How to Properly Plant Tomatoes

Tomatoes love heat, so find a well drained area in full sun (at least 8 hours per day) with organically rich soil (pH 6.0 to 7.0). Tomatoes are heavy feeders and need an appropriate balance of N-P-K (nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium). However, don't overdo the nitrogen for this can lead to vigorous plant growth with lots of foliage, but few tomatoes. On the other hand, yellowing leaves are indicative of too little nitogen. A lack of phosphorous presents itself by foliage which takes on a purplish cast and late flowering; a potassium deficiency delays growth and diminishes yields.

With planting there are pitfalls. Planting too early is the most common mistake. The best method for preventing this is to call your local county extension office and ask for the last expected frost date, and plant one week after that date. There is no need to rush in the garden, the larger, spindly seedlings are quickly caught or outdone by smaller, younger plants. (Also, if you purchase transplants, look for stocky, dark green plants with no yellow flowers). When your planting day arrives, nighttime temperature should stay above 50 degrees F. Dig a bowling ball sized hole for each plant. Add a shovelful of compost and a tablespoonful of epsom salt (calcium) in each hole, and plants seedlings deeply, at least up to the first set of branches, to promote a strong root system.

If you plan to start your own seed instead of purchasing transplants, plant seeds 1/4 inch deep in flats containing cells. Plant two seeds in each cell - filled with potting soil. Keep temperature about 75 degrees F, and seeds will germinate in approximately 1 week. Be sure flats are in full sun. After seedlings have their first leaves, remove the weaker of the two. To promote early fruiting, keep the daytime temperature at 65 degrees F, and nightime at 55 degrees F. Fertilize weekly using a diluted 10-10-10 liquid fertilizer. As the seedlings grow, transplant them into larger and larger containers. Every time you repot, plant seedlings deeper than they were in their previous pot. This encourages new root growth along the stem.

Whether you transplant your own seedlings or store bought transplants your soil should be healthy and rich with organic matter. However, to ensure large yields, side-dress your plants with 2 tablespoonfuls of a slow release granular 10-10-10 fertilizer two weeks after transplanting, after the first flowers appear, when the fruits are golf ball sized, and after the first ripe tomato.

Michael McAfee
http://yourtomatogarden.com/

Visit my website at the above link to learn four generations of my family's homegrown tomato secrets.
Your Tomato Garden, Tomato Garden

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Harvesting an Herb Plant

An herb plant has many uses. While often used for cooking, other common uses are making herbal tea, air freshening, beauty treatments, and herbal remedies for those feeling ill. Whenever an herb plant is used, certain parts of the plant must be harvested.

As an herb gardener who wants to utilize his or her herbal garden to its full potential, you must know when to harvest and when to use the different parts of an herb plant. For example, many herb used for cooking use the leaves and/or thin branches or stalks of the plant. Flowers can be used also, but once flowers appear leaves can no longer be used.

An herb plant, like any other plant has a goal of creating seeds in order to multiply during the next growing season. Once flowers appear, all the plant's energies go into blossoming and creating and fertilizing the seeds or seed pods. This process means the plant begins to neglect its leaves, and so the leaves lose their flavor or sometimes turn bitter. This is why it is important for you to know all the uses of your herbs, it will allow you to harvest almost everything.

When harvesting an herb plant, think about what you're going to use it for. In the beginning, only leaves and stalks will appear, and this is usually good for cooking, beauty and home remedies or making tea. You will only need a few leaves from plant at any given time, so be sure that you only take what you need and do not over-harvest. When an herb plant is over-harvested it can die. Look up recipes that require leaves of plants (most recipes usually require leaves only), and you can begin using your herbs!

Once an herb plant begins to flower you are given several choices. You can nip the flower at the buds, allowing you to continue using the leaves at full flavor. You can allow the flowers to bloom and harvest the flowers or petals themselves, allowing you to create other different dishes, other beauty and home remedies, and make other teas. Or you can allow the flowers to bloom and let the petals fall, allowing you to harvest the seeds that are left behind.

Flowers can be used for cooking and making potpourri (though good potpourri will use some leaves as well.) Seeds on the other hand can be used for next year's garden, when you replant, though some herbs, like caraway, are used for their seeds when cooking.

An herb plant generally has three different stages at which it can be used, and each stage will give different flavors and different uses. It's all up to the herb gardener where he or she would like to use the different parts of their herb plants.

Do you love herbs, but have questions about them? Find the answers to your questions here. Check out Gardening Herbs and learn what you need to know about your favorite herbs!

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Garden Herbs and Plants

Most herb gardeners who are just starting out need a lot of help in figuring out which garden herbs and plants will go best with their garden. It's up to the gardener to decide whether or not he or she is planting herbs for cooking, tea drinking, or garden decoration. Either way, here's a list of popular garden herbs and plants which are easy to use and readily available almost anywhere.

1. Jasmine
One of the heads of the tea family, this herb and its flowers can rival being the prettiest among garden herbs and plants. Use it for decorating your garden with its beauty, and relaxing your senses with its gentle scent.

2. Lavender
The pretty flowers of this herb are what leads it to be mistaken as just a flower plant, rather than a useful herb. Lavender makes a great soothing and sweet smelling tea.

3. Mints
A great plant to have in your garden, but with the tendency to try and take over everything! Mint is a great herb with many uses. Just keep your types of mint away from each other because they will all end up tasting the same. Also, give them a lot of sunlight in order to control their love to spread all throughout the garden.

4. Basil
Extremely popular in Italian cooking, there are many kinds of basil that go with a lot of different types of cooking too. To keep it safe, choose sweet basil as this is a good all around option for most dishes.

5. Sweet Marjoram
This foot tall plant makes a great potpourri apart from being a great seasoning element to many dishes.

6. Dill
Great for salads of all kinds, and freshening the air around the home! Dill is a great smelling herb which grows up to three feet tall. Plant it in the outer parts of your herb garden.

7. Lovage
A tree like herb, growing up to several feet tall. It makes for good garden hedges, plus it tends to all its surrounding plants, making sure all other garden herbs and plants are growing healthy and happy.

8. Rosemary
Crushed rosemary is extremely flavorful, and it adds a great zing to many dishes. It's easy to grow and it's stalks can also be used around the house.

9. Sage
Great for meats, this woody herb grows just as tall as your dill, and will be a good companion for your rosemary plants. It definitely enhances the flavor of rosemary and vice versa.

10. Caraway
Often used for its seeds, not so much for its aesthetic qualities, planting caraway would be a good choice for a gardener who is just starting out because it tends to aerating and tending the soil for you.

Though there are many more herbs to choose from, and so many you can order off the world wide web, these are the plants and seeds you are very likely to find in your local neighborhood plant and gardening store, so you'll never have to worry about spending too much for your garden!

Want to know what other plants you can grow in your herb garden? Get a better idea of the different ways you can raise herbs by checking out Herbal Tea Gardens, then looking through the other site articles for all you'll need to know about herb gardening!

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What Everyone Ought to Know About Breeding Earthworms For Gardening Use

Remember in the day when you used earthworms to scare your sister and other girls from the neighborhood? Hopefully you no longer scare the neighborhood women and realize the value worms are to your garden and environment. There are two types of earthworms, both are great for worm composting. In a moment we will take a closer look at both varieties.

Setting up a worm bin-the right way:

Many worm farmers believe wood is the best material to use for a worm bin. The container, which will hold the worms, can be made from an old dresser draw or chest your planed on throwing away. Or, if you have basic carpentry skills, you can build one out of a few sheets of plywood.

Drill holes in the bottom of the bin for drainage and air circulation. More holes should be made near the top part of the bin. A 1/8 of an inch drill bit is the ideal size for adding circulation hole. This allows air to flow through the worm bin, while keeping the earthworms from escaping.

Worm bin bedding material:

Worms need bedding and damp conditions to survive, grow, and multiply. They breathe through their skin and dry conditions will leave them dead as a doornail in a heartbeat. Shredded newspaper, straw, peat moss, corrugated cardboard, horse manure and decaying leaves are good bedding materials.

A handful of sand or dirt will aid the earthworms in digestion. Don't go overboard with the dirt. Why? Because some types worms live in the earth, while others, "composting worms" live in piles of rotting manure and food waste. After you add the bedding material wet it down so when squeezed a few drops of water is produced.

The two types of earthworms used are either the red worm (EiseniaFoetida) or red earthworm (Lumbricus Rubellus). The number worms you start with will depend on the volume of waste you expect to put in the bin.

A general guideline is for every 1,000 worms, add a half-pound of kitchen waste a week. As the red worm population grows so will the food you'll have to feed them. These worms have big appetites and you'll be blown away at the amount of waste they go through.

What to feed the earthworms:

There is a wide variety of foods you can feed the worms and some should you avoid. Watermelons, banana, tomatoes, coffee grounds, lettuce, strawberries, spinach, cooked eggshells, and eggplant to name a few can be added to the bin.

Do not add meat, animal fat or grains because they attract unwanted critters. Here's a little trick to keep insects from becoming a pain in the neck. Dig a hole, add the scrap and cover it with the material from inside the bin. This keeps bugs and other critters down to a minimum.

Using earthworm castings is a way of making your soil richer and more productive. It can be included at the base of outdoor crops or mixed into the soil used for houseplants. The result is stronger, healthier plants and crops without dangerous chemical residues.

Steve Habib is an active gardener and researcher on the subject of growing and caring for a variety of plants. To receive our FREE BOOK "How Do Plants Grow" visit the HOME PAGE To learn more about EARTHWORMS visit here.

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Italian Herb Garden

Can you imagine Italian food without the herbs? I know I couldn't! Try to imagine pesto without basil or Italian sausage without fennel seeds. And I haven't even mentioned the many roles of garlic. In fact, just the thought of Italian cuisine brings to mind the mouth watering aromas and tastes of fresh Italian herbs such as basil, garlic, rosemary, oregano, and so many others. This is why if you enjoy Italian food, you may want to consider an Italian herb garden.

Not only are Italian herb gardens easy to start, but they are also easy to use as well. You can have your herbs in a container indoors right in your kitchen, allowing you to use fresh herbs straight from the plant while your cooking. Also, once you're herbs have started to grow, the more you harvest them for their herbs, the more they will grow, so you will definitely get your fair share of herbs for the number of plants you have.

One thing you need to be aware of when planting an Italian herb garden is how each type of herb grows. Just as various as the flavors of the herbs are the ways they need to be planted, nurtured, and trimmed. Three popular Italian herbs I'll be describing in a bit more detail in this article are parsley, oregano, and rosemary.

Parsley was originally used as a kind of breath freshener. It was actually a tradition to serve these plants on small dishes after a meal. Today, the tradition continues with parsley being commonly used as a garnish on many different dishes. When growing parsley, you will definitely want to do your homework, because unlike many other herbs, parsley is a relatively hard herb plant to grow.

Oregano is a great herb to grow because not only is it great for cooking, but it grows very beautifully and also serves as a decorative plant. The time to harvest oregano is when it is fully mature. This is the time the oregano will have the most flavor and taste the best. The way to know when the plant is fully mature is to check for the sprouting of the flowers. Beautiful little purple flowers will let you know when to harvest.

Rosemary is another well known Italian herb. Rosemary is great because it serves a secondary purpose in improving your garden. It grows in large shrubs and sprouts blue flowers. These flowers attract bees, which will help your garden. One thing to keep in mind when growing rosemary is that although it is an evergreen perennial, this plant is still sensitive to frost.

These are just a few common plants you may want to grow in your Italian herb garden. Growing Italian herbs is a very rewarding process so why not consider it? Anyone can do it, just remember to research your herbs.

Linda Peterson is an herb expert. For more information on different herbs you can grow in your Italian herb garden, visit http://www.herbgardenhelper.com

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Reducing Landfill is Super Easy - If We All Do a Little, It Will Help a Lot!

There are so many ways you can do your bit to help reduce landfill. Living on acreage I'm fortunate enough to have many options to dispose of veggie and other food scraps. We have a dog, cats, chickens and a compost bin.

The chickens get first choice of fresh scraps - the dog and cats get the cooked food scraps - the compost gets what I don't think is suitable for the chickens (seriously would you eat a raw onion if you were a chook!)

Not everyone has this luxury of course but there are still many ways you can do your part.

Some options are:

Composting: even if you only have an apartment you can buy a compost bucket for your kitchen. You can compost your scraps, tea and coffee grounds, eggshells, etc. You can even put meat and dairy in some of them (not the usual ingredients for a compost bin). If you have a backyard you can have your compost bin or a Worm Farm. Worms are great little eaters and provide excellent fertilizer. If you have a larger yard then you can have a compost bin or heap.

You can add compost into your veggie garden (preferably dig in a few weeks prior to planting) or you can use it as mulch for any part of your garden. Compost is not a fertilizer as such but it will improve your soil quality.

Chickens are great as they provide eggs and fertilizer in return for some chook food and fresh scraps (chook poo is great for the garden or compost, just don't add fresh manure of any sort directly to a veggie garden).

Recycle as much as possible. Milk containers, cans, jars, newspapers, etc. Every town has their own recycling system but it's worth finding out what you can do.

Shop smart, try not to buy products that are over packaged. Cook more from "real" ingredients rather than processed foods. You'll reduce packaging, save money and be healthier.

Find out more about composting at http://www.organic-veggie-patch.com/organic-gardening-compost.html.

There's more information and ideas for your Organic Vegetable Garden at http://www.organic-veggie-patch.com.

Happy Gardening!

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Sowing the Seeds of Your Vegetable Garden

Garden seeds can be sown in a variety of ways. The most common is to plant in straight rows, but in more intensive planting, diamond shapes are often used.

There's no hard and fast rule about how deep seeds should be planted. The depth required will vary based on both the seed being sown, as well as the character and condition of the soil. In heavy clay and moist soils, the covering should be lighter than in sandy or dry soils. Regardless of the depth, planting should be uniform. Whether you're planting in boxes or beds, you can use the side of a small plank of wood to create a depression for the row in which to seed.

In a large garden, or small farm plot, you're looking to reduce the labor required as much as possible, and so long rows are much more suitable. By grouping the vegetables together according to their care requirements, you'll also reduce excess work needed to care for your garden. By doing this, you can tend each group of vegetables together as one plot.

Remember too that the more work you do in the fall, the less preparation you'll need to make in the spring before you can begin planting. If you're using manure as a fertilizer, plan to apply it in the fall, and turn it under the soil. That way, your garden ready for planting early season crops -- you only need wait until the soil is dry enough -- a process that is hastened with fall manure applications.

The actual planting of the garden is pretty simple, if you've taken the time to prepare a garden plan. No time is lost in deciding what vegetable to plant where. You can, instead, simply refer to the plan and get started. For most home-sized gardens, it is easiest to plant by hand.

The most common way is to use a dibber, or another hand tool, to create holes or depressions in the soil, into which the seeds are dropped. The seeds are then covered, and the soil firmed. It's important to make sure the soil is completely firmed, because most seeds will not germinate unless they are in contact with the soil.

While Johnny Cartwright enjoys numerous outdoor sports and recreation activities, he's always involved in new things. His latest website contains cordless drill reviews and information about power tool accessories like cordless drill batteries.

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