you would with a dipstick to check a car's oil levels. I've 

used these long, thing dowels to something help dry up over-watered soil by 

creating a small hole in the soil for air to flow through.

I'm not completely certain how to water a plant according to the size of it's 

container (or maybe the age of the plant). Equations exist to help you figure 

out how much to water. I'll fight my nature and attempt to perform math, in the 

future I'll post my findings. Perhaps I should post some sort of disclaimer 

ahead of time? 

Confession time

I've been a naughty naughty gnome.  I haven't really been in the garden much (shame-shame I know).  What can I say?  Cinco De Mayo was recently and so was the Kentucky Derby, everyone knows fun is hard for a gnome to resist.  I finally made it out to the garden area the other day, and planted some beautiful perennials in some lush soil..inside an old wheelbarrow.  I think it looks pretty nice. 

Gardening Gnome

It was a beautiful sun-shiny day, and what a perfect time to plant veggies in the new bed of soil.

Soil

Soil

Ah good ole' dirt, digging in the dirt reminds me of being a kid. In modern times many of us are not immersed in the production of our own food, so we only know so much about how to make life work it's magic.So you dig a whole in the ground, plant a seed, water it and wait for the sun to do it's thing and life to begin. Ah farming is such easy, simply work isn't it?

 

For those of you like me who want your plants to do well, you'll need more than just plain ole' dirt, you need soil comprised of various parts to help promote plant life in various methods. Not all soils are built the same, given the right kind of soil mixture your plant may not simply live, but thrive. There are a number of things to factor in but for the sake of simplicity I'm going to just start off with an easy mix of:

1 part sand

1 part organic potting soil

1 part peat moss

and a couple handfuls of small rocks

The sand allows stability and aeration through the soil. Potting soil is premixed from a variety of components, I'm going to go with organic potting soil that has no pesticides or added chemicals. Ideally I want to grow something where I could pluck fruit off of the plant, rinse it off and eat it without worrying about strangely named chemicals. Peat moss can be substituted with a number of things, though I like it because it helps en richen your soil by promoting life within the soil, not just popping out of the top of a pot.

Small pebbles or tiny aquarium rocks are great for soil because they provide stability for root systems as well as breaking up the soil, promoting good soil drainage and aeration of your soil.

Depending on the type of plant you have, your soil will vary of course but this is a good agricultural base for me to work with. You want your soil to be able to breath and promote life within itself in order to promote a life to come from it. As a rule of thumb, you'll want dark, hummus rich soil that does not contain too much clay (a little clay is good, it adds stability to the soil).

There is plenty more to say about your soil, like Ph balance and nutrients, but this will all come in time. Let's hope I don't simply end up killing a bunch of seeds!

Until next time

Spring is garden time

Don't you love how Spring really seems to jumpstart things into truly living? I do too, which is why I have a couple of houseplants I suppose.
I've always loved gardening and would do more if I had the space. I figured writing things down in a blog could be entertaining as well as informative to potential readers. Also I hear I can become like a billionaire super quick if I write a blog, wish me luck!
Here's what I have figured out
Plants essentially need three things to live; water, light and nutrients.
This isn't a major epiphany to most folks, but I figure I'll share as I learn.
Spring has sprung and since I'm going to try my hand at some gardening, I decided to record it all in a blog. Hopefully I can share something you'll find interesting.
I'm going to set a goal for myself since I'm a beginner and still learning. I'm going to try to see what I can grow that I can eat. I'm not a farmer, I grew up in Portland, Oregon in a more urban setting.
I'd like to see what I can learn to grow, something I can eat or use. If I grow something toxic I'm not going to eat it live on a web cam so don't hold your breath, my apologies.
Thanks for visiting and please come back soon, I'm aiming to update this weekly at least.
:)