Setup a Hydroponic Garden for Year Round Growing
November 19, 2009 by admin
Filed under Growing Tips
What's a garden without dirt? Hydroponics! While a whole lot of effort is put into tending to the soil in our gardens, soil itself is only the nutrient reservoir and otherwise totally inessential to growing plants. Provide the food source in water and your plants will grow just as hardily without a drop of dirt.
US $24.99
Whether you live in a New York high-rise, the desert of Arizona or Minnesota in the winter, hydroponics make it possible to grow fresh vegetables and herbs all year around.
Hydroponic kits are available in all shapes, sizes and price ranges. Some are even pretty enough to put on a kitchen counter to make clipping herbs into salads or soups quick and easy. For do-it-yourselfer, with a few supplies you can construct a system in an afternoon. Which ever way you go, the basics of a home hydroponic system is simple.
Containers
- For DYI, fish tanks make the perfect hydroponic reservoir because they are solid, meant to hold water and have equal top/bottom dimensions. Any container with similar qualities will work just as well.
- Whether purchased or made, your container needs to block light or you will soon have algae growing along with your plants. If using a fish tank or other clear container, spray it with black paint or cover with black plastic or fabric.
Lights
- Essential if your hydroponics garden will be indoors.
- If you have a full scale greenhouse operation, use lights as needed.
Support
- Lacking soil something needs to hold the plants upright.
- You can use Styrofoam or Rockwool.
- If you opt for Styrofoam you will need to cut it about one-quarter inch smaller than your container as well as cutting a hole for the air pump hose and holes for your net pots. Your Styrofoam will float in the water so made sure it is able to rise and lower easily - thus the benefit of an even dimensioned container.
- Rockwool is a growing medium that can be purchased in sheets or blocks/cubes. They must either come with center holes for placing your plant or you must cut your own. Rockwool isn't wool at all but is made from molten rock. It's used in hydroponics as well as for rooting cuttings.
Net pots
- These individual plant pots look like doll size clothes baskets.
- You will place plants in your net pot then into the Styrofoam or Rockwool and finally into the container.
Air pump
- Plants will not live by nutrients alone.
- Without air circulating oxygen to the bottom of the container and the roots, your plants will soon be taking their last breath.
- Air pumps come from mini to industrial sizes.
- Just make sure it runs quietly if you share living space with your hydroponics system.
Nutrient Solution
- If there is anywhere you can go more wrong in hydroponics, it's with your fertilizer.
- Too little will product weak, spindly plants and too much will burn your plant to death.
- Chose hydroponics nutrient solution only as your plants need a full spectrum of nutrients, trace minerals and anti-microbial agents to kill off fungus.
- Follow directions carefully but also use your eyes, instincts and a meter to increase or decrease feeding.
pH and Nutrient Monitoring
- Yes, there is a meter for that.
- Monitoring the pH and nutrient levels in your hydroponic garden will help your plants grow healthier and produce abundantly and let you sleep better at night knowing you did it right.
Best Indoor Plants for Bonsai
November 13, 2009 by admin
Filed under Indoor Gardening
People in every culture have been decorating with potted plant for centuries. However, no container plant has had more attention than the Bonsai. This potted miniature tree's popularity took seed around 1800 in Japan when it evolved from the Chinese Penzai into an art form and was renamed Bonsai. The oldest known living bonsai tree is in the Tokyo Imperial Palace. It is thought to be at least 500 years old; making its way in the world in 1610.
If you want to train a bonsai, understand that it is an art form not a specific plant. Traditionally, bonsai are outdoor trees and do not adapt well to the warmth of the typical home. However, its popularity, especially in American, has prompted the cultivation of tropical and sub-tropical trees for indoor use.
While you can train any woody plant into a bonsai, the evergreen and other temperate trees will not fare well indoor without some skill and exquisite care. Make life and the art of bonsai easy by investing in one of these beautiful indoor plants that will happily be sculpted to your artist heart's desire.
Best Indoor Plants for Bonsai
 Click to Buy Baby Jade |
Crassula ovata arborescens or the BABY JADE plant is a very popular succulent bonsai. Native to South Africa with round, pale green leaves. Jades store water in their fleshy leaves as well as their trunk and branches. They require less care than the average bonsai. Just make sure they are dry before you water again. They can also stand less than bright full light. |
| Dracaena marginata or DRAGON PLANT is a palm style bonsai. Native to Madagascar, the Dragon has a thin trunk and center focused mass of narrow pointed green leaves with gorgeous red to purple stripes. Dragons are easy to care for as long as you don't over water. They can tolerate less than full light. The Dragon is especially healthful for your home's air quality. |
 Click to Buy a Dragon |
| Ficus neriifolia or WILLOW LEAF FIG is also known as the Mexician Ficus. It has small enlongated, light green leaves and is a natural for the the traditional bonsai size and shape.
Shown is the Shohin (tiny thing) bonsai. Shohin should not exceed 10" in height. It has all the beauty of a large tree in miniature. Does well in low and moderate lighting. |
 Click to Buy Willow Fig |
| Schefflera arboricola or HAWAIIAN UMBRELLA TREE is one of the most popular indoor bonsai. It has tiny dense green umbrella shaped leaves that form a little canopy. Tolerates low light but doesn't like to dry out. Easier to train that the standard bonsai and can be done with just some pinching and pruning. It is not the best choice if you have children and pets because all parts are poisonous Recommend for the inexperienced or green thumb challenged. |
 Click to Buy Hawaiian Umbrella |
Easy Grow Mushrooms for a Gourmet Bounty
November 5, 2009 by admin
Filed under Growing Tips
To the average gardener, growing mushrooms can seem a little alien because they seem to fly in the face of all gardening logic.
Fungi are classified as a kingdom as opposed to the more earthly known plants and animals. A mushroom garden can add a little gourmet to your harvest and you may just fall in love with growing this quirk of nature.
Good For You
Not only do they make a delicious addition to pizza and stir fry, mushroom are high in fiber, protein, B vitamins, selenium, potassium and phosphorus. You can easily grow most species of mushrooms including Shiitake, Reishi, Maitake, Oyster and the popular button.
Easy Grow How-To
Although you can grow your own spawn (fungi speak for seedlings) from spore (think seeds) and use mediums from mature to coffee grounds, the easiest way to produce a healthy, bountiful flush (harvest) is to purchase sterilized spawn and inoculate (fungi speak for plant) in a log.
- Just think of the last place you would grow anything. Mushroom need a dark, humid and cool environment so grow them in a garage, shed, basement, cellar or outbuilding. If your climate and yard allows (dark and dank), grow outdoors.
- Mushrooms are grown on hardwood. You will need a 3-4 foot log, cut 4-12 weeks prior to inoculating.
- Don't use a fresh cut log as it still has the tree's natural fungicide compounds and will kill your spawn. Likewise don't use an aged log as its nutrient and sugar content has depleted.
- Select oak, poplar, elm, maple or alder. Avoid cedar and pine as they are too aromatic.
- Purchase sterilized plug spawn.
- To inoculate your hardwood with the spawn, drill 2" deep holes at 4" intervals in your log.
- You should drill about 40 holes in a 3-4 foot log.
- Pound the spawn plugs into the holes with a hammer (one per hole).
- Seal the holes with a fine coat of melted paraffin wax to prevent insects from feasting on your spawn.
- Inoculate prior to the winter freeze as the spawn will need to go dormant in winter.
- Stand your log on end; just lean it up against something.
- Water every few weeks; never let the log dry out.
- Colonizing can take 9-12 months.
- Your logs have begun "fruiting" when you see dark mottling on the cut ends.
- You can force fruiting by submerging your log in cold water for 24 hours (or putting out in heavy rain) and then hitting it with a hammer or dropping it a rock (aliens!). This arouses the primal instinct of the fungi who apparently think the tree has fallen and it's time to produce.
- Once established and given the right growing conditions, your fungi will fruit in flushes for years.
- Harvest your mushroom with a sharp knife.
- Should you want a steady supply of mushrooms for the whole family, inoculate 1-2 dozen logs.
- By re-soaking with a 6-8 week resting period you can rotate through the logs and be totally flushed in mushrooms year round.
- Start a new crop every year or two.
An even easier way to grow your own mushrooms and make a fun project for the kids is to buy mushroom kits. There are kits for most gourmet mushrooms prepared just right for their specific species and ready to fruit in just weeks. Mushrooms make a great new hobby and a meal too!
