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CPR Facts for the Garden

By - DiyGarden
Posted on April 21, 2020April 17, 2020

Earlier this spring we planted what we call our CPR garden which has carrots, peas and radishes in it. We have really enjoyed it and are already enjoying radishes out of it, the peas are growing and I am actually seeing carrots this year which I have not had much luck with in the past.

So, I thought I would share some fun facts about carrots, peas and radishes.

Carrot Facts

Romans and ancient Greeks believed carrots to be an aphrodisiac.
Carrots were not orange until the Dutch worked to cultivate the strain for the ruling House of Orange.
Earlier versions of colors for carrots where white, purple, red, yellow, green or black.
Carrots were first grown as a medicine not a food.
The first cultivated carrot first appeared in Britain in the 1400’s.
Cultivated carrots originated in Afghanistan.

Pea Facts

Peas are best grown in late spring.
The world’s largest producer of peas is India
Only 5% of peas produced are sold fresh
The pea is thought to have originated from Middle Asia
Peas are very high in fiber and very low in fat and calories.
Peas are green because they are harvested when not fully mature
Daily usage of peas can help prevent stomach cancer.
Peas are anti-aging, gives strong immune system and high energy.

Radish Facts

Radishes are edible root vegetable.
The radish is a member of the brassicaceae family; its cousins are broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and turnip.
The origins of radishes are most likely China.
There are hundreds of varieties of radishes grown worldwide.
Radishes are easy and fast to grown.
Half a cup of sliced radishes is only 10 calories. They are a good source of Vitamin C.
The most common use for raw radishes is in a salad.
Daikon is another type of elongated radish, most famously used in Japanese cuisine, where it is pickled, dried, grated and used in stir fry.

Which is your favorite vegetable out of the CPR bed?

Positive Side of Covid-19

By - DiyGarden
Posted on April 17, 2020April 17, 2020

Wow, I don’t know about you but this Covid-19 seems to be banging on my door trying to demand my attention, trying to scare me and to take my calm away and hold it hostage. I don’t know if you are feeling it too but I know that a lot of my neighbors and friends are and I want to share some of my tricks with you about how to tell Old Man Scare to go away and offer Sweet Mother Nature a more permanent spot in your life right now.

Helping others

One of the easiest ways to gain a new mindset is to take your eyes off of yourself and to help someone else. Earlier this Spring I started a lot of seeds and soon learned I didn’t have enough room for all my seedlings. I decided to put the extras out at the end of the driveway offering the plants to our neighbors. So many of our neighbors stopped thankful for the plants, it was nice to be helpful to others in my community with something that I really enjoy and stop worrying about things that concern me for a while.

Gain a new skill

A lot of us have extra time on our hands we can use this time to gain new skills that we are interested in. I’ve taken a class in medicinal herbal teas which I really enjoyed. I’ve already started some seeds for the herbs of the teas I like the best so I’m also learning about how to grow these new herbs in my garden. And because of these crazy times I wanted to learn how to bake better so I am taking a class where I’m learning sourdough bread and other bread baking techniques. Honestly, Ron likes the results from this class more than the herbal tea class. With learning new skills it takes up time and helps the day to go faster and my attitude stays more positive.

Celebrate the little things

So, as you are helping your friends and family not only does it make you feel good also take some time to reward yourself. Buy yourself something special, for me I got some new herbs. It filled more time and made me feel good as I was planting them. When I gained my new skills of making herbal teas and baking bread I celebrated by making some great teas for us to drink and I was able to make some treats for my husband which makes me feel good because it brings him enjoyment.

Yes, these are little things but each one brings little celebrations into my life helping me to take the focus off of myself, to stop feeling sorry for myself and complaining about the situation we are in right now with the stay at home order.

What about you? How are you going to help others, what are some new things you plan on learning. Most importantly, make sure to celebrate in the little things.

Being Prepared In the Garden

By - DiyGarden
Posted on March 19, 2020March 18, 2020

Last year Ron and I decided we wanted to do a big garden and wanted to learn different ways of growing food. This was way before the coronavirus was heard of here in the United States but there were other factors that have happened to make us think this way.

Weather Phenomenon & Gardening Conversation Article

So, early January we set up a grow room in our guest bedroom. I started some onion seeds I have never planted onion seeds before, always bought the onion slips. But, I have onions growing that I started from seed! Ron built a small hydroponic system and we have been growing and eating different lettuce products from all winter long. I have about 24 cabbage, 24 cauliflower and 18 broccoli plants that we started in hydroponic Kratky systems.

The First Steps into Hydroponics Can Be Seen Here

As much fun as hydroponics is I still love digging in the dirt so I started seeds… a lot of seeds. Back in January and February it didn’t seem like much plus there is no guarantee on what seeds will make it and what won’t.

Well, our grow room is full!

I have tables that go around all four walls, grow lights above the tables, grow lights under the tables. I have heat mats for the sprouting table. I went crazy! To date there a 6 zucchini, 4 cucumbers, 50 tomatoes and 50+ peppers, 10 corn, 5 watermelon, 6 cantaloupe, 7 sunflowers, 20 garlic, about a dozen different herbs that I’m trying for the first time.

Plus we planted a CPR Bed that you can read about here.

Did I mention there are only two of us in this household?

But guess what, I will be eating fresh fruits and veggies and canning and freezing the rest of the things coming out of our gardens. When more viruses or weather phenomenons come and believe me there will be more… I won’t be panic stricken and frenzy buying worried about what are we going to eat because the stores are all sold out of everything. And I don’t want you to experience that either. That is why we created Our DIY Garden we can help you build and create systems to keep your family feed. Click on the sign up to the right and become a part of Our DIY Garden family.

Our First Hydroponic System

By - DiyGarden
Posted on February 25, 2020February 12, 2020

We have been thinking about different ways to grow fruits and vegetables. Beside planting them in the dirt and were very interested in hydroponics which uses water. There are many benefits to growing using a hydroponic system. You can literally grow anywhere you have space, a hydroponic system uses 20 time less water than if you had planted a traditional garden in the soil. The environment that the plants grow in is sterile because there are no pesticides. You use 20 percent less space for growing and there are so many more beneficial reasons to use hydroponics. The best thing, I believe is that we can reuse the water by recycling it thru the system allowing us to conserve water.

Recycle and Reuse

With all this information we decided to build our very first system. Now, we can let you know that we are big on recycling and reusing anything that we can get our hands on. Our first step was to find a place that we were wanting to use for our first setup. Once we figured that out it was time to see what we could come up with as a design for the system. Awhile back we tore down a deck to make room for a strawberry patch that didn’t work out to. Anyway, we started digging thru a pile of treated lumber to figure out what we had for the structure that would hold the PVC pipes.

Building the System

Once we had that figured out, we built the frame and it ended up being 4 feet wide and 4 feet tall and about 14 inches deep with a slight angle between the bottom and the top. We figured that we wanted 4 rows with 6 spots in each row totaling 24 places to have vegetables growing.

Now it was time for the PVC pipes. We used 2 inch pipe and we drilled 1 ¾” diameter. holes to hold the 2” net pots. After we had the holes drilled and the pipes all deburred and cleaned out it was time to glue the end caps on. Before we did that though we drilled and tapped a ½” NPT hole in each end cap. Because we were going to use a plastic fitting and some hose to connect each row of PVC pipe. We had some plumbers tape left over, from when we built our chicken coop, that we used to hold the pipe to the frame.

Success

Now that everything was assembled it was time to hook the pump up that would circulate the water and do some testing. We had a 5-gallon bucket that we were going to use as a water reservoir. So, after filling the bucket up and hooking the pump up it was the moment of truth. After plugging the pump in the water started to flow up to the top pipe and then back and forth thru all the pipes and then returning to the bucket. SUCCESS everything was running like it should and with no leaks. After everything was said and done we spent less than $50 on the whole thing.

We have written about the first planting in our hydroponic system that you can read about by clicking here.

Onto the next system.

Do You Have An Herb Garden?

By - DiyGarden
Posted on February 18, 2020February 11, 2020

Having an herb garden has always been a dream of mine however; gardening has always meant veggies in my mind. I have been doing vegetable gardening for most of my life.

In the Beginning

I grew up on a cattle ranch in Montana and we had a very large garden there. I did not enjoy working in the garden pulling weeds and watering it, I would rather be out riding my horse. After I got married I started gardening again and I enjoyed it more but it became more difficult as the kids came along. And true to kid form none of them enjoyed working in the garden. It was hard to keep a garden up, raise kids and keep the small farm that we lived on running too. It was worth it to keep fresh veggies coming into the house and to can what I could for the wintertime but it wasn’t exactly enjoyable. Now that we are empty nesters I am enjoying gardening once again.

Taking the Herb Class

The class focuses in on six herbs and I’ve been able to find seeds for some of the herbs that we are talking about in the class, Echinacea, garlic, sage, and cayenne. I already have the garlic coming up in my grow room. I have just planted Echinacea, sage and cayenne. I’ll probably order the Elderberry shrubs and mullein online.

My biggest problem is the area I have for my new herb garden has shade, a lot of shade. Most herbs like the sun so my plan is to keep the herbs in pots this year and rotate them so they aren’t in the shade all the time. There are four trees that shade the area and I’d like to cut them down but that isn’t in the budget this year. It is all about adjusting and working the best with the areas that we have for our gardens.

The class talks about the history or the herb, how to grow it, how to store it and then make an herbal remedy from the herb. It has been so interesting. I know this will be a jumping off point for me to move forward and learn more about herbs.

What is Your Herb Garden Dream

I’d really love to share with you the things I learn in my herb class so be looking for those blogs in the near future.

Tell me about your herbs. What is your favorite herb?

How Old is an Old Seed?

By - DiyGarden
Posted on February 4, 2020January 28, 2020

So I had some old Italian Flat leaf Parsley and Genovese Basil herb seeds sitting around and I wanted to try them in our hydroponic system to see if see if I could get them to germinate. I waited two weeks and saw nothing so into the trash bin they went but it started me thinking how long are seeds viable? After doing some research I learned that all seeds are viable for at least a year, with many others viable for definitely two years. After that second year the germination rate may start to drop off.

There is a trick to see if a seed will germinate.

There is an easy test you can do to check to see if there is life left in your old seeds. Take your seeds and put them in a container of water. Let them sit for about 15 minutes. Then if the seeds sink, they are still viable; if they float, they most likely will not sprout.

There are other reasons besides age that your seeds might not germinate.

If they are planted too deeply, or planted in cold soil, the extremes of watering, improper soil preparation, birds or squirrels are the most common causes for seeds failing to germinate.

Ok, so you have old seeds if they germinate will the fruit be good?

The experts say that planting old seeds is not only possible it’s okay. The flowers and fruit that come from these seeds will be of the same quality as if they were grown from fresh seeds. The nutrition from old vegetable seeds are just as nutritious as those from current season seeds.

What is the proper way to preserve seeds for years?

Different kinds of seeds can be saved, each in their own individual paper packets. Make sure that you put the date of the seeds on the packet. Keep seeds dry and cool. Store these packets in tightly sealed glass containers. Putting them in the back of your fridge is the ideal place to keep them until you need them again.

With the price of seeds it’s important to take the best care of them that you can. If the current season’s seeds aren’t used take the time to properly store them for the next. Also, if you are gathering your own seeds take the time to learn how prepare them properly for storage. The time and money that this takes is worth it and you will thank yourself for doing so. I know that I am going to be more careful and store my seeds properly It will help me not be disappointed when they don’t germinate and it will help save my money because I’m not buying seeds that I already had but didn’t take care of.

How do you save your seeds?

Weather & Gardening

By - DiyGarden
Posted on January 20, 2020January 19, 2020

Weather Phenomenon…

If you have been paying attention to the weather over the last few years you are aware of the weather issues that the United States has endured. One coast floods and the other coast has forest fires with the Midwest farmers facing problems feeding their livestock and planting crops. You might ask yourself what any of this has to do with you. But I believe most of us can understand how these weather systems can and will touch our lives as we see food prices increase. The scariest situation is the food shortages that we are just starting to see in the states, it makes me wonder what is to come…

Ron and I were talking about the weather issues and how we believe it was going to affect the food system in the United States. We agreed that now would be the time to work towards having a food source year around not just at the end of summer. Gardening has always been a relaxing hobby for me. I love planting a seed and getting a crop at the end of the season. At best I’m an enthusiast but not necessarily an expert in gardening but I am willing to work towards our goal of growing food year around.

Trying New Ways of Gardening…

Fortunately, I’m married to a guy that can build just about anything that I can imagine in my mind. I have done a lot of reading about hydroponics and aquaponics. Hydroponics is growing plants without dirt, in a water system using nutrients for the roots. Aquaponics is the same system with fish in the system under the plants. Figuring it would be easier to start our journey with hydroponics I showed Ron some plans for the system and off he went to designing and building our first hydroponic system.

Our First Hydroponic System…

He built a wooden frame that holds four rows, each four feet long, of 2 inch PVC. Then he used an 1 ¾” hole saw to create six holes in each row. This was enough room for 2” net pots which is what we used to hold the plants so this system equals 24 spots. There is a 5 gallon bucket with a small pond pump which circulates the water through the system. We put a timer on the system that runs for one hour and then shuts off for one hour which helps the system from becoming stagnant.

The Planting Begins…

I knew that lettuce was an easy plant to grow in a hydroponic system so that is what I started with. I ordered a packet of different lettuce types to try out the system for the first time. The first 10 plants were New Zealand Spinach, Mizuna Mustard, Bloomsdale Spinach, Curled Peppercress Cress, Lucullus Swiss Chard, Green Oak leaf Lettuce, Dwarf Siberian Kale, Butter crunch Lettuce, Roquet Arugula, and Southern Giant Collard.

The seeds germinated in two days and in two weeks the root system was large enough to put into the hydroponic system. I was so excited! The system is almost two months old and we have trimmed enough off two times to help with salad for dinner.

Success…

So far our hydroponic system has been a success! The plants are doing well and I think that as long as we trim the plants the leaves will continue to grow back. One of the things we have learned is that the nutrients and PH are important to monitor to keep the plants well nourished.

What are your thoughts of hydroponics?

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