Folks who read my blog know that just before last Christmas, I scattered parsnip and carrot seeds on some of my beds to see if they would take. The theory behind this is straightforward: if you duplicate what nature does, nature will lead the seed to sprout at exactly the right time for your area […]
Filed under: Carrots, Planting, Vegetables | Comments Off on And the Results are In!
I save a lot of seeds, sometimes factors more seeds than I will ever need simply because it is easy to save them. This means I can afford to experiment with planting methods without it costing me an arm and a leg. When we are mini-farming, we are in many respects simply adapting natural processes […]
Filed under: Planting | Comments Off on Planting Nature’s Way
I live in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire, which is not exactly the warmest spot on earth. It’s not as bad as Minnesota, thank goodness, but it is far cooler than where I grew up in Virginia. Yet, with no greenhouse, snow forecast for today, and well past the first frost of the year, […]
Filed under: Planting | Comments Off on Monday Night, I Harvested Carrots!
There is only so much that can be done using the calendar as a timetable for planting. By its very nature, this technique is very cautious so as to avoid frost damage to tender crops. But nature doesn’t use a calendar. Instead, it uses very sophisticated methods for determining when seeds should sprout, including factors […]
Filed under: Planting | Comments Off on Letting Nature Tell you When to Plant
Corn is among the most difficult crops to grow on a small scale in the home garden. Put twenty seeds in the ground, five of them fail to sprout, and there is a good week’s difference in germination time between the first and last to emerge. Thus, the early sprouters can sometimes shade out those […]
Filed under: Corn, Planting, Self-Sufficiency, Vegetables | Comments Off on Planting Corn Seedlings Instead of Seeds
The traditional growing season up here in NH is only from Memorial Day to Veteran’s Day. And, sometimes we get frosts as long as a week after Memorial Day, as we had last year. If you limit yourself to planting broccoli (also cabbage, kale and brussel’s sprouts) only during that time frame, you will end […]
Filed under: Broccoli, Planting, Self-Sufficiency, Vegetables | Comments Off on Double Your Broccoli
