So many uses from your garden fruits and veges. Here is a list of 45 uses for lemons from Trueactivist.com.

45 Uses For Lemons That Will Blow Your Socks Off

May 28, 2013 | Filed under: Health,Health Food,News | Posted by: True Activist

 

 

Most people are familiar with the traditional uses for lemons to soothe sore throats and add some citrus flavor to our foods. However the diversityof applications for lemons farexceeds general knowledge and once you read the following list, you’ll likely want to stock at least a few lemons in your kitchen 24-7.

1. Freshen the Fridge
Remove refrigerator odors with ease. Dab lemon juice on a cotton ball or sponge and leave it in the fridge for several hours. Make sure to toss out any malodorous items that might be causing the bad smell.

2. High Blood Pressure
Lemon contains potassium which controls high blood pressure and reduces the effect of nausea and dizziness.

3. Prevent Cauliflower From Turning Brown
Cauliflower tend to turn brown with even the slightest cooking. You can make sure the white vegetables stay white by squeezing a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice on them before heating.

4. Mental Health
Lemon water can also prep up your mood and relieve you from depression and stress. Long distance walkers and world travelers as well as explorers look upon the lemon as a Godsend. When fatigue begins, a lemon is sucked through a hole in the top. Quick acting medicine it is, giving almost unbelievable refreshments.

5. Refresh Cutting Boards
No wonder your kitchen cutting board smells! After all, you use it to chop onions, crush garlic, and prepare fish. To get rid of the smell and help sanitize the cutting board, rub it all over with the cut side of half a lemon or wash it in undiluted juice straight from the bottle.

6. Respiratory Problems
Lemon water can reduce phlegm; and can also help you breathe properly and aids a person suffering with asthma.

7. Treating Arthritis and Rheumatism
Lemon is a diuretic – assists in the production of urine which helps you to reduce inflammation by flushing out toxins and bacteria while also giving you relief from arthritis and rheumatism.

8. Prevents Kidney Stones
Regular consumption of the refreshing drink — or even lemon juice mixed with water — may increase the production of urinary citrate, a chemical in the urine that prevents the formation of crystals that may build up into kidney stones.

9. Keep Insects Out of the KitchenYou don’t need insecticides or ant traps to ant-proof your kitchen. Just give it the lemon treatment. First squirt some lemon juice on door thresholds and windowsills. Then squeeze lemon juice into any holes or cracks where the ants are getting in. Finally, scatter small slices of lemon peel around the outdoor entrance. The ants will get the message that they aren’t welcome. Lemons are also effective against roaches and fleas: Simply mix the juice of 4 lemons (along with the rinds) with 1/2 gallon (2 liters) water and wash your floors with it; then watch the fleas and roaches flee. They hate the smell.

10. Anti-Aging
Lemon water reduces the production of free radicals which are responsible for aging skin and skin damage. Lemon water is calorie free and an antioxidant.

11. Fruit and Vegetable Wash
You never know what kind of pesticides or dirt may be lurking on the skin of your favorite fruits and vegetables. Slice your lemon and squeeze out one tablespoon of lemon juice into your spray bottle. The lemon juice is a natural disinfectant and will leave your fruits and vegetables smelling nice too.

12. Treat Infections
Lemon water can fight throat infections thanks to its antibacterial property. If salt water does not work for you, try lime and water for gargling.

13. Deodorize Your Garbage
If your garbage is beginning to smell yucky, here’s an easy way to deodorize it: Save leftover lemon and orange peels and toss them at the base under the bag. To keep it smelling fresh, repeat once every couple of weeks.

14. Keep Guacamole Green
You’ve been making guacamole all day long for the big party, and you don’t want it to turn brown on top before the guests arrive. The solution: Sprinkle a liberal amount of fresh lemon juice over it and it will stay fresh and green. The flavor of the lemon juice is a natural complement to the avocados in the guacamole. Make the fruit salad hours in advance too. Just squeeze some lemon juice onto the apple slices, and they’ll stay snowy white.

15. Purges The Blood
We consume a lot of junk food or food with a lot of preservatives and artificial flavours. This builds up a lot of toxins in the blood and body but daily consumption of lemon water helps to purify the blood.
16. Make Soggy Lettuce Crisp
Don’t toss that soggy lettuce into the garbage. With the help of a little lemon juice you can toss it in a salad instead. Add the juice of half a lemon to a bowl of cold water. Then put the soggy lettuce in it and refrigerate for 1 hour. Make sure to dry the leaves completely before putting them into salads or sandwiches.

17. Oral Health
Lemon juice also stops bleeding gums and reduces toothaches

18. Lighten Age Spots
Why buy expensive creams when you’ve got lemon juice? To lighten liver spots or freckles, try applying lemon juice directly to the area. Let it sit for 15 minutes and then rinse your skin clean. It’s a safe and effective skin-lightening agent.

19. Create Blonde Highlights
For salon-worthy highlights, add 1/4 cup lemon juice to 3/4 cup water and rinse your hair with the mixture. Then, sit in the sun until your hair dries. To maximize the effect, repeat once daily for up to a week.

20. Make a Room Scent/Humidifier
Freshen and moisturize the air in your home on dry winter days. Make your own room scent that also doubles as a humidifier. If you have a wood-burning stove, place an enameled cast-iron pot or bowl on top, fill with water, and add lemon (and/or orange) peels, cinnamon sticks, cloves, and apple skins. No wood-burning stove? Use your stovetop instead and just simmer the water periodically.

21. Clean and Whiten Nails
Pamper your hands without a manicurist. Add the juice of 1/2 lemon to 1 cup warm water and soak your fingertips in the mixture for 5 minutes. After pushing back the cuticles, rub some lemon peel back and forth against the nail.

22. Cleanse Your Face
Zap zits naturally by dabbing lemon juice on blackheads to draw them out during the day. You can also wash your face with lemon juice for a natural cleanse and exfoliation. Your skin should improve after several days of treatment. Lemon water is also a cooling agent, best way to beat the heat.

23. Freshen Your Breath
Make an impromptu mouthwash by rinsing with lemon juice straight from the bottle. Swallow for longer-lasting fresh breath. The citric acid in the juice alters the pH level in your mouth, killing bacteria that causes bad breath. Rinse after a few minutes because long-term exposure to the acid in lemons can harm tooth enamel.

24. Treat Flaky Dandruff
If itchy, scaly dandruff has you scratching your head, relief may be no farther away than your refrigerator. Just massage two tablespoons lemon juice into your scalp and rinse with water. Then stir one teaspoon lemon juice into one cup water and rinse your hair with it. Repeat daily until your dandruff disappears.

25. Get Rid of Tough Stains on MarbleYou probably think of marble as stone, but it is really petrified calcium (also known as old seashells). That explains why it is so porous and easily stained and damaged. Those stains can be hard to remove. If washing won’t remove a stubborn stain, try this: Cut a lemon in half, dip the exposed flesh into some table salt, and rub it vigorously on the stain. But do this only as a last resort; acid can damage marble. Rinse well. Use These Lemons To Clean – Easy and Effective

26. Remove Berry Stains
It sure was fun to pick your own berries, but now your fingers are stained with berry juice that won’t come off no matter how much you scrub with soap and water. Try washing your hands with undiluted lemon juice, then wait a few minutes and wash with warm, soapy water. Repeat until your hands are stain-free.

27. Soften Dry, Scaly Elbows
Itchy elbows are bad enough, but they look terrible too. For better looking (and feeling) elbows, mix baking soda and lemon juice to make an abrasive paste, then rub it into your elbows for a soothing, smoothing, and exfoliating treatment. Rinse your extremities in a mixture of equal parts lemon juice and water, then massage with olive oil and dab dry with a soft cloth.

28. Headaches
Lemon juice with a few teaspoons of hot tea added is the treatment of a sophisticated New York bartender, for those who suffer with hangover headaches–and from headaches due to many other causes. He converts his customers to this regime, and weans them away from drug remedies completely.

29. Chills and Fevers
Chills and fevers may be due to a variety of causes; never the less the lemon is always a helpful remedy. Spanish physicians regard it as an infallible friend.

30. Diptheria
Skip the vaccine for this disease. Lemon Juice Treatment still proves as one of the most powerful antiseptics and the strong digestive qualities of the fruit are admired around the world. With the juice every hour or two, and at the same time, 1/2 to 1 tsp. should be swallowed. This cuts loose the false membrane in the throat and permits it to come out.

31. Vaginal Hygiene
Diluted lemon juice makes a safe and sane method of vaginal hygiene. Though it is a powerful antiseptic it is nevertheless free from irritating drugs in douches and suppositories.

32. Forget The Moth Balls
A charming French custom to keep closets free from moths is to take ripe lemons and stick them with cloves all over the skin. The heavily studded lemons slowly dry with their cloves, leaving a marvelous odor throughout the closets and rooms.

33. Stomach Health
Digestive problems are the most common ailments but warm water and lime juice is the solution to most digestive problems. Lemon juice helps to purify the blood, reduces your chances of indigestion, constipation, eliminates toxins from the body, adds digestion and reduces phlegm.

34. Disinfect Cuts and Scrapes
Stop bleeding and disinfect minor cuts and scraps by pouring a few drops of lemon juice directly on the cut. You can also apply the juice with a cotton ball and hold firmly in place for one minute.

35. Soothe Poison Ivy Rash
You won’t need an ocean of calamine lotion the next time poison ivy comes a-creeping. Just apply lemon juice directly to the affected area to soothe itching and alleviate the rash.

36. Remove Warts
You’ve tried countless remedies to banish warts and nothing seems to work. Next time, apply a dab of lemon juice directly to the wart using a cotton swab. Repeat for several days until the acids in the lemon juice dissolve the wart completely.

37. Bleach Delicate FabricsAvoid additional bleach stains by swapping ordinary household chlorine bleach with lemon juice, which is milder but no less effective. Soak your delicates in a mixture of lemon juice and baking soda for at least half an hour before washing.

38. Clean Tarnished Brass and Polish Chrome
Say good-bye to tarnish on brass, copper, or stainless steel. Make a paste of lemon juice and salt (or substitute baking soda or cream of tartar for the salt) and coat the affected area. Let it stay on for 5 minutes. Then wash in warm water, rinse, and polish dry. Use the same mixture to clean metal kitchen sinks too. Apply the paste, scrub gently, and rinse.Get rid of mineral deposits and polish chrome faucets and other tarnished chrome. Simply rub lemon rind over the chrome and watch it shine! Rinse well and dry with a soft cloth.

39. Replace Your Dry Cleaner
Ditch the expensive dry-cleaning bills (and harsh chemicals) with this homegrown trick. Simply scrub the stained area on shirts and blouses with equal parts lemon juice and water. Your “pits” will be good as new, and smell nice too.

40. Boost Laundry Detergent
For more powerful cleaning action, pour 1 cup lemon juice into the washer during the wash cycle. The natural bleaching action of the juice will zap stains and remove rust and mineral discolorations from cotton T-shirts and briefs and will leave your clothes smelling fresh. Your clothes will turn out brighter and also come out smelling lemon-fresh.

41. Rid Clothes of Mildew
Have you ever unpacked clothes you stored all winter and discovered some are stained with mildew? To get rid of it, make a paste of lemon juice and salt and rub it on the affected area, then dry the clothes in sunlight. Repeat the process until the stain is gone.

42. Eliminate Fireplace Odor
There’s nothing cozier on a cold winter night than a warm fire burning in the fireplace — unless the fire happens to smell horrible. Next time you have a fire that sends a stench into the room, try throwing a few lemon peels into the flames. Or simply burn some lemon peels along with your firewood as a preventive measure.

43. Neutralize Cat-Box Odor
You don’t have to use an aerosol spray to neutralize foul-smelling cat-box odors or freshen the air in your bathroom. Just cut a couple of lemons in half. Then place them, cut side up, in a dish in the room, and the air will soon smell lemon-fresh.

44. Deodorize a Humidifier
When your humidifier starts to smell funky, deodorize it with ease: Just pour 3 or 4 teaspoons lemon juice into the water. It will not only remove the off odor but will replace it with a lemon-fresh fragrance. Repeat every couple of weeks to keep the odor from returning.

45. Reduce Asthma SymptomsIn addition to a general detoxifying diet, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice before each meal, and before retiring can reduce asthma symptoms.

* If you do consume lemon peel, stick to organic lemons to reduce your pesticide exposure.
John Summerly is nutritionist, herbologist, and homeopathic practitioner. He is a leader in the natural health community and consults athletes, executives and most of all parents of children on the benefits of complementary therapies for health and prevention


Read more http://www.trueactivist.com/45-uses-for-lemons-that-will-blow-your-socks-off/

Don't Discard Those Fallen Leaves

Today as I walked around outdoors, I noticed all the fallen leaves from the trees. After all this is the Autumn season. I especially took note, of fallen pine leaves, lots of them. Having recently read how beneficial pine leaves are to gardens, I almost would have grabbed a rake and put them all in a plastic bag to use in the garden...but then I was at the parking lot of a busy bank.

I couldn't help but wonder, how often, these lovely garden gems are swept up and put into landfill. Anyway, we certainly have to rethink that practice, especially now that back yard grocery producing is making a comeback. That is gardening backyard food for the our tables. And so I am very thrilled to post this article I found today on motherearthnews.com. So next time you rake up some autumn leaves, you may want to put some of those to good use.

Using Leaves in the Garden

          

By Vicki Mattern

 

What’s the best way to use leaves in the garden?

Leaves are one of the main ingredients of the dark, rich humus that covers the forest floor — nature’s compost. A gardener can replicate that humus by mixing carbon-rich leaves with nitrogen-rich manure or grass clippings to make compost.

Maintaining an active compost pile in winter can be a challenge, however. An easier alternative is to use leaves in the garden in fall, says Abigail Maynard, associate agricultural scientist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, who has studied the use of leaves as a garden soil amendment for more than 10 years.

If possible, shred your leaves first with a chipper-shredder or mower; the smaller pieces will break down faster. Spread the chopped leaf mulch over your garden soil, then incorporate it with a tiller or spade. “By spring, almost all of the chopped leaves will be completely decomposed,” Maynard says.
Maynard’s research has shown that amending soil with maple or oak leaves alone probably won’t boost yields the way adding finished compost does, but she says using leaves in the garden does add organic matter to the soil. Organic matter improves soil structure, holds nutrients and moisture that are released slowly to plants, and provides food for beneficial soil organisms.

Maynard suggests adding a nitrogen-rich fertilizer, such as aged manure, in spring. (Nitrogen added in fall could leach away by spring.)

 

Secrets to Growing Fab Tomatoes

Thank You www.OrganicGardening.com. Love these simple tips for the best tomatoes ever!

1. Choose a bright, airy spot. Plant tomatoes where they will get at least 10 hours of light in summer. And leave room between plants for air to circulate.

2. Rotate even a little.Alternate your tomato bed between even just two spots and you diminish the risk of soilborne diseases such as bacterial spot and early blight.

3. Pass up overgrown transplants. When buying tomato seedlings, beware of lush green starts with poor root systems. They will languish for weeks before growing.

4. Bury the stems. Plant your tomato seedlings up to the first true leaves. New roots will quickly sprout on the stems. More roots means more fruits.

5. Water deeply but infrequently. Soak your tomato bed once a week, or every five days at the height of summer. Water directly on the soil, not on the leaves.

6. Pinch the suckers. Prune off these non-fruiting branches. This directs the tomato plant's energy into growing bigger, better fruit.

7. Stake them high. Use 6-foot stakes for indeterminate varieties like the 'Brandywine' tomato. Put in the stakes when transplanting to avoid damaging roots.

8.Add compost and trim. While the first fruit is ripening, encourage new growth and continued fruit set by scratching compost around the stem, and trim some of the upper leaves.

9. Plant again.Three weeks after you plant tomatoes in your garden, put in another set so all of your harvest doesn't come at once.

 

10. Pick ripe, but not dead ripe. Heirloom tomatoes that are too ripe can be mealy. Harvest them when they're full size and fully colored.

 

For more information about growing tomatoes, check out our Tomato Growing Guide.

 

 

Great Tips on Propagating Tomatoes !

Once you try home grown tomatoes, you will never (ever) want to go back to store bought tomatoes again. I have been growing tomatoes, and actually they grow like weeds, but I am sure making a few adjustments can only be a good thing. I love these tips from Organicgardening.com.


Plant deep.

Bury a tomato plant's stem and the stem will sprout a slew of new roots that help the plant grow sturdy and tall quickly. You can bury just about all of stem--pluck off the branches below the top flush of leaves.

Early in the season, when the soil is still cool, dig a trench 4 or 5 inches deep in the soil and set the transplant into it, again burying the stem up to the top leaves.

If you're transplanting later in the season, when the soil has warmed or in dry climates, bury the transplant in a straight, deep hole. Cooler, moister soil below 6 inches deep helps tomatoes survive in hot, dry summers.

Feed the soil first.

 

Avoid the common mistake of overfeeding your tomatoes. They thrive in soil that's rich in humus for extensive, well-nourished root systems and potassium (K) for strong stems. Add too much nitrogen (N) and you'll have a big, lush plant with very little fruit.

"A lot of organic gardeners overload their soil with manure and get fewer tomatoes for it," notes Will Brinton, Ph.D., president of Woods End Research Laboratory in Mount Vernon, Maine. "I save my best compost for tomatoes and supplement it only with seaweed powder, which is a quick-acting source of potassium. We get incredible fruits."

Homemade compost typically supplies all the phosphorus (P) your tomatoes need for good flowering and fruiting. If a soil test indicates a serious phosphorus deficiency, add rock phosphate to your tomato-growing beds next fall.

Keep them warm, keep them cool.

 

Chilly spring temperatures (nights cooler than 50 degrees F) slow tomato plants' growth. Sizzling summer temps (days hotter than 95 degrees) cause the flowers to drop off. You can moderate both extremes with Wall O' Waters, which are plastic "teepees" with individual tubes filled with water. They also help keep the plants upright and shelter the plants from high winds.

Red plastic, maybe.

 

Many organic gardeners rely on plastic mulch to warm the soil in spring and prevent weeds from sprouting up. Plastic mulch isn't part of our ideal organic garden, but study after study has found that beds covered in black plastic in spring produce tomatoes earlier and more of them all season long. Where the growing season is short, plastic mulch may be essential if you want to harvest tomatoes at all. Even more effective, researchers have found, is infra-red transmitting plastic mulch, which reflects just the kind of light plants need up onto the foliage.

 

Mulch for sure.

While plastic mulch has proved its worth, all-natural mulches also help tomatoes grow well. Surround your plants with a layer of straw, leaves, dried grass clippings or pine needles and it will keep the plants' roots cool, prevent weeds from sprouting around them and retain moisture in the soil. Because these mulches keep the soil cool, don't apply them until after the soil warms to 65 degrees F.

Pluck the first flowers.

Growing deep, extensive roots and a full leaf canopy will help establish newly transplanted tomatoes. Many experienced tomato growers pull off the first flowers, so the plant does not devote energy to forming fruit before its roots and foliage have filled out. Amy Goldman, who grows hundreds of heirloom tomatoes in her Rhinebeck, New York, garden each season, reports, "I pull off all the flowers until the plants reach at least 1 foot tall." She also pulls off all the suckers (shoots that emerge from the main stem below the first fruiting branch).

Grow them up.

 

Tomato vines left to sprawl on the soil are more susceptible to attacks by pests and diseases. Sprawling vines take up a lot of room in your garden and the fruit they bear is more difficult to harvest. So stake or cage the vines for your healthiest, most productive tomato crop ever.

You can revive damaged plants.

 

If cutworms, mice, slugs, the neighbor's dog or other hazards hack into your transplants, don't despair. If you get to the plant before the sun has baked the life out of it, cut an inch or so off the bottom of the stem and place the rest in a container of water out of direct sun for a week or so. It will sprout roots along the stem. Then transplant it back into garden and watch it grow.

Bamboo: versatel with many uses

The more I find out about bamboo, the more I realize it is soo versatel. Really a plant to get to know.

I love this article from OrganicGardening.com.

I love bamboo. There, I said it.

I love it for its trellising potential. I love it for how it becomes the skeleton of a garden, the frame from which my sprawling vines will hang and bear fruit.

I would never plant bamboo in my own yard, of course. Let’s face it—it’s an arrogant weed when left to its own devices.

 

I found an overgrown stand of bamboo not far my house, a living privacy fence gone wild. A quick call to the owner granted me permission to cut and haul away as much as I’d like
.
Armed with a pair of loppers, hand pruners, and a roll of electrical tape, I entered the tight grove of evergreen grass, the tall canes rising up all around me. I lopped the canes close to the ground and dragged them out into the open space, where I snipped off the leaves and the skinny tops and was left with the perfect raw material for trellis and teepee.

When I thought I had enough canes, I bundled them together in groups of eight, wrapping them with electrical tape the way an electrician bundles sticks of conduit. I strapped the bundles to the car roof and headed back to my garden.

 

Why is bamboo so great? It’s lightweight and strong. And—if you play your cards right—it’s free.
The teepee is the easiest bamboo structure to make. You take three or four canes, tie them together about a foot from the end, spread the other ends open, and push the canes into the ground. Wrap a spiral of jute twine from top to bottom to give your climbers something to hold on to. This is perfect for pole beans, morning glories, even cucumbers and some small squash or gourds—really anything that sprawls and climbs will appreciate a good bamboo teepee. Leave one side open, and by mid to late summer your kids will have a fun shady hideout.

Learn more: How to Make a Simple Bamboo Trellis

 

Another favorite bamboo structure is something that I call the net trellis. It’s essentially two teepees (preferably tripods) connected by a horizontal stick of bamboo at the top, from which you hang a net of jute twine.

Tie lengths of twine horizontally between the tripods, about every 8 inches. Then do the same vertically across the connector piece, again about every 8 inches, looping each string around the horizontals. Be sure to put a little tension on the twine as you go, ensuring that your net isn’t too loose. Tie the ends of the strings off to the bottommost horizontal. Do this all the way across, and soon you’ll have a handsome little net for your climbers to ascend.

The trick to this, like the trick to almost anything, is to take your time. Be patient, watch what you’re doing, be present, feel the air, hear the birds, make the net.

The net trellis is also great for beans, cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, and more.

 

I’m using bamboo in a new way this year, too—as supports for the Florida weave I’m trying on my tomatoes. I’m officially done with those flimsy metal tomato cages. Every year by August, my beautiful tomato plants are cascading over the tops of the cages. I prune and tie up as much as I can, but my plants inevitably grow out of control.

This year, I hope things will be different. I have two main rows of tomatoes—one row of six plants (three ‘Brandywine’ and three ‘Cosmonaut Volkov’) and another row of four plants (two ‘Indigo Rose’ and two ‘Green Zebra’). At the ends of each row and between every two plants, I have driven into the soil very thick and very tall canes of bamboo. (I made a pilot hole first using a long metal rod from a quoits set and a small sledgehammer. I was then able to sink the bamboo into the ground about 18 to 24 inches, leaving 7 feet above ground.)

I will weave twine around the plants and the poles, adding another length of twine every 8 inches or so as the plants grow. By August, I should have a nice, neat wall of tomato vines.
For more detailed instruction on the Florida weave, go here:

As with most things, bamboo doesn’t last forever. It will eventually dry out, become brittle, and render itself useless—which is why I go back each year to cut more. And when I go back, I always cut more than I need, because giving a fellow gardener or two a bundle of fresh-cut bamboo is like adding fresh compost to your gardening karma.

Tips on Starting Your Own Seeds

Organic Gardening  provides this great article with 14 tips on how to start your own seeds.

Ensure that your plants are organic from start to finish by starting your own seeds.
Start your own seeds and you can be sure that your plants have been raised organically from first to last. And by sprouting and nursing your own seedlings, you don't have to wait for warm weather to get your hands dirty. Best of all, starting your own seeds is easy and fun. Here's how to get started now:

Place sure bets
Some plants lend themselves to home germination better than others. Surefire vegetables include basil, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, chives, leeks, lettuce, onions, peppers, and tomatoes. Some reliable annual flowers are alyssum, cosmos, marigolds, and zinnias. Perennials include Shasta daisies, columbines, and hollyhocks.

Get the timing down
To calculate when to sow your seeds, go to our seed-starting chart, print it out and then fill in the blanks. Then you will have a planting plan you can follow through the season.

Gather containers
Reuse last year's nursery flats if you have some around. Otherwise, any container 2 or 3 inches deep will do. Punch holes for drainage into the bottom of containers and set them into trays. Protect against plant disease by thoroughly cleaning all used containers: Wash them in hot, soapy water, and rinse with a dilute solution of household bleach and water. If you want a less-irritating substitute for the bleach, use distilled white vinegar.

Pick the right growing medium You can buy bags of seed-starter mix or you can make your own seed-starting mix by blending equal parts of perlite, vermiculite, and peat. Add 1/4 teaspoon of lime to each gallon of mix to neutralize the acidity of the peat. You'll eventually want to repot most of your seedlings into larger containers before setting them into the garden. But lettuce, melons, and cucumbers are finicky about being transplanted and should go directly from the original containers into the garden. When starting these fussier plants, always add two parts well-aged, screened compost to your mix to give them a healthy beginning.

Sow carefully
Moisten your medium in the containers before sowing the seeds. Next, drop seeds onto the surface of the mix, spacing them as evenly as possible. Cover the seeds to a depth about three times the thickness of the seeds. Some seeds, such as ageratum, alyssum, impatiens, petunias, and snapdragons, should not be covered at all because they need light in order to germinate.

Top it off
Lightly sprinkle milled sphagnum moss, a natural fungicide, over everything to protect against damping-off, a fungal disease that rots seeds and seedlings. In the case of seeds that need light to germinate, sprinkle the moss first and then drop the seeds onto the moss.

Keep seeds cozy
Cover the flats with plastic wrap or glass to keep the environment humid and place them near a heat vent or on a heat mat made especially for seed starting. Most seeds germinate well at about 70 degrees F.

Keep them damp
Mist with a spray bottle or set the trays into water so the mix wicks up the moisture from below.

Lighten up
At the first signs of sprouting, uncover and move the containers to a bright spot—a sunny window, a greenhouse, or beneath a couple of ordinary fluorescent shop lights (4-footers with two 40-watt bulbs). The lights are worthwhile, especially if you live in the North. They provide a steady source of high-intensity light. Short days restrict window light, and your seedlings need 12 to 16 hours of light a day. Suspend the lights just 2 inches above the plants and gradually raise them as the seedlings mature. If plants have to stretch or lean toward the light, they can become weak and spindly. To turn the lights on and off at the same time each day, hook them up to an electric timer.

Cool down Seedlings don't have to stay as warm as germinating seeds. Move them away from radiators and air vents, or off the heating mat, as soon they have germinated.

Feed them
If youre using a soilless mix without compost, begin to fertilize your seedlings as soon as they get their first true leaves. (These leaves emerge after the little, round cotyledon leaves.) Water with a half-strength solution of liquid fish/seaweed fertilizer every week or two. Use either a spray bottle or add the fertilizer to the water you set the trays in if you're using the wick-up method described above.

Give them room
If the seedlings outgrow their containers or crowd one another, repot them into larger containers filled with a mix that includes compost. Extract the seedlings with a narrow fork or flat stick, and handle by their leaves and roots to avoid damaging the fragile stems. Tuck the seedlings gently into the new pots, and water them to settle the roots.

Pet them
Lightly ruffling seedlings once or twice a day with your hand or a piece of cardboard helps them to grow stocky and strong. Or, set up a small fan to gently, continuously blow on your seedlings.

Toughen them up
About 1 week before the plants are to go outside, start acclimating them to the harsh conditions of the big world. Gardeners call this hardening off. On a warm spring day move the containers to a shaded, protected place, such as a porch, for a few hours. Each day—unless the weather is horrible—gradually increase the plants exposure to sun and breeze. At the end of the week leave them out overnight; then transplant them into the garden.

Its Pumpkin Seeds Time: Check Out The Benefits of Pumpkin Seeds

Perennial Garlic

If you love garlic, here is a good tip on how to plant it once and have it grow, over and over again.

I love these garlic growing tips from the Centerfordeepecology.org.  Literally, plant garlic once and harvest it over and over again.

There’s a way to grow garlic without replanting each year. A Washington gardener explains how.
Joe Capriotti doesn’t plant garlic, but every year he harvests hundreds of pounds from his backyard in Montesano, Wash. His technique goes against the common practice of planting and harvesting garlic each year as if it were an annual plant. Most people don’t realize that garlic can be grown as a perennial.

Capriotti, who once worked as a chef and as a logger in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, developed his technique over many years of experimenting on his 1-acre homestead. Now, at 80, he proudly displays the fruits of his research. When I visited his place in western Washington, I found Capriotti to be an active man with a sharp wit and a delightful sense of humor. His other experiments have ranged from testing apple, peach, plum and pear varieties to new techniques for growing strawberries and potatoes. But his real love is garlic.

“This patch of elephant garlic hasn’t been planted or plowed for more than 20 years,” Capriotti says, leading me to a 25-by-40-foot area where healthy garlic tops of various sizes grow without apparent order. “When the plants are about 2 feet tall, seed buds will form. Be sure to pinch off the buds or you won’t get any garlic. The large plants will form cloves. The other, smaller plants will die back, but will come up again the following year. Did you ever dig clams? Well, the small holes the young garlic tops leave after they die back look like little clam holes all over the soil."

In August Capriotti pulls up the largest plants that have been pinched. “I just pull ‘em out of the ground by hand or use a garden trowel if they won’t come,” he says. “I have never weighed how many pounds have come out of this bed, but it’s 200 pounds or more.” Capriotti also inter-plants garlic with berries and young fruit trees. Volunteers may be found almost anywhere in the garden.
After harvesting, Capriotti uses a hand-push cultivator to lightly till the surface and uproot weeds that are already growing. He waters the bed to cause the weed seeds to germinate, then cultivates the surface to eliminate those young weeds. In September the area looks bare and abandoned. “My neighbors used to look at it and ask, ‘Hey Joe, aren’t you going to plant garlic this year?’ “ he says. “ ‘No,’ I’d answer, ‘I never plant garlic. It’s already in there.’

In October, Capriotti spreads a 3- to 4-inch mulch of cherry and apple leaves. The mulch keeps any more weeds from sprouting and would prevent the garlic from coming up, too, if it weren’t for the timely arrival of the wood thrush, or winter robin, from the local forest. These birds, which move to the open lowlands with the first cold weather, eat insects that live under the leaves. They turn the mulch, disturbing it enough for the garlic to sprout through. Last year, for some reason, not many thrushes came, but robins took over and did the job nearly as well. Capriotti has built bird boxes all around his house and watering ponds nearby to attract birds of all kinds. Besides turning the garlic mulch, the thrushes, robins and warblers effectively control insects throughout the garden.

By spring most of the mulch is gone. Night crawlers and microorganisms have turned it into rich compost. “Don’t dig manure into the soil when you start the bed, Capriotti suggests. “I tried that one year when I was trying to get huge cloves just for show. The plants grew big enough, but they were only the leaves—no cloves. If you want to fertilize, spread 1 inch of well-rotted manure on top of the ground. After a patch has had no fertilizer for many years, it is necessary to do this. By not plowing, and by spreading a little manure once in a while and a mulch of leaves every fall, I get elephant garlic bulbs of all sizes — some weigh over 1 pound. The shopkeepers I sell to don’t like it when they get that big. It’s too weird — the customers have never seen anything like it.”

Garlic likes full sun and grows well in most soil conditions, but the soil should not be too heavy and it must have good drainage. “Garlic hates to have its feet wet and will rot in boggy areas,” Capriotti says. “Don’t water in the summer, especially with an overhead sprinkler. I don’t even sprinkle my strawberries or raspberries nearby because I’m afraid some of the water might get on the garlic. If it rains heavily after the Fourth of July, it rots some of the plants and you get a lot of culls. I replant the culls later in areas that look kind of sparse.”

This way of growing garlic has emerged from a lifetime of living and working close to nature. It requires no machinery or chemicals — only a hand cultivator and a garden trowel. “You have to have the right soil conditions,” Capriotti says, “and you have to be aware of everything going on in the garden.” The technique is simple yet sophisticated, and closely follows the natural cycle of garlic, a perennial plant. Capriotti is proud of his way with garlic and loves to remind his many visitors, “I don’t plant garlic — I only harvest it.”

Organic Gardening, April 1987

Top 10 Tips for Storing Seeds

If you have leftover seeds or aren’t ready to plant your seeds when they arrive, you’ll need to store them properly to ensure good germination.

 

I love this article from OrganicGardening.com.  

1. Think dry and cool no matter where you store seed. Humidity and warmth shorten a seed’s shelf life.

2. Keep seed packets in plastic food storage bags, plastic film canisters, Mason jars with tight-fitting lids, or glass canisters with gasketed lids.

 

3. The refrigerator is generally the best place to store seeds.

4. Keep your seed-storage containers well away from the freezer section of your refrigerator.

 

5. To keep seeds dry, wrap 2 heaping tablespoons of powdered milk in 4 layers of facial tissue, then put the milk packet inside the storage container with the seed packets. Or add a packet of silica gel. Replace every 6 months.

6. Store each year’s seeds together and date them. Because most seeds last about 3 years, you’ll know at a glance which container of seeds might be past its prime when planting season comes.

7. When you’re ready to plant, remove seed containers from the refrigerator and keep them closed until the seeds warm to room temperature. Otherwise, moisture in the air will condense on the seeds, causing them to clump together.

8. If you’re gathering and saving seeds from your own plants, spread the seeds on newspaper and let them air dry for about a week. Write seed names on the newspaper so there’s no mix-up. Pack the air-dried seeds in small paper packets or envelopes, and label with plant name, date, and other pertinent information. Remember, if you want to save your own seeds, you’ll need to plant open-pollinated varieties. They’ll come back true; hybrids won’t.

9. Or dry saved seeds on paper towels. They’ll stick to the towels when dry, so roll them up right in the towel to store them. When you’re ready to plant, just tear off bits of the towel, one seed at a time, and plant seed and towel right in the soil.

10. Even if you’re organized, methodical, and careful about storing seeds, accept the fact that some seeds just won’t germinate the following year. Home gardeners will find that stored sweet corn and parsnip seeds, in particular, have low germination rates, and other seeds will only remain viable for a year or two.