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Vegetable Gardening

Square Foot Gardening

Square Foot Gardening | Arid Agriculture
Square Foot Gardening

Introduction

Square Foot Gardening is an innovative and advance technique of planning small but intensively planted gardens at home. Mel Bartholomew is considered as the pioneer to coin the term Square Foot Gardening. The beauty of this farming technique resides in its application of organic farming techniques combined with other innovative methods to get more and better production from a small piece of land especially in vegetable gardens.

Square Foot Gardening  includes the application of organic gardening techniques along with strong emphasis on composting methods, planting the plants closely and intensively, making raised beds and also bio intensive attention to a small yet clearly defined area of garden.   

Square Foot Gardening

Importance of Square Foot Gardening

The success of this technique lies in the fact that this method is quite beneficial in those areas where the gardener is facing the problem of poor quality of soil. By selecting a confined area for gardening, that plot can be modifies according to the desire and best quality of output as well as production can be obtained. This technique is equally beneficial for those who are new to vegetable gardening or backyard gardening. It is also proved to be a recreational activity for the people with disabilities those allowing them to enjoy the leisure time efficiently.

Method of Square Foot Gardening

The basic idea behind this technique is using an open bottomed box that is placed on the soil that contain finite amount of soil. This soil is then divided into various sections according to the desire using grids. To get good quality and quantity of production from vegetable gardening crops each square would be planted with different kind of crop plants. In case of ornamental gardening, the Square Foot gardening is equally beneficial in a sense that spate type of flowers can be grown in each square to increase the aesthetic sense of the garden.   

Square Foot Farming 1 | Arid Agriculture
Square Foot Farming 1

Vegetable Gardening Recommendation for Square Foot Gardening

The Square Foot gardening can be used differently for different types of crops. For instance, a single Tomato plant might consume a full square. Similarly, herbs like Oregano, Mint or Basil also consume a full square. On the other hand, Strawberry plants can be planted four per square. In case of vegetables, sixteen radishes can also be planted and grown per square.

The smaller beds used in square foot gardening are helpful in easy adaptation of the farmer with his/her garden. He can have reach to every single inch of the entire area for gardening practices by avoiding direct stepping on the soil ad making it compact.  

Square Foot Gardening is Effective for Weed Control

Square Foot Gardening  is effective for weed control in a sense that a weed barrier can be made beneath the square foot box. At the bottom of the box, it can be filled with a combination of one third of decayed Sphagnum (peat moss), one third of compost and one third of vermiculture.

Cite this Article in APA Style as:

[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” ]Rahman, M. A. (2018, March 20). Square Foot Gardening [Blog Post]. Retrieved from http://aridagriculture.com/2018/03/20/square-foot-gardening/ [/box]

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Vegetable Gardening

Ultimate Guide to Prepare a Winter Vegetable Garden

Winter vegetable garden | fall vegetable garden | Arid Agriculture
Guide to Prepare a Winter Vegetable Garden

Introduction

As summer takes its final breaths, it’s time to pull ourselves together to prepare for a winter vegetable garden. With the arrival of cool morning breeze, this change in temperature directs us towards getting equip with all the resources needed for preparing a perfect fall vegetable garden. It is the time to welcome new seeds in your vegetable garden. Your autumn garden is all set to accept these new seeds to be sowed for winter vegetable garden.

This article is dedicated to urban dirt lovers to guide them for preparing a perfect winter vegetable garden. This will ensure healthy supply of organic food as meals on their dining tables during cold day lunches, supper and dinner.  

There are certain steps that should be carried out in your winter vegetable garden while preparing to face cold breezes and to have your kitchen basket full of fresh veggies all the season.

Removal of Debris

At the start of autumn garden should be treated as your child who needs to be pampered before the winter comes around. Autumn season is perfect to do all necessary actions to make your garden ready for winter crops.

In addition to this, autumn garden should be tackled in such a way that it strengthens the vegetable garden for the next two season viz., winter and summer.

So, first step to prepare for winter vegetable garden is to make sure that all the dead plants and other debris are removed and cleaned out from the soil. Any deceased plant left, can cause the spread of a disease. A dirty vegetable garden means unhealthy gardening. So start with cleaning the garden.

On the other hand, healthy left over’s of plants or plant debris should be mixed with the compost to make the soil healthy and nutritious. Adding them into the crops of vegetable garden optimize the drainage, expose oxygen, release compaction and enriches the soil.

Adding Strength to the Soil of Winter Vegetable Garden

In my opinion, using chemicals in your soil during preparations of winter vegetable garden will be quite harmful especially when there is another way out. The soil can be enhanced and enriched by adding compost (homemade compost or commercial compost), vermicompost, compost tea, cover crops and animals manure. In case of animal manure, animals should also be fed with the organic feed. This will be less expensive and completely natural.

It should be kept in mind that, your vegetable garden is exhausted producing all those crops during spring and summer, spending so much energy and nutrition.

Amongst the wide range of options available for adding strength to the soil, fall is the season to flourish your fall vegetable garden and make it healthy and refresh all over again.

On the other hand, winter rains carry lots of nutrition which get buried deep underground in the soil. So I suggest tilling vegetable garden soil as it is important if you want to avoid surface run off.

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Vegetable Gardening

4 Natural Bug Repellents in Gardening

Natural Bug Repellents | Pest Control | Bugs in the garden
Natural Bug Repellents

Introduction

The most important thing I have learnt from my 10 years gardening experience so far is the controlling of weeds and bugs in the garden whether it is vegetable garden or flowering garden. I have covered the control of weeds in one of my previous articles. Another query I receive a lot from my readers is regarding what are natural bug repellents in the gardening niche?

Also Read : Five Cheap DIY ways to Kill Home and Kitchen Garden Weeds

In pest control domain, bugs are the mega-annoying creatures that not only hurt darling plants and your feelings, but also their presence in any part of your home is irritating. There are many bug repellents available in the market, but being proponent of organic control of weeds and bugs, I prefer to control bugs through natural bug repellents.

If you are dealing with bugs in the garden, then top notch strategy is to use those plants that have property of being natural bug repellents. This article will discuss 4 natural bug repellents for dirt lovers. Even if you have pest control in mind, that is, controlling bugs in any other part of home, the below list of 4 natural bug repellent plants will be equally beneficial.

1 Basil

In a vegetable garden, utilizing crisp basil as natural bug repellent is a good strategy. To make a creepy crawly repellent shower,  basic formula calls for pouring 4 ounces of bubbling water into a compartment holding 4 to 6 ounces of perfect, new basil leaves (stems can be connected). Giving leaves a chance to soak for a few hours, expelling the leaves and pressing the majority of the leaves’ dampness into the blend will make the solution stronger.

At that point altogether blend 4 ounces of (shoddy!) vodka with the basil-water blend. Store in the icebox and apply as a shower while going outside. Make certain to keep the shower far from your eyes, nose and mouth.

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Vegetable Gardening

How to do Worm Farming for Vegetable Garden?

Vermicomposting for Vegetable Garden
Vermicomposting for Vegetable Garden

Introduction

Technically, worm farming is called as vermiculture or vermicomposting. It is a tremendous way to minimize food waste generated in your kitchen. This kitchen waste, which is organic in nature, is the source of food for the worms present in the soil. The organic waste is used by the worms as food. They decompose it into nutrient rich material. As this decomposing is carried out in the soil, the nutritious material made by the worms is readily available for the plant growth in your vegetable garden.

How Worm Farming is Beneficial?

Worm farming or Vermicompost plays a vital role in improving soil texture, structure and aeration. It also adds strength to the soil in terms of increasing water-holding capacity of the soil. The vegetables you grow will develop a deep and strong root system that is beneficial to fight diseases and sustain under harsh conditions.

The output of worms which is also called as wormpoop or worm castings is perfect to generate top soil in vegetable gardening. On the other hand, the fluid produced in the process of vermicomposting is used as fertilizer. The excess fluid can be stored in a bottle for later use.  Similarly, vermicomposting also adds valuable microorganisms to the soil. The advantage of these microorganisms is that they, along with the soil fauna, aid in breaking organic materials and convert nutrients into a more readily available food form for the plants

Another benefit of worm farming is that, you can use your organic kitchen waste in vermiculture instead of going to throw or landfill it.

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Vegetable Gardening

How to Grow Cucumber in Your Vegetable Garden?

How to Grow Cucumber in Vegetable Garden?

Introduction

Sorry for a long gap. I was busy in cleaning up my vegetable garden and preparing it for winters. My preference for winter is to cultivate underground veggies like Turnip, Radish, Garlic, Sugar Beet and Beet Root. I have prepared the raised beds now with added compost. However, keeping in view the vegetable gardening calendar, there is plenty of time left in winters for my Cucumbers to give me some more organic and fresh fruits. I have been growing Cucumber for the last 7 years and believe me they are so easy to grow and require less care. So today, I am going to write on how to grow Cucumbers in your vegetable garden?

Cucumber in Vegetable Garden

Without Cucumber, I feel my kitchen garden empty. Usually, I use my own seeds, saved from last year harvest. An advantage of having Cucumber in vegetable garden is that, they occupy less ground and vines can be propagated in any way you want. Vegetable garden looks greenish and soothing to eyes and its fruit gives you a fine style of health and happiness with a condition that you are using compost not the synthetic fertilizer. A Cucumber plant adds yellow flowers and curling tendrils to your vegetable garden.

Climatic and Soil Condition Required for Cucumbers

There are two types of Cucumber; the Bush Cucumbers and Vining Cucumber. I prefer Vining ones for vegetable gardens because of the foliage and less ground occupation plus the growth is fast and fruits are abundant than Bush variety.

Cucumber is usually warm season vegetable and thrives well when ground temperature is around 60 to 70 F. The soil pH should be around 7. A fertile soil is the chief demand by a Cucumber plant. Use compost for adding desired nutrients. You may also use aged manure for this purpose.

Sowing the Cucumber

For vegetable garden sowing, plant the seeds 1 inch deep in soil. The distance for Bush variety should be 30-60 inches and at least 1 foot distance should be maintained in case of Vine Cucumbers. For transplants, they should be sown 2 inches deep while distance should be same as mentioned earlier

Soil Condition

The soil requirement is moist and well drainage should be characteristic of the soil. Soggy soil is the enemy of your Cucumber plant. A soil, mixed with compost results in healthy and fast growth in vegetable garden.

Managing the Vines

A trellis is the best option for allowing the vines to climb especially when the space is an issue. Trellising is preferred to safeguard the fruit from damage from lying on the damp ground.

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Vegetable Gardening

How to Grow Lettuce Leaves in a Container?

How to Grow Lettuce Leaves
Growing Lettuce in a Container

Introduction

Today, I am going to share my experience of how to grow lettuce in a container placed anywhere in your kitchen or vegetable garden. Lettuce is a kind of vegetable that can be grown all-round the year in any climatic conditions. On top of it, its nutritious value is high and is best suited food ingredient for people who are on a diet. Low in saturated fats and sodium, lettuce is rich in;

  • Thiamin
  • Iron
  • Vitamin B6
  • Potassium

In addition to this, it is a good supplier of;

  • Dietary Fiber
  • Folate
  • Manganese
  • Vitamin A
  • Vitamin C
  • Vitamin K

Vegetable Gardening for Beginners: a Complete Guide

Lettuce in Urban Gardening Containers

Urban gardening is gaining popularity these days as it can add a joyous activity in your daily busy and hectic life. On the other hand, it also adds fresh and juicy vegetables for your meals and a healthy life style.

Lettuce

Salads are a vital part of our food, offering lots of valuable vitamins with least calories, thus ideal food for diet conscious people. For this purpose, lettuce are easy to grow in container of your vegetable garden that will return you with multiple harvests. Growing lettuce in kitchen garden can be an amazing experience for the beginners.

Below lines will guide you with the steps of how to grow lettuce in a container of your kitchen garden.

What do you Need?

Lettuce plant allows you multiple harvests, i.e. as you collect the leaves, new ones grow in place of older. For this reason, it is very important to have;

  • Proper quality potting soil
  • Good quality seeds.
  • Right size container

Recommended Container & Potting Soil for Growing Lettuce

Soil: First step in how to grow lettuce is the selection of proper soil. Good quality potting soil is available in the near nursery store while many online stores also offer potting soils for lettuce. Just be sure that potting soil for lettuce should have a mix of soil, peat or compost and vermiculite or perlite. This soil mix allows good water retention that is best suited for lettuce in containers.

Seeds: There are various varieties available for growing lettuce in a container. In fact when you search for a variety of lettuce, you will be amazed that there are endless varieties of lettuce available. My recommendation is to select the variety you like the most. This is because, different varieties taste differently. Among many, you can chose;

  • Crisphead
  • Butterhead
  • Lose leaf
  • Summer Crisp
  • Little Gem
Lettuce Varieties for Container Farming

What I have grown in container of my vegetable garden is Little Gem variety. This variety was originated in France. You will find this variety crunchy, sweet in taste with miniature heads of lettuce that are full of nooks and crannies.  Little Gem variety of lettuce is best for salad dressing and can be cooked for food.

Container: The container should have an appropriate size with drainage holes. My container size is 12 inch and it has already given me 3 harvests and still lettuce plants are performing well. The container should have appropriate size because as the lettuce plant grows the root system also expands.

Growing Lettuce in a Container

Sowing the Lettuce

Now you have reached the most important phase of growing lettuce in container. Choose the place that has good access to sunlight. Lettuce loves sunlight. Its large green leaves love to do photosynthesis a lot. So it is highly recommended to move the container into a brighter space with at least 8 hours sunlight access.

Now moving to the sowing phase, fill your container with potting soil up to an inch or even two centimeters below the rim. For direct sowing, place the seed 1/4 to 1/2 half inch deep and then cover with soil. The soil should be moistened.

It is recommended to sow your seeds 4 to 6 inches apart. on the contrary, I have sown my Little Gem lettuce seeds 3 inch apart and I am getting good produce of lettuce in container. However, if you are planning to cultivate Lose Leaf variety of lettuce, 4-6 inch distance is a must. Remember that the seedbed of your lettuce in container never dry out.

Sowing Lettuce Seeds

Caring the Growing Lettuce in Container

Now you have passed the important steps of growing lettuce in a container. Wait for germination. Usually it takes 5 to 10 days for germinating. Your newly born tiny lettuce plants need your care. Following are few points that should be taken care of while growing lettuce in a container.

  • Never add synthetic fertilizer to your lettuce in container of urban garden. The objective of having fresh and organic vegetable garden grown lettuce will die at the moment you add a pinch of fertilizer. So avoid it. The potting soil is already rich in nutrients.
  • Add compost ‘if’ needed.

Prepare Your Compost at Home. How? Here is my DIY Article on Making Compost at Home

  • If temperature is around your kitchen garden is more than 30oC, move your container to a shady place. This is the biggest advantage of growing lettuce in a container to customize it in any manner you need.
  • Avoid drying of soil in your lettuce container.

Believe me, the result of all the previous steps and caring you will add to the growing lettuce in container will result in lush green and healthy lettuce leaves. They will be ready to cut right after six weeks after sowing. You can harvest them with a sharp knife but try to harvest little, just the amount you needed.

Germinating Lettuce

 Hey Guys, don’t forget to like and share this post below. It will be a boost-up for me.

Happy Growing and Eating 🙂

Cite this Article in APA Style as:

[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” ]Rahman, M. A. (2017, September 16). How to Grow Lettuce Leaves In a Container? [Blog Post]. Retrieved from http://aridagriculture.com/2017/09/16/how-to-grow-lettuce-leaves-in-a-container[/box]

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