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Showing posts from January, 2016

Sugar Snap Peas: What Makes Them Sweet to Grow

The name gives it all away.  Sweet to the taste, crunchy to the texture and sound.  Peas that can grow to a nice, plump size.  Snap Peas are considered a combination of the best qualities of the English Peas (round plump peas) and the Chinese Peas (edible pod) to eat. Why I Grow Sugar Snap Peas I decided to try a new vegetable one day randomly and I saw a package that read, "Sugar Snap Peas" at the grocery store.  After one bite of the raw vegetable, I was shocked and amazed.  These were fantastic!  How could I have never tried these before.Conclusion:  I must grow double the amount of plants that I had last year so that I can even have a few.  Since I'm competing now with my son to eat some.   Shortly after, I bought a packet of seeds and started growing these.  Imagine my surprise when I tried the first batch of my new favorite vegetable and they were even sweeter.  The store bought doesn't compare to my freshly harvested sugar sn

What's Amazing About Spinach?

What's Amazing About Spinach? With Children thinking it's gross and Pop-eye getting his supernatural strength from it;  somewhere in between must be the truth. As a Food I must admit, I never touched spinach until I was on a vegan diet for a year at age 27.  My first bite of raw baby spinach I was holding back on making that face children make when they've already decided that they don't like something right before their parent makes them try it.  Yea, that was me as a married, mother of one, adult.  Imagine my surprise when I tried it and realized, "this is better than lettuce."  I was shocked and amazed.  Even my 6 year old tried it and it instantly became his favorite vegetable, raw.  He would eat them like cookies.  Literally, he would hold them like cookies and carry a bowl of spinach around the house and eat them.  Spinach at that point became our new lettuce. As a Plant The first time I had a garden in the ground, I had a very late

The Best Beginner Plant For A Vegetable Gardener: Tomatoes

There are so many different varieties of tomatoes to accommodate different planting zones and personalities of gardeners. Such as: -💗Quick Pick: 60 days to harvest.  Has a heavy yield.  Good for an early harvest compared to most. -💗Better Boy: 70-75 days to harvest.  Has a good balance of acid and sugar which makes this one        of the most pleasing tasting tomato.       -💗Super Sweet 100: 70 days to harvest. Has a high heavy yield.  Great for salads and snacking -💗Tiny Tim: 45 days to harvest. Very dwarf sized plant which makes for a good container plant. My Personal Experience      I have forgotten to put holes in the bottom of my container tomato plants.  Therefore, I've drowned them multiple times due to rain and yet all my plants survived the season.  They have been infested with aphids and still they yielded a harvest.  Not the best harvest, but a harvest none the less.  My first year I didn't prune my plants.  They were wild and al

Biodegradable Seed Starter Container

There are many different reasons to start growing plants from seeds.  Whether your planning on growing vegetables or flowers or other types of plants, one thing that is for certain, you want to start off giving your seeds the best possible start.  So why not make that start eco-friendly? Cardboard egg cartons   are a perfect seed starter (just make sure that they're not the styrofoam kind). Why use Egg Cartons? -They are plant sized cells.  There's no measuring or messy work.  Perfect size for 2-3 seeds each. -Holds moisture.  Don't over water.  Give indirect water by misting.  By touch you'll know if its dry. -Easy to separate when the exciting time comes to transplant your seedlings into the garden or pot.  Simply tear or cut apart the individual pods and plant into the soil. -FREE!  The best part, it's FREE!  After you're eggs are gone, you are now left with an egg carton. So there you have it.  A free, biodegradable seed starter.