Edwin McLeod Organic Gardening

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Growing Food in Pots part 2

February 03, 2023

You can grow some really great vegetables and fruits in containers. The last article was about which plants do best in pots. This time we will focus on pots and soil. There are basically three commonly used choices when it comes to containers for growing food: plastic pots, clay pots and fabric bags. There are advantages and disadvantages to each type of container. Your decision will depend primarily on what you are going to grow. The size of the container also depends on the size of the plant you will be growing and whether you will want to move the pot. A big plant in a small pot will dry out quickly. PLASTIC Plastic pots are more durable than clay pots. They are lighter than clay and also cheaper. The biggest advantage of plastic pots is they do not dry out as quickly as clay pots. If you are growing plants that need moist soil, plastic pots do a good job of holding water. Also, it is way easier to drill extra drainage holes on the bottom of the plastic pot when

To Pot or Not To Pot

January 19, 2023

Bambino eggplant If your home does not include space for a garden, you might like to grow some food in pots. Or, if you do have a yard, you might like to expand your garden by adding a few pots. You can produce lots of food by growing vegetables in containers. You just need a little background knowledge. I am going to separate this article into two parts. The first part is about choosing the plants and varieties which grow well in pots. The second part is about the advantages and disadvantages of different pots and about potting soil mixtures. In general, when choosing food plants to grow in pots, you want to choose smaller size varieties of vegetables. The reason: you want to maintain a balance between roots and leafy vegetation. The limiting variable in growing plants in containers is water. While in a pot, the root system cannot grow as large as it would in garden soil. On a hot or windy day, the vegeta

Trick Your Taste Buds

December 05, 2022

Stevia rebaudiana (Robert Lynch, Melbourne/Australia) CC0 Stevia is a plant that tastes like sugar, but does not give you the calories of sugar. It fools your tongue into thinking you are consuming food energy, but you are not. Any time you experience a sweet taste, it is the result of molecules binding onto specific receptor proteins in your taste buds. Why is this plant important? Stevia is a natural source of sweetness without making you gain weight or, for diabetics, raising your blood glucose level. Many people are looking for a natural alternative to artificial sweeteners created in a laboratory, like Aspartame and Sucralose. Research has shown that Aspartame and Sucralose have many health risks associated with their consumption. Stevia is one natural alternative to artificial sweeteners. The leaves of Stevia are 20 to 30 times sweeter than table sugar. It has been consumed in South America for hundreds of years. Stevia was introduced to the re

The Miracle of Sweetness

November 03, 2022

Miracle Berries on the Miracle Plant. (Photo: Hamale Lyman) I recently ate a fruit which gave me a miraculous experience. You might like to experience this miracle too. A few months ago, I visited the conservatory at the University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Garden. I always love encountering new plants. On this day, one of the new plants I discovered was the miracle plant. They named it miracle plant because when you eat the fruit, it changes sour into sweet. The miracle plant ( Synsepalum dulcificum ) is a tropical plant native to West Africa. It is a shrub that grows 6 to 15 feet tall. The fruit is small, a little less than an inch, containing one seed. It is also known as miracle fruit or miracle berry. I just had to try eating this fruit. I went online and ordered a small quantity of Miracle fruit. They were non-gmo, dried berries grown in Florida. It is always more fun experiencing a miracle with another person so I

Lovable Lawn

March 19, 2022

Glory of the Snow (Chionodoxa) Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it. I could probably look like the Terminator if I took steroids and spent lots of time in the gym lifting weights, but I’d prefer not to have shriveled testicles. You could have a lawn that looks like a carpet, but you probably don’t want to expose yourself, family and pets to pesticides and all the negative environmental consequences that go along with using chemicals on your lawn. One of the worst consequences of using chemical fertilizers is water pollution. Inorganic chemical fertilizers are very water soluble. A large percentage of chemical fertilizer ends up washing down into streams, rivers and lakes. The massive algae bloom that occurs almost every year in Lake Erie is primarily the result of chemical fertilizers used on lawns and farm fields. The overgrowth of algae not only kills fish, it also caused the City of Toledo, Ohio to close down their water system for several da

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