Search results

Last year was the first year I tried starting my veggie seeds for seeds. Mostly some tomatoes & peppers. Nothing was too successful. The seeds would germinate, and would get one or 2 true leave and then sort of stop growing. They didn't die, just looked sort of pathetic. I used a heating mat &...

I have 2 beds that have field peas tight now. The peas are about at the end of their production. I'm planning on planting bulb onions in these beds come January. I thought I might just cut the peas down & pull up the plants & let it lie there for the next several months until it's time to plant...

MY DH has a really big, really heavy string trimmer that's just to heavy for me to use. I'd like to get a battery operating one for doing light trimming in my garden area - around the raised beds & in all the little corners & pockets a mower won't fit. I've used a corded electric trimmer before...

This year, I'm going to try raising field peas since they'll grow well in the heat in the middle of the summer. I've been looking at pea shellers, since I'm not looking forward to hand shelling peas. Since I'm not growing a huge amount of peas, a small, manual sheller would do just fine...

I just got my Burpee catalog & they're showing a "new" corn, On Deck Hybrid that supposedly was designed for container gardening. But I think this would be great in my raised beds. It's an sh2 hybrid, and supposedly only grows 4-5' tall with 2-3 ears per stalk. This would definitely improve my...

I saw this video on youtube about a month ago, and thought I'd try it on my blackjack fig tree. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJckql2bOWc The tree was starting to go into dormancy for the winter, but there were still several dozen small, green figs left on the branches. So on a couple of...

I finally got a new lawnmower that has a bagging attachment. The previous one only mulched the clippings, which was great for the grass, but not for my compost pile. Now, I can get that grass for the compost pile. But I have questions: How do you handle the grass clippings? Are they dried first...

I have quite a few satsuma trees and have been looking for recipes to can them as either a jam or a preserve. I came across this recipe on the Sunkist website and it sounds like what I've been looking for. However, there are no instructions for water bath or pressure canning, it only says to...

I'm going to start some canning this year, mostly tomatoes & blackberries to start. I've picked out my canner, an All American 921 21-1/2-Quart. Now I'm looking at strainers/food mills. So far, I've come up with 2 basic types: A food strainer, such as...

Here in New Orleans, we can get a bumper crop of fall tomatoes if we plant around August-September. This year because of illness, I didn't get my tomatoes planted until October, which really is kind of late. Right now, I have lots of tomatoes waiting to get ripe. December 11 is supposedly our...

Spring of last year, I purchased a Black Jack fig through mail order. It was advertised as being a naturally small fig plant, and that's what I wanted. Celeste & Brown Turkey are the typical varieties in the New Orleans area, but they can get to be really large trees. Well, this Black Jack has...

I'm pretty new to composting & seem to be confused about some things. I recently got 8 chickens & with all their poop, realized that I should compost it for use in my gardens. Since I don't have any trees, I've picked up about 20 bags of leaves from my neighbors. So I have chicken poop, leaves...