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Quick Maturing Crops You Can Grow Almost ANYWHERE!

Don’t let space or time hold you back from growing your own food! There are plenty of things you can plant in your garden, windowsill or tiny patio that will produce in less than 45 days. In some cases, you can even enjoy homegrown food in less than 1 week! Here are our top selections if you’re short on time & space in the garden.

Sprouts / Microgreens – Ready to eat in 3 days to 2 weeks

Each and every living seed will grow into a plant. It’s when that seed begins to grow (germinate) that we call the beginning growth stage of the plant a “sprout”. They are a convenient way to have fresh vegetables for salads, or otherwise, in any season and can be germinated at home or produced industrially. Sprouts are said to be rich in digestible energy, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, proteins, and phytochemicals! See MORE Sprout/Microgreen Varieties, here! 

 

Swiss Chard – Ready to eat in about 5 weeks

Chard is a leafy green vegetable often used in Mediterranean cooking. Fresh young chard can be used raw in salads. Mature chard leaves and stalks are typically cooked or sauteed; their bitterness fades with cooking, leaving a refined flavor which is more delicate than that of cooked spinach. See MORE Swiss Chard Varieties, here!

 

Zucchini Squash – Ready to eat in about 6 weeks

Though considered a vegetable in cooking, botanically speaking, squash is a fruit (being the receptacle for the plant’s seeds). Squash can be served fresh (in salads) and cooked (squash stuffed with meat, fried squash, baked squash). See MORE Squash Varieties, here!

 

Spinach – Ready to eat in about 5 weeks

Spinach can grow anywhere there is at least a month and a half of cool growing weather. Spinach is a cool-season crop, hardy to frosts and light freezes. In rows 12 inches apart, space seedlings 3 inches apart. After thinning, cover the plants with row covers to keep the pests away.  (Soak seeds overnight before planting because it germinates slowly.) See MORE Spinach varieties, here!

 

Radishes – Ready to eat in 4 weeks

Radishes are a fast-growing, cool-season crop that can be harvested in as little as twenty days.  Eaten raw they can be whole, sliced, diced, or grated. You can also cook and pickle them. Most of them are typically eaten fresh and make a good addition to a salad or a substitute to pepper on a sandwich. See MORE Radish varieties, here!

 

Tiny Tim Tomatoes – Ready to eat in about 6-8 weeks

The Tiny Tim tomato plant is a dwarf type plant produces excellent yields of ¾” – 1″  bright red cherry tomatoes. They are perfect for patio gardens. Grows well in pots, containers, and windowsill gardens. See MORE Tomato varieties, here!

 

Mustard Greens – Ready to eat in about 6 weeks

Growing mustards are a quick and easy crop to grow in your home garden.  They are a spicy green, which will quickly become one of your favorite crops. When growing from seed, start them outdoors 3 weeks before the last frost. For a more steady harvest, plant seeds about every 3 weeks or every month to give you a successive harvest. Mustard greens prefer cooler weather, so plant late in the summer for a fall harvest, or very early in spring before the summer heat sets in. See MORE Mustard varieties, here!

 

Lettuce – Ready to eat in as little as 6-8 weeks

Seed should be sown thinly in rows 1 foot apart; for leaf types, thin plants to 2-3 inches apart, then thin again by pulling every other plant when half-grown. This will encourage thickly developed plants. For head types, space rows 18 inches apart, plants 8-10 inches apart. Closer spacing results in smaller heads, which may be preferable for small families. Specialty growers are spacing lettuce very close for selling baby lettuces, a rapidly growing produce market. See MORE Lettuce varieties, here!

 

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9 of The Best Vegetables to Grow in Small Gardens

Gardening in a small space can be just as rewarding and fun as growing in a large garden area.  These days, urban gardeners are growing more of their own food in sometimes less than 100 square feet.  Balconies, patios, even indoor windowsills are a great place to grow vegetables and herbs.  Almost anything can be grown in a container, and if you’re wanting to know what you should plant to maximize your yield in a small area, here are 9 of the best vegetables/herbs to grow in a small garden.

1. Shallots:

Space shallots approx. 4-6 inches apart with the rows 18 inches apart. Plant the bulb root side down, the top of the bulb 1 inch below the surface. Planting too deep grows elongated bulbs that don’t store well.

2. Carrots:

Sow seeds evenly in a very shallow trench, about 1/4 inch deep. Keep seeds moist so they will germinate. Space rows about 12″ apart and when the first leaves emerge, thin to 1″ apart; when true leaves emerge, thin to 3″ apart.

3. Cherry Tomatoes:

To start tomatoes indoors, sow seeds using expanding seed starting soil pods about 8 weeks before the last frost date for your area. Seedlings will be spindly with less than 12-14 hours of light per day, try to keep them in a warm sunny location. When seedlings have 4 leaves, transfer to a deeper pot (3-4″) and again when 8-10 inches tall. Each time, place the uppermost leaves just above the soil line and remove all lower leaves. Transplant (see: guide to transplanting) into the garden when the stem above the soil has reached 8-10 inches tall. Be sure to harden them off before transplanting them outdoors. Allow up to 10 days for the tomato plants to harden off to the outside temperature fluctuations.

4. Runner Beans:

Set three 6 foot poles in the ground, tepee fashion, and tie together at the top. Leave 3 to 4 feet between the pole groups. Make a hill at the base of each pole, enriched with compost or well-rotted manure, and plant 6-8 seeds in each. After the second pair of true leaves appear, thin to 3 plants per pole. With regular harvesting, the pole beans should bear all summer.

5. Garlic:

Break apart cloves from bulb but keep the papery husk on each individual clove.
Ensure soil is well-drained with plenty of organic matter. Plant in Full Sun.
Plant 4 inches apart & 2 inches deep, in their upright position (the wide end down and pointed end facing up). Come springtime, shoots will begin to emerge.

6. Kale:

Plant Kale in rows 18 inches to 2 feet apart. When the seedlings are 3 or more inches high, thin plants to 10 inches apart (read about thinning) and use the thinnings for salads or as a cooked vegetable.

7. Basil:

Try to space your basil plants about 12 inches apart. As long as you harvest the leaves when they are young, basil plants make a wonderful container crop.

8. Lettuce:

Seed should be sown thinly in rows 1 foot apart; for leaf types, thin plants to 2-3 inches apart, then thin again by pulling every other plant when half grown. This will encourage thickly developed plants. For head, Bibb, and cos types, space rows 18 inches apart, plants 8-10 inches apart. Closer spacing results in smaller heads, which may be preferable for small families.

9. Beets:

Sow seed 1/2 inch deep in rows 12-18 inches apart. The beet seed is a compact ball of many tiny seeds. Many plants germinate where each seed is sown, so seed should be placed sparingly. When seedlings are 4-6 inches high, thin plants to stand 1 1/2 inches apart. (They can be used in salad or cooked like spinach.) Then, as these beets grow to about an inch in diameter, pull every other one to allow larger beets to grow.

READ MORE ABOUT GARDENING IN SMALL SPACES AT www.SeedsNow.com

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Soil Generation is Saving Community Gardens in Philadelphia

Khenti Pratt’s community garden was an oasis for neighbors, and a source of sustenance and pride. She poured time and money into transforming a blighted Philadelphia lot into a space teeming with vegetables and flowers, the site of classes and other community events, and the winner of a City Gardens Contest award.

But after 17 years, the Philadelphia woman found out at a public meeting that a developer had purchased the land.

“[The developer] said in front of the Zoning Board and he talked to me on the side, he said, ‘I’m not going to bulldoze your garden right away. I’m for gardens; I want to help you actually garden,’” Pratt told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2013. But despite a petition from neighbors, within a few months, the garden was uprooted to make way for an apartment building.

Experiences like Pratt’s have for years been common all over Philadelphia. Though the city dubs itself America’s Garden Capital, the distinction offers little protection to residents who grow on vacant lots, only to see their gardens bought out from under them and bulldozed. And although Pratt’s garden couldn’t be saved, its loss has served as a lesson learned, a sort of launch pad.

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE Civil Eats

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Someone burned beehives in Texas and killed more than half a million bees

Police want to know who burned dozens of beehives in a town just south of Houston. One of the beekeepers said the losses are truly staggering.

“We’re looking at 500,000 to 600,000 (bees) that have been destroyed out of that environment,” Steve Brackmann, who sells beekeeping supplies and queen bees, told CNN affiliate KTRK.

“It’s bad enough to think in today’s world this would happen but dumping them over and then setting fire to them is beyond comprehension,” the association wrote in a Facebook post. “Club has offered a reward to lead to conviction and anyone with info please forward it to the sheriff’s office.”

Brazoria County Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $5,000. The beekeepers association is offering a $1,000 reward as well as asking for donations to help it recover from the losses.

READ THE FULL STORY AT CNN.com

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Create an Organized Home Apothecary

Choose Herbs That Meet Your Needs

The most important place to begin with any home apothecary is to accurately assess your home health care needs. If you know your family will need winter health support, then herbs to strengthen immunity will be the place to start. If you have a tendency to get colds that settle in the lungs, you may wish to have several lung-supporting herbs and expectorants on hand. Identifying the key areas where you need home remedies will help you focus your attention when stocking herbs and medicines.

The other key piece to efficiency in the home apothecary is to become as familiar as possible with the herbs you keep on hand. The more you understand about an herb, its properties, and its applications, the more versatile it will be. Most home apothecaries don’t have hundreds of herbs, and for good reason! A simple collection of 10 to 20 will do most people just fine. And the better you know those 10 to 20 herbs, the more useful you will find them.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE MotherEarthLiving.com

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Morgan Freeman Converted His 124-Acre Ranch Into A Giant Honeybee Sanctuary To Save The Bees

Morgan Freeman, the actor, film director and philanthropist has added a new title to his name: Beekeeper. The 81-year-old celebrity decided to convert his 124-acre Mississippi ranch into a bee sanctuary.

Freeman’s foray into beekeeping began in 2014, where he discussed his new hobby with Jimmy Fallon during The Tonight Show. Freeman had taken up beekeeping just a couple of weeks before appearing on the show and talked about his experience keeping bees and the need to preserve and save wild bees for healthy environments.

READ MORE ABOUT THIS STORY Forbes.com

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Nearly Half of Honey Tested Contains Mostly Rice Syrup, Wheat Syrup or Sugar Beet Syrup

A new testing method has revealed nearly half of the honey sold in Australia, one of the world’s largest exporters of honey, is diluted with cheap sweeteners like rice syrup, wheat syrup, and sugar beet syrup.

12 out of 28 honey samples taken from grocery stores around the country and tested in a reputable lab in Germany turned out to be mostly some form of cheap sugar syrup, not honey.

The scary thing is, all of these honey brands had passed the official government purity tests.

That’s because honey manufacturers have become more skilled at flying under the testing radar, researchers explain.

The official, internationally accepted, tests only pick up honey adulterated with cane sugar and corn sugar.

Manufacturers have learned they cannot detect the difference between rice syrup, sugar beet syrup, and honey.

READ THE FULL STORY Return To Now

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Bus Stops in the Netherlands are Covered in Flowers to Give Bees a Chance

The Dutch have a progressive way of thinking and acting that can stand as a model for many countries. Remember how long cannabis has been decriminalized there? They also have outstanding prenatal and postpartum care (with the view that birth is a natural occurrence, not a medical emergency) with 16 weeks paid maternity leave and 6 weeks paid paternity leave. Now the city of Utrecht is doing something else: the 316 bus stops throughout the city have been transformed. All the city’s bus stops have been covered in sedum (succulent) plants. The rooftops not only help to support the dwindling pollinator populations, but they also improve air quality by trapping fine dust particulates, store rainwater and provide a cool environment in the summertime.

Another way Utrecht is moving to improve air quality for its residents is by transitioning to an entirely electric bus fleet by 2028, with electricity sourced from Dutch windmills.

READ THE FULL STORY ACH News

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How One Man Singlehandedly Repopulated a Rare Butterfly Species in His Backyard


The iridescent blue wings of the California pipevine swallowtail are considered by collectors to be among the most magnificent in North America.

For centuries the beautiful butterfly thrived in the San Francisco and around the Bay Area. But as the region became increasingly urbanized in the early 1900s, the pipevine swallowtail began to disappear. Today it’s an extremely rare sight.

Aquatic biologist Tim Wong at the California Academy of Sciences has made it his personal mission to bring the butterfly back, and he’s off to a very promising start.

READ THE FULL STORY Return To Now

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How to Build Hugelkultur Beds and Why You Need Them

The concept of a permaculture garden is to provide long-term solutions that maximize outputs and minimize inputs while cycling energy and resources through the system. This creates closed-loop efficiency within your system and prevents excess waste. In fact, one of permaculture’s most favored sayings is ‘there’s no such thing as waste, just things in the wrong place’.

Hugelkultur is a great example of recycling resources on your site to create long-term fertility in the soil. In doing this, you create beds that become more productive over time, helping to produce better quality crops with higher yields.

READ MORE ABOUT THIS New Life On A Homestead

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When two Angelenos buy a farm—they make a must-see documentary about it

Eight years ago, after they were evicted from their Santa Monica apartment, John and Molly Chester bought 200 acres of land just outside of Los Angeles with the dream of becoming full-fledged farmers.

But 2011 would mark the beginning of a six-year drought, and the property was already eerily reminiscent of Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. Instead of nutrient-rich dark soil, John Chester, a director, and producer, would hold dirt in his hands that resembled sand; it would blow like dust into the air as it ran through his fingers. The soil was so dry and clay-like, Molly Chester, a personal chef, could drop a fistful onto the ground—and it would not break.

Today, the Chesters grow 75 varieties of stone fruit, avocados, and citrus on the Moorpark property, named Apricot Lane Farms. They’ve found success not just as farmers, but as documentary filmmakers. They’ve chronicled their journey in The Biggest Little Farm, a film that has earned wide praise and a Rotten Tomatoes fresh rating of 90 percent and landed the Chesters an interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE LA Curbed

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How to grow vegetables without a backyard

Living in an apartment, I long for a backyard where I can have sprawling planter beds, fruit trees and giant pots of flowers. I don’t have to put those dreams on hold entirely, though.

With a container garden, I can make use of what little outdoor space I have to grow fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Whether you have a few feet of balcony space or several inches on your counter, you can create a container garden, too.

Container gardening, simply put, is growing plants in containers or pots, rather than in the ground. If your yard is nothing more than a concrete slab, or you don’t have one at all, container gardening helps you overcome that.

There are big advantages to container gardening: Containers require less water, you can move plants around to meet their sunlight needs, and you can control pests and avoid soil-borne issues such as fungus and bacteria. They are also flexible, allowing you to add plants and rearrange pots as you want.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE CNET.com

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Could dirt be the answer to treating PTSD?

A new study from the University of Colorado Boulder found a certain type of bacteria in the soil helps reduce stress and overall, could make you happier.

Previous studies around the world have come to similar conclusions, but CU’s research may be the first step to a stress immunization for first responders and soldiers.

“What we’d like to do is look at effects in individuals that have already experienced trauma,” Associate Professor in Integrative Physiology at CU Boulder Christopher Lowry said. “[We could] either treat it immediately after trauma or treat it after developmental PTSD symptoms and see if it could also be beneficial at those times.”

So far, Lowry and other CU researchers have only studied this in mice. They injected them with the bacteria and found it keeps immune cells in the brain from becoming inflamed when you are stressed.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE 9News.com

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Grow Food Year Round in a $300 Underground Greenhouse

The word Walipini, derived from the Aymaran language and an indigenous Bolivian tribe, is translated as “a place of warmth” and is an earth-sheltered cold frame or transparent-roofed enclosure.

This underground greenhouse was created for the cold regions of South America to maintain food production year round but is now being adopted by gardeners of all skill levels across the world.

Most say that Walipinis should be at least 8’ by 12’ in size, but many people build even larger. Searching online you can find all types of plans and blueprints on how to design your underground greenhouse.

READ MORE ABOUT THIS PROJECT Homestead Guru

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Grow A Garden All Year Long! Join the Seed Club TODAY!

Welcome to the Club! UOG is a fully customized monthly garden club that is curated JUST FOR YOU, and full of unique garden seeds & supplies. #urbanorganicgardener

 

🐝 SHIPS ON THE 5TH OF EVERY MONTH
🍅 STARTS AT $9.99/MONTH
🌶 FREE TO CANCEL AT ANY TIME
🥦 100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEED
🍉 PURE RAW UN-TREATED HEIRLOOM NON-GMO SEEDS

LEARN MORE or SIGN-UP: www.urbanorganicgardener.club

📢[SAVE $5 ON YOUR FIRST MONTH BY USING CODE “UOG5” DURING SIGN-UP]

**SIGN-UP DEADLINE is JULY 4th at 11:59pm PST. Shipments will go out on the 5th.**

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What Is Humus Soil?

Humus is the blood, the life of your garden soil. Every gardener’s primary concern should be to make year-by-year improvements to their soil.

Soil without humus, is inactive, lacking the ability to produce quality plants and flowers. Read on to know more about humus soil and its role in creating a soil structure with rich organic matter content.

What Is Humus Soil?

Humus is the crumbly, loose material resulting from the decay of: peatmoss, grass clippings, leaf compost, wood chips, decayed sawdust, garden waste or any other types of organic material.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE Plant Care Today

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Garden Rabbits – a great addition for your vegetable patch

A few years ago we adopted a couple large rabbits from a local rescue organization.  They exclusively rescue rabbits from shuttered pet stores and from owners who no longer want to care for them.  They have many rabbits all waiting for a good home and we’ve discovered what valuable pets rabbits can be.

First, a little background.  We tried to keep the rabbits inside the house but soon found that they like to chew on anything and everything.  So, they needed to be caged just about all the time except under vigilant supervision.  I personally don’t like to see an animal caged too much and so, as my frustration rose at their furniture destruction, I cast about for an equitable solution.  I wanted to be happy, and I wanted the rabbits to be happy, too.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT Gardening Know How

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Could Dandelion “Weeds” Kill Cancer Cells & Leave Healthy Cells Intact?

Those yellow dots that “litter” your otherwise “perfectly green” lawn are more than just pesky weeds. Dandelion has been considered a valuable food and medicine in both Eastern and Western culture for thousands of years and is now being researched for it’s cancer-fighting abilities.

The use of the dandelion plant in both Greek and Chinese medicine predates written records.  Traditional healers use it to cleanse the liver, flush toxins from the kidneys and purify the blood.

It’s blood purifying compounds led researchers at the University of Windsor in Canada to hypothesize that dandelion could help patients with end-stage blood cancer.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE Return To Now

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8 Practical Things You Can Do To Help Save The Bees

In case you’ve somehow missed it: The bees are dying and yes, it’s something we should all care a lot about, because bees are IMPORTANT.

We have bees to thank for around one-third of the world’s food supply, including avocados, almonds, onions, and a whole lot of fruits and vegetables that would be extremely missed if they were to disappear.

But in the past year alone, US beekeepers have reported that 40% of their hives have died unexpectedly, possibly partly due to erratic weather conditions that are a result of climate change. Other threats to bee populations include habitat loss, pesticides and herbicides, monoculture (where farmers only grow a single crop at a time), and disease.

READ 8 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE THE BEES: Buzzfeed.com

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