Winter Storage: Keeping Your Harvest All Year Round [Infographic]

February 17March 27Posted in Garden & NatureTagged all year round, alu foil, apples, bags, basket, beans, box, bucket, bulk, buy, cabbage, cardboard, celery, choose, cold, crops, dirty, easy, food, garlic, harvest, haul, how to, onions, pears, plant, plastic, potatoes, protect, pumpking, root, season, shallots, space, squash, storage, store, temperature, tools, ventilation, winterLeave a comment

Written by Abby Quillen, Published on Fix.com

Our ancestors built root cellars, underground structures that kept food at a consistently cold temperature year round. Depending on individual needs, it may be worth building a root cellar or another type of food storage system if you don’t have ideal conditions to store winter crops. But before you start digging or building, it’s important to assess whether the chosen dwelling – probably a garage, shed, basement, cellar, or unheated room – already provides the ideal conditions for storing some food.

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Things you should Not Refrigerate

September 8September 8Posted in FoodTagged avocados, bananas, basil, batteries, bread, citrus, coffee, cold, cucumbers, food, fridge, fruits, garlic, honey, hot sauce, nail polish, never, not, onions, potatoes, refrigerate, refrigerator, should, sprout, things, tip, tips, tomatoes, winter squash2 Comments

The refrigerator is a great invention that has hugely increased the time we can keep out food without it spoiling. However, whilst it is an essential tool to store food safely for some foods, others do not respond well to lower temperatures and can lose much of their flavor and even spoil quicker when stored in the fridge.

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Three Ways to Plant Onions

January 28January 13Posted in Garden & NatureTagged gardening, homemade, onions, plant, seeds, sets, tips, transplants, waysLeave a comment

Onions offer an array of choices, from mild to pungent, tiny pearl onions to big Bermudas. Home gardeners get a choice in how they plant onions, too: sets, transplants, or seeds. Some gardeners employ all three methods, under the theory that you can’t have too many onions. Here’s how each one works.

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10 Vegetables & Herbs You Can Eat Once and Regrow Forever

January 14January 13Posted in Garden & NatureTagged basil, bok choy, carrot greens, cilantro, garlic, ginder, herbs, Home, mushrooms, onions, plant, regrow, Romaine lettuce, scallions, scraps, vegetablesLeave a comment

There are some ingredients I cook with so often I can never buy too many of them, and most of them are produce. Onions, garlic and fresh herbs are staples in a lot of dishes, and they may be inexpensive, but when you use them on a daily basis it can add up.

Some foods are easy to regrow at home from leftover scraps, and some of them can even be grown right on your kitchen counter. Here are 10 vegetables and herbs you can buy once and regrow forever.

#1. Garlic

When garlic starts to sprout, the little green shoots are too bitter to cook with. Rather than throwing away sprouted cloves, you can put them in a glass with a little water and grow garlic sprouts. The sprouts have a much milder flavor than garlic cloves and are great in salads, pasta and as a garnish.

Learn more on Simple Daily Recipes.

#2. Carrot Greens

Theends of carrots you usually chop off and throw away will grow carrot greens if you put them in a dish with a little water. Set the dish in a well-lit windowsill and you’ll have carrot tops to use as a garnish or in salads.

Read more details on how to use and grow them on Fidgety Fingers.

#3. Basil

Put a few basil clippings with 4-inch stems in a glass of water and place it in a spot with direct sunlight. When the roots are about 2 inches long, you can plant them in pots to grow a full basil plant.

You can find more details on The Urban Gardener.

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The 10 easiest fruit and vegetables to grow via ‏@changebehaviour

October 29October 29Posted in Garden & NatureTagged beetroot, courgette, dwarf french beans, easy, fruit, Garden Organic, grow, Home, homegrown, Lettuce, mint, onions, pea shoots, plant, pumpkin, Salad, seed, strawberries, tomatoes, vegetableLeave a comment

Fancy creating your own supply of juicy fruits, crunchy vegetables and fresh salad greens? This selection of great foods sprout more-or-less like magic out of the ground—with the minimum of effort. Whether you’ve only a windowsill, garden or balcony, get planting today. Here are ten of the easiest fruit and veg you can grow, with step-by-step instructions from the experts at Garden Organic.

Salad

Lettuce, rocket and other crunchy leaves are easy to grow. Cut them and they keep coming back!

Super-easy to grow indoors all year around
Constant harvest – leaves can be picked over and again and they’ll grow back
Pick’n’ mix your favourite flavours, textures and varieties – peppery rocket, crunchy lettuce, exotic oriental saladini

Complete growing directions

You can grow salad all year inside. Try mixing different lettuces or adding rocket. Oriental varieties work best for winter use – sow in September and they’ll last you until March.
Fill a seed tray with compost.
Toss over about a quarter of a teaspoon of salad seeds.
Cover with a sprinkling of compost, water it carefully and place it on a sunny windowsill.
Don’t let it dry out.
Hint: Try stretching cling film over the top of the tray to keep moisture in. Take it off as soon as seedlings start to appear.
When the plants are about 3in tall you can start cutting them and they’ll keep growing back again and again.

Alternative method: you can grow salad in 12 inch pot or directly in the soil in your garden.

Watering

The easiest way to tell if something needs watering is with your finger: poke it into the soil to test.
If the soil is damp just under the surface, don’t water. If it is dry up to the first crease of your finger then you need to water.
Seeds and seedlings need care when watering – use a fine-head watering can so you don’t over-water them.
It is better to water well infrequently than to sprinkle a little every day.

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