‘Dig’ The Earth

What is hydroponics?

The easy answer is growing plants without soil in a nutrient rich solution. There are several ways to set up a hydroponic system but each have a few things in common.

• They must allow enough room for the roots to grow.
• They must offer proper aeration for the roots so they do not drown in the water.
• They must offer a pH balanced and nutrient rich solution specific to the types of plants you are growing.
• They must offer sufficient lighting of the proper spectrum to support photosynthesis for proper growth

What is aeroponics?

Aeroponics is a division of hydroponics that suspends the plants above the nutrient rich reservoir.  The roots are fed the nutrient laden water either by drip irrigation, misting, fogging or highly aerated bubbles.  The most widely recognized aeroponic system is the Aerogarden by Aerogrow.

If you have the cash to lay out for the Aerogarden it is a very nice system that has all the necessary parts, pieces, nutrients and even seeds to make a small seroponic system work.  Whether it’s for flowers to britghten your mood or herbs to brighten your food there are a number of plants that can be grown in the Aerogarden appliance.

If you are more frugal and like DIY projects search for homemade aerogarden and you will find a number of alternatives.  None of them are as pretty as the aerogarden and it will take some time and expertise, but the DIY systems all seem to be practical and will grow plants.  Make sure you have enough space to accommodate a Rubbermaid tub with a lid and an external lighting apparatus.  Space issue and the potential for marital problems because of a loud ugly tub sitting in the front window.  The only place I have that has the space is the back porch, but it is way too cold out there right now so I’d have to rig up heating to.

Year Round and Urban Applications

Upon doing further research on hydroponics and searching on ebay I came across another idea – vertical hydroponic gardens.  I searched how to make a vertical hydroponic garden and I found a grass roots movement called WindowFarms.org.  They encourage the use of hydroponics to grow herbs, greens, and fruit crops year round in available window spaces.  Their system can either be purchased or built with readily available tools and items and repurposed plastic water bottles (they suggest using ones made by Nestle).  Their community forum and blog, our.windowfarms.org, offers the opportunity to read about the experiences of others using the windowfarms idea and how they have succeeded, modified and improved the basic windowfarms concept.  So whether you are a gardener that longs to have fresh produce from your garden in the dead of winter or an apartment dweller who does not have an outdoor space available for gardening a window farm is a space saving way to “get your green on” .

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Eating fresh herbs from your garden is wonderful when they are in season. The bounty can be almost too much for a single family to eat at any one time. It is such a shame to see the plant with all it’s goodness wilt and die back in the fall with loads of wonderful leaves or flowers which could have been eaten. What can you do to prevent this tragedy?

Dry them! If you cut back your plant several times through the growing season it helps to keep the plant tidy and gives you herbs to dry for later use. Mint, thyme, oregano, sage, basil, rosemary and any other herb you’ve found in the spice rack at the grocery store can be processed this way. First of all cut the plant back so that there are still a few inches of stem and leaves above the ground so it’ll continue to grow. Take the stems you’ve harvested and wash them very well in cool water taking care to not remove too many leaves, but get rid of the bugs, worms, dirt and cobwebs that have gathered between the branches. Shake off as much moisture as you can and then spread the stems in a singe layer on a towel. Allow them to dry for a few hours turning every so often so that they dry evenly. Once most of the water has dried off tie the stems together is small bunches and hang them upside down inside a paper bag or pillow case in a dark corner or at least out of direct sunlight. I hung mine on my north facing back porch on a clothes line that was strung there before we even moved in and never took down. The paper bag or pillow case is intended to keep dust and bugs out but still allow some fresh air in that will help dry and not rot the leaves. After a few weeks or even sooner depending on the humidity you’ll have dried herbs in your bag.

Remove the dried stems from your bag and carefully remove the leaves by running your thumb and forefinger or your closed hand against the direction of the growth down the stem. The resulting mass of dried leaves can be stored as is or crushed and put in an airtight container. This will give you wonderful flavors of your summer herb garden well into the winter and following spring before your plants, if perennial, come for another season of growth.

My computer is broken so I haven’t been able to regularly update. I was able to expand thesize of my garden by 6 x 12 feet. I filled thespace with mounds for zucchini, cucumber, watermelon and squash. It’s been really dry so I’ve had to water with the hose almost daily.

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October is teasing me!  Yesterday when I couldn’t be home it was nice and warm and would have been a perfect day to get some of my fall gardening tasks completed.  It got up to a high of 85 degrees F and was slightly breezy.  At least I got my hubby to get me a pair of kneepads so I could plant bulbs and pull without destroying my knees.  It is much easier for me to do these tasks on all fours since my tremendous preggo belly precludes me from bending over comfortably.  I hope that this weather lasts a day or two longer to give me a chance to get outside.

After a month of no rain and no energy on my part the yard looks terrible.  My husband has either been working or had plans every weekend so he hasn’t been much help either.  So, even with my 6 month pregnant belly I decided to tackle some much needed yard clean up tasks.

We have an apple tree in the backyard that until this year I was sure would never produce much fruit to speak of.  Well, it must have gotten enough rain to produce some very nice, medium sized, sweet-sour apples that will be great in pie.  The only problem is that many of the apples have fallen into the yard and started to rot.  Our back yard was starting to smell like an apple cider vinegar factory and look like a compost heap.  I used a garden rake with tines pointed up and a snow shovel as my “broom and dust pan” to pick up the fallen apples.  It worked pretty well.  I dumped them in a wheelbarrow and carted them over to my actual compost bin.  There was one bag of composted manure left from earlier in the season that got dumped on top of them to keep my layering consistant.  I don’t want the compost bin to reek.

Then it was time to tackle some mowing.  It would take forever to push mow our lawn so even though I ended up in some pain from the jarring of the mower last time I tried it again anyway.  Surprisingly, it vibrations and jarring didn’t hurt me as bad this time and I was able to get the front yard and a small portion of the back yard mowed.  Then I realized one of the small front tires on the mower had gone completely flat.  OOoops!  God only knows when I must have run over, but that ended that.  Tomorrow I’ll look into what I need to do to fix it.  Blah!

So my tasks for tomorrow and probably the rest of the week will be to finish mowing the lawn – back yard and side yard, pull weeds (this could take a long while), clean up the garden, and possibly plant some cold hardy crops.  I need to get some knee pads for this weed pulling work.  My little foam mat is OK but I have so much area to cover it’s a pain to have to move it every 18″.

If you have any suggestions about what quick growing cold hardy crops would be good for zone 5a please leave a comment.
Happy Gardening (and cleaning up )

Believe it or not some of my wintersown seeds that actually bore seedlings are just getting into their permanent home in the ground.  I have some White Swan Echinacea and Japanese Irises that actually sprouted in June and survived the heat and rains.  They are going to find their home next to some hollyhocks behind a western facing fence.  I know it’s fairly late in the season but I hope that I get to see them bloom this year yet.  If not, it will give them enough time to establish their roots before winter comes.