elements backyard garden » Organic

Working On a New Salsa Recipe

element — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:21:28 +0000

Its been almost six months since I have fresh vegetables from the garden or from the farmers market and its getting to me. For about two weeks I have been craving home made salsa. So not having fresh veggies from the garden or fresh salsa, it has been getting to me. When I talk about fresh salsa, I am not the processed crap from the store but good ol’ home made salsa without preservatives and extra junk that will help kill you when get you get older. I have a friend at work who makes a killer salsa. Not only in taste but after a few days of marinating in the fridge it will burn for hours afterwards if you each to much to fast. So I took his recipe and modified it to fit my wife and I’s lifestyle. Since we do not have access to exotic hot peppers, I have to work with what I can get and most of them are shipped from Mexico or grown somewhere in the US in a hot house. Both are not a favorite of mine. I prefer using ones that I have grown or a friend has grown. Ours will be 100% organic and we can guarantee it. I won’t tell you what is in the recipe or give you the recipe but I will tell you it has Romas, Serrano, Habanero, Anaheim, and Jalapeno.

Paul James’ Famous Baking Soda Fungicide Spray Recipe

element321 — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:37:42 +0000

For the last couple of months I have been searching for an organic all natural fungicide recipe, and thought I was out of luck. But during an episode of Gardening By The Yard, Paul James shared his recipe for an all natural Fungicide Spray using Baking Soda. He mentioned that the recipe was originally created by Cornell University.

Paul James’ Famous Baking Soda Fungicide Spray Recipe:

1 gallon of water
1 tbsp baking soda
1 tbsp horticultural oil
1 tbsp insecticidal soap
shake well and spry affected plants
repeat every 7 to 10 days until cleared up

Baking soda is alkaline and can raise the PH levels of the soil if used in large amounts. Using baking soda from this recipe should not affect the soil. If treating plants that love high acidic levels, amendments to soil to bring the acidity back should be applied once or twice a year.

How to Make Organic Potting Mix

element — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 02:42:12 +0000

organic potting mix

Let’s face it, gardening can be expensive. If you’re a container gardener or raised bed gardener, it’s even more expensive. I found one of the best ways to save money when container gardening / raised bed gardening is to make your own potting mix. When preparing your mix, do the research to know what nutrients your plants require.

Once the research is complete, it’s time to gather the components for your mixture. When selecting your ingredients, NEVER buy garden soil or top soil for your container plants. Garden soil, top soil, and native soil tend to have a large percentage of clay in them. The clay can cause poor drainage or prevent the roots from growing correctly. The roots of the plant should spread throughout the container with the correct type of mixture, but clay can cause the roots to stay in a tight cluster.

Container gardeners have found that the best type of potting mix is actually soilless. Soilless mixes are generally made with compost, peat, and hardwood fines (finely mulched hardwood chips). This mixture is lightweight, drains easily, and is free of soil-borne diseases. The ingredients in my mix are peat moss or coconut core, perlite, vermiculite, blood meal, bone meal, high quality commercially made compost, organic fertilizer, donkey manure, and pine bark or hardwood fines. Depending on what I am planting, I will also add cotton seed burrs and Texas green sand. I take all of the ingredients and mix them together in a large bucket or container. I generally use forty percent pine bark or hardwood fines, forty percent peat moss, and then add handfuls of organic fertilizers, blood meal, bone meal, vermiculite, and perlite.

If the research indicates that your plant likes a lot of “organic material,” then I would recommend adding compost and manure to the blend. When I add donkey manure and compost to my mixture, I add as much as I feel is necessary based on how rapidly the plant will absorb the nutrients from the mix. When in doubt, it is better to use more compost than not enough, since a high-percentage compost mixture will not hurt most plants. I have used as much as fifty to sixty percent compost in a potting mix with good results.

When all ingredients have been combined together well, water the mixture down to the consistency of a squeezed-out sponge. Fill the container halfway, packing down the soil frequently along the way. Then add the plant and fill in soil around it until the root ball is covered. Pack down the soil again and water thoroughly.

I have gathered this information over several years of experience and reading various blog posts, articles, and message boards. This may not be the best type of container/potting mix for everyone to use due to climate differences, but I find that in my area and at my level of gardening, it makes my plants very happy. My plants grow fast and flower heavily at the right time of year with this mixture.