An ultimate fall #gardening to-do list

Fall isn't just for harvests, you can still get some mileage out of your garden… ...in pictures from @Pinterest

Fall isn't just for harvests, you can still get some mileage out of your garden before it's time for cool-season crops. Keep your green thumb going with these tips. From Kalyn Allen Fall Vegetable Gardening for Beginners From Lavende and Lemonade 18 Vegetables for Your Autumn Garden - ... Expand your garden with 18 common vegetables well-su... From Survival for Blondes 8 Lightning-Fast Vegetables For Your Fall Garden | #... From Sherry Clark Vegetables to Grow In the Fall Vegetabl... Do you think your gardening is over when Fall arrive... From Ann Walterman Bloom time charts for fall-planted bulbs, spring-pla... From Michelle Raphael What To Plant for Fall Gardens - The Ga... There are many vegetables that you can plant now for... From Charlotte Pastorius Freund... Renee's Articles: What to plant in June What to plant in June (late summer crops) & July, Au... From Rachell McCreary Top Fall Flowers for Your Garden Looking for a hardy daisy? Helenium is a beautfiul f... From Larecia Springer 5 Step Guide to Growing Gorgeous Garlic... All you need to know for growing your own garlic, an... From Ginny Hartman How to Grow Pumpkins - Decor Adventures Tips for growing pumpkins (for the pumpkin patch I w... See more Pins

Another good #GARDENING #video

… for #Mountainair gardeners & growers from Praxxus55712: Autumn EZ composting Tips! Cool weather is here! Time to gather the remnants from my garden for compost to ensure next season's garden is a bumper crop. Tips for adding trace minerals from items in your yard. Info on high nitrogen, potassium and calcium sources. Join me for composting tips and advice. No worries about blight or salmonella in my compost. It's fun, EASY and much simpler than you may think. Today is a Good Day! More

Ripen Tomatoes & more summer gardening tips

…just out on Praxxus' YouTube channel of gardening videos, heavy on the tomatoes.There is a "Tomato Channel" on YouTube too as well as a "Pepper Growing Channel"

The #gardening Daily, Monday, Oct. 31, 2011

In this issue, Dirt Lovers Diary and Manure Tea articles look particularly interesting ~ or maybe that is just my taste for unusual titles. Seriously though, the first (DLD) links to an article, "Wintering Plants for Next Season," relevant to current gardening concerns. 

Do you have tips for wintering plants in the New Mexico high desert or know a local gardening wizard experienced with local gardening conditions? Please share them with us. Besides blogging them, iCreate could assemble a collection local gardening lore to publish on line and make available to all. 

Autumn Gardening

Praxxus55712 just uploaded a video: EZ Autumn Composting with Leaves! Autumn isn't the end of gardening season. The gardening adventure never end and never ceases to be FREE, educational and just plain FUN! Join me in the backyard for a fantastic day in the sunshine. I have a bag of leaves and a very cool idea on how to easily improve your garden soil. Leaf compost attracts worms like a super magnet. Worms in your garden will mean crazy good soil for your next growing season.  ps: How is your autumn going so far? Are the leaves turning or have they already fallen? More

Video Break: orange seedlings, raised beds, post-petro man

Praxxus55712 just uploaded a video: Viewer Requested Updates! A couple of updates requested most by viewers along with a very easy to follow way to sprout an orange seed and get it growing fast.  For your viewing pleasure, Buddy will break dance and the lovely Datura will spill her pollen. A 600 year old guest makes a cameo appearance! You won't want to miss this episode! :) More Portable raised beds, compost tea and Pineapple flowers! Help Center | Email Options peakmoment just uploaded a video: Arrival of the Post-Petroleum Human Peak Moment 196: "Petroleum Man is dead. Infinite Growth Man is dead. Post Petroleum Human is alive," announced Michael C. Ruppert on May 22, 2011. Members of this emerging "species" know they must live in balance with the Earth, while remembering the lessons of industrial civilization. The star and subject of the documentary "Collapse", Mike founded CollapseNet.org in 2010 to empower people to connect and relocalize.More

Community Garden Notes

~ update on and wish list for the community garden and more. An iCreate post is past due, but I'm hoping waiting more of a report on the recent fundraising concert at Off-Center Arts, so I can give the performers their due after the fact.

In the meantime, however, there are community garden updates and resources to share: a neat video (embedded below) on "How To Recycle Household Items In The Garden"; next Torrance County Extension workshop; KGI (Kitchen Garden International) and Peak Moment TV ("locally reliant living for challenging times") newsletters; links to a few YouTube gardening and horticulture video channels. There are so many of them, that with a large screen monitor, we could run a regular gardening and permaculture film night - bring your own popcorn.

More videos on NMSU Extension's YouTube ACES channel and iTunes U, as well as The Dirt Doctor's channel


Community Garden Wish List

• growing containers. 
• good top soil
• compost or manure
• help setting up new garden
• source for bales of straw or oat hay for straw bale gardening

straw bale garden rows image from MRCOG

 Backyard Growers and Community Gardens page 

Bring donations and help to Mountainair Arts, East Broadway & South Ross on next garden workday ~ the last one was Saturday May 13 at 3pm, Time is subject to change with summer temperatures. Contact: Joan Embree, housemaven@comcast.net, 847-2324

Newsletters

• Peak Moment, May 2011
• Kitchen Garden May 2011

The next Claunch-Pinto SWCD sponsored Extension Workshop ~ eagerly anticipated ~ will be June 25,  on water harvesting, time and location TBA. More details when available, perhaps accompanied by links to relevant handouts and even a video or so on rain barrels and harvesting rain water.

Get More Veggies from Your Garden

Photo Credit: j-oh, Flickr Creative Commons.

In the quest to grow more of our own food on our 1/4 acre city lot, we've spent a bit of time bemoaning the fact that we are quickly running out of space. The good news is that there are plenty of ways to make your limited garden space work harder for you.

The latest issue of Mother Earth News features a great article by Barbara Pleasant, "40 Gardening Tips to Maximize Your Harvest." The entire article is online, and it's definitely worth reading. The section that particularly caught my eye, however, was the section on tips for using space efficiently. Here are some of the tips that have worked well for me.

Tips for Using Garden Space Efficiently

1. Interplant Compatible Crops

This can be as simple as sowing some mesclun when you plant your tomato transplants. By the time the tomato plants are filling the space, you'll have gotten several mesclun harvests from the bed already. You could also plant herbs, such as basil and oregano, near your tomatoes, and make better use of your space while gaining some of the benefits of
companion planting; basil planted near tomatoes is said to improve the flavor of the tomatoes.

2. Succession Plant for Continual Harvests

Certain vegetables, such as lettuce, carrots, corn, radishes, and peas, mature fairly quickly. If you sow a new row or pot of these veggies every week or two, you'll ensure a regular harvest throughout the growing season, rather than having a ton of stuff ready to harvest at once, then nothing after that.

3. Plant One New Edible Every Week

As Pleasant notes in the article, devoting one row to "this and that" crops -- crops that you sow just a little bit of to add variety to your garden -- can hugely increase the variety in your garden and help stave off boredom. You could also do this with containers. Plant a pot of something new, such as leaf amaranth or bok choy. You'll increase your knowledge, try a few new foods, and make better use of your space.

x-posted from Tree Hugger

Read more about Maximizing Your Harvest at Mother Earth News.


More About Vegetable Gardening:

• Lazivores Unite: A Manifesto for Lazy Gardening
• 7 Ways to Grow Potatoes
• No Green Thumb? Try Growing These 3 Easy Vegetables

Community Container Garden

from Life on the Balcony, apartment gardening tips and tricks, Ready Set Start those seeds... 

Hopefully you have your seed packets in hand, or will shortly. I’m sure you’re itching to get starting with our community container garden project. I know I am! The first thing to do–obviously–is to get those seeds in some seed starting potting mix and get started!

It’s important to start your seeds indoors at the right time, so that they’ll have their best shot when they move outside. To calculate when it is time to sow them, you need to know when you can last expect frost. If you don’t already know, this is a handy list of last frost dates. Once you have that date, look on the seed packet to find out how many weeks before your last frost date you should begin. Simply count backwards from your last frost date that amount, and sow your seeds roughly around that time.