Category: Gardening

Good Morning Mr. Rawles, This is not necessarily directed toward the propagation and extending of tomato harvests, but geared more toward making your tomatoes better. I have found that amending the soil (pouring a quarter to a half a cup in the hole before planting) of powdered milk has a profound effect on the growth of tomatoes. The tomatoes will grow a little shorter, significantly more stout, and have a darker green color. They even produced about the same number of flowers and tomatoes. I am sad to say that I could not do a taste test between the fruit …

Jim: I love to see teens experimenting!  It’s a very good thing.  Learning how to propagate plants from suckers/leaves/etc is a very useful skill. But an easier way to maximize your tomato harvest easily is to grow from seeds – I keep extra seedlings around (still have some!) to pop into any spare space that turns up. And the best way to extend your harvest is to make sure that some of your plants are indeterminate. Those of us who can tomatoes plant a lot of tomato varieties that are determinate – the bulk of the tomatoes on the plant …

Sir: We live in a rental property that unfortunately has a lawn that was poisoned by several years of chemicals sprayed on it to kill weeds. So, we have tried to grow a few items in raised beds. One learning experience we had may keep someone else from making the same mistake. We had never heard of black walnut trees causing a toxic effect on tomatoes. They all died because we have three black walnut trees in our yard. Cabbage, eggplant, peppers, and potatoes are sensitive to the toxins plus a few fruit and field crops. We planted the tomatoes this year far away from the walnut …

I’ve always wondered why some people tend to plant all of their garden at one time. It never made sense to me. Why have 30 pounds of tomatoes come in at once, only to can it all? Sure, canning is great (in fact we just put away 14 quarts of peaches today), but fresh is better than canned, 100% of the time. And yes, I understand home canning is so you have food to eat in the winter. But why not get fresh for as long as you can? But just hold on, we’ll get back to that later on. …

Hello JWR, I enjoyed the recent SurvivalBlog article titled “How Does Your Garden Grow”. I like the idea of gardening, but it takes time and a lot of trial and error. I have pursued sprouting as another gardening method. It’s easy to do. I bought my seeds and sprouter from Sprout People. – Ken S. Hi James,   We have spent six years getting our garden established and working. Fenced and footed in concrete. Electric wire around the outside to keep out the raccoons. An above ground watering system to each of the 16 plots. Four raised beds 24 inches …

Knowing how to garden and grow one’s own food (or at least a significant portion of it) is one of the most important skills a person can have, especially during a “hard-times” survival situation. Fresh vegetables are a vital part of one’s diet, and they can be a great help in extending the length of time your stored emergency food lasts. I’ve always been interested in how people centuries ago survived through long winters. Clearly, storing food grown and raised during the warm months was a universal strategy. However, people also raised food year-round in winter gardens. France, especially, has …

I often have dirt under my fingernails. Fortunately, my husband doesn’t care.  He doesn’t care that unlike most of the women living in this southwestern suburb with us, I don’t have fake fingernails.  He doesn’t care that I like digging and fertilizing and mounding up dirt, burying seeds and planting seedlings so that we can enjoy a summer harvest of fresh vegetables and fruit.  My wonderful husband doesn’t care that I come in flushed and sweaty from watering plants and snipping herbs under a brutal Sonoran desert sun, and I am grateful for that!  It might sound like hard work, …