By Vanessa Richins

If you were building your own house, you wouldn’t start nailing boards together and hope for the best, would you?

You can avoid some problems in your edible garden if you take time to thoughtfully plan it out instead of just buying plants and putting them anywhere.

1) Measure the plot out

First, start by measuring out the space you have available. There are several ways to do this. You can measure the length of your own foot, then carefully step off the area. If it’s a small plot, use a measuring tape. You may want a contractor’s measuring wheel (I bought one for about $15) for larger plots.

If you are using containers, write down how many you have and how big they are.

2) How will you water?

Think about how you will be watering your crops. It’s harder if you have to carry buckets of water over long distances.

3) Think of what you like to eat

One common mistake gardeners make is Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

As I wrote before, I think Twitter is a great resource for gardeners.

You can connect with fellow plant enthusiasts from around the world in an instant.

I can get instant answers to questions I may have, discover new plants, and just enjoy talking about all things green.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to use Twitter to further the victory garden cause. I spent a day talking it up. However, I didn’t have a concrete plan of what to do beyond that.

A fellow Victory Garden enthusiast and editor of Country Life magazine, Pamela Price from redwhiteandgrew came up with a wonderful idea for us to promote the cause. She started a Twitter group called Twitter4VG.

You can join the group to find others interested in Victory gardening. Their updates will show up on the group’s page.

The best part of her plan was Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

I love reading about rare, unusual, and tropical plants.

It is fascinating to discover ones that most people have never heard of.

Naturally, I want to grow them myself.

However, since they aren’t as common, it follows that it is harder to buy them.

Mother Earth News has put together a great new tool for those looking for seeds and plants, both common and unusual. Simply visit their Seed and Plant Finder to “quickly search the online catalogs of more than 500 mail order seed companies” using their search box. They suggest putting any variety names with two or more words in quotation marks.

In the past, a friend and I have enjoyed growing dwarf papyrus in buckets. We have been wanting to try the giant species, but only found seeds. Since giant papyrus is more difficult to grow from seed, I thought this would be a good opportunity to see if there was a place that offered giant papyrus plants.

With this tool, I was able to Read the rest of this entry »

By Cindy Naas

Every night on the news, you have been watching your retirement accounts dwindle.

You have friends and maybe even family members who’ve lost their jobs.

You think to yourself that things are certainly bad, but at least you still have your job.

You keep telling yourself that your job is safe, that your industry is close to being recession-proof, and you try not to think too much about the possibilities.

And then it happens. You get called in to your boss’s office, and no one is smiling. You’ve just been laid off, nothing personal, just the tough economic situation etc. It takes roughly thirty seconds for life as you know it to change completely. So, what do you do next? Read the rest of this entry »

By Cindy Naas

Reader Judy sent in the following question in a comment on UGC’s article about upside-down tomatoes:

Author: Judy

Question: I am disabled. I have a walker I use but planting a regular garden is really out of the question. I was thinking if we can do tomatoes this way, what about planting maybe beans on top or some other veggie.

If I planted a garden this way, I could use my walker out there to water and then harvest but I would want to do more then just tomatoes. What do you think of lettuce maybe and beans on top and maybe peas also upside down, etc. Has anyone tried that?

Answer: Judy, upside-down growing is a real boon to those of us with disabilities. I was in an accident in 2003 and now walk with a cane. My balance problems are fairly severe, and so I hired a landscaping firm to tear Read the rest of this entry »