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Tag Archives: gardening

When the insects and the flowers arrive

Posted on by Posted in Help, Pests, Plants/Garden Leave a comment

Once your vegetables have grown, they will start to set flowers and then fruits. And during their growth, they might get attacked by insects.
I’m pretty sure you guys would like for these insects to stay away and for all the flowers to turn into fruits. What would you have to do to make this happen?

In my previous post I wrote about how to make your seedlings grow faster than normal.
The healthiest seedlings will have less chance of getting attacked by unwanted insects. There are many things you can do to get rid of these insects. Such as pesticides or a garden insectary.
In this post I’ll teach you how to get rid of these insects by using other insects we call Beneficial Insects.

These beneficial insects will get rid of the bad ones. This is an organic way of getting rid of them. You won’t be needing any pesticides to get rid of them. Using these pesticides can also damage our environment.
Now how can you attract these beneficial insects? Flowers are a great way to attract these beneficial insects. This is when the garden insectary comes in.
A garden insectary is a garden filled with flowers in the area of your plants to attract beneficial insects to your plants. It doesn’t have to be big one. Just a few flowers can be enough. But the best is to use different kind of flowers. Since not all these beneficial insects are attracted to the same type of flower.

Bees. Garden insectary can also attract bees. Some plants’ flowers such as tomatoes need to be pollinated to be able to set fruits. A way to pollinate these flowers is with the help of bees. And once you have them, you can get beautiful tomatoes.

When the tomato plant sets flowers, you won’t have to have bees around to get them pollinated. You can “shake” the plant a little once a day to get them pollinated.
The good thing is that not all plants’ flowers need to be pollinated. So it is less work for you.

So from now on, check your plants at least once a week for signs of pests. When you see them, take immediate action. They can slowly kill your plants.

How to make your seedlings grow faster, healthier and stronger

Posted on by Posted in Compost, Nutrients, Plants/Garden Leave a comment

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Everybody would like for their vegetable plants to grow fast, strong and healthy. There are a lot of things they say you can do. But not all of them really help.
I do know two things that you can do that will definitely make them grow strong and healthy. And one of them, would also make them grow faster.

In my previous post, I wrote on how to make you seeds germinate faster. Once those have germinated, you would like for them to grow into beautiful vegetable plants that can produce a lot.

One of those things is watering your plants with fish water. Most of you guys may have an aquarium at home. This water contains many nutrients for your plants. I haven’t done this a lot myself, but I know some readers that did try it and have great success with it.

Dave Davis (@Davo_ov_scunny) tweeted:
@HydroGardening my friend uses hus fish tank water when he changes the water,full of fish poo & pee. Hydro-Ordanic. :-)

So I can assure you, that watering them with fish water makes them strong and healthy!

The other thing that you can do, is use worm tea. Worm compost is one of the best nutrients that you can give your plants. Worm tea is worm compost diluted in water. So in the worm tea, you get the same nutrients as in the worm compost.
Worm tea is my favorite nutrient to use. It’s organic and very effective. I’ve been using this for a long time on all my vegetable plants. And I can really see the difference.
I use it for nutrients, pesticide (which also helps a lot) and for rooting plants. I’m going to do an experiment on this so you can see the difference between plants watered with worm tea, plants watered with fish water and the one watered with normal water.

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If you want to see the results, then you don’t want to miss this. To make sure you don’t miss it, why don’t you subscribe to my newsletter?

Photo Contest

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photo contestFor this March I will be holding a Photo Contest.

What this Photo Contest is about

Take a photo of you in your garden and upload it on Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest or Instagram.
You will have to get as much likes, retweets or repins on your picture as possible. The photo with the most likes or retweets or repins will be the winner. So when you upload the photo, you have to share it to get more people to like or retweet or repin.

Why this contest?

I’m doing this contest to get more people interested in gardening.
Growing your own food is good because this way you know what you’re eating. You will also save more money by growing your own vegetables. When you buy them in stores, you don’t know how they have been grown. But there are many more reasons why you should grow your own food.

How to participate

Take a photo of you in your garden or while you’re gardening and post it one either Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or Pinterest. You can only choose one of them.

  • If you choose to post on Facebook, you will have to post this on our wall (facebook.com/hypocu)
  • If you choose to post on either Twitter or Instagram or Pinterest, you will have to add the #HydroponicsCuracao & my blog’s link in the photo description.
  • Once a week I will look up for the photos and put them all in a gallery on this blog.

Who will be the winner?

After you upload your photo, you have to try to get as many likes or retweets or repins as possible. You can ask anybody to like or retweet or repin your photo. So you can only choose one of these social media to upload your photo on. If you upload it on more than one social media, you will be disqualified from the contest.

On the last day, I will look for the photo with the most repin or retweet or likes. The one that has the most of one of these, will be the winner. So try to get as many people as you can!

What will you win?

Since gardening can be time consuming, growing in hydroponics systems will save you a lot of time with watering and caring for your vegetables. Also growing in hydroponics uses less space than normal. So you will be able to grow more vegetables in less space. That’s why I’m giving the winner two hydroponics books with all the information and instructions you need to start your own hydroponic garden.

The contest will start on March 1st and will end on March 31st. All the likes or repins or retweets after March 31st, won’t count. 

Now please share this post with your friends and family so they can participate too!

How to make a simple raft system

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In this post I will be teaching you guys how to make a simple hydroponic raft system.

Hydroponics is an easy way to grow your own food. It can be made very small and put anywhere you want. It reduces work and you don’t have to water your plants. It happens automatically. So that means that you save more time with watering plants and you save more water because you keep using the same water over and over.
In a hydroponic system you can plant more plants than in the same space in soil.
The plants grow faster than normal and the chance for them to get diseases is less than when they are in soil.

A raft system is a system where the plants grow in a medium and their roots hang in the water. This system is an easy system and is perfect for when you don’t have a lot of space. It is commonly used in very large commercial gardens.

Here are the steps:

  1. All you need is
    -a knife or drill
    -a plastic bin (size doesn’t matter)
    -some plastic cups
    -a marker
    -a ruler
    -and an oxygen pump.
  2. What you do next is you measure the cup’s diameter.
    Then you drill holes of a little bit smaller so the cups won’t fall in the bin. If you don’t have a drill, you can use a knife. For example: I used a cup with a diameter of 7 cm. So I made 6×6 cm squares.
    If you heat up the knife, you can make the squares much easier than normal.
  3. After that, you start making holes in the cups.
    This is needed for the water to get to the roots. You can make the holes with a knife, scissors or a heated nail.
    The more holes you make the better. 
  4. Your next step is to fill the cups with your growing media.
    You put them into their holes and fill them with the medium. The best medium is hydroton. This is because it keeps the water at the perfect temperature and also the pH at the perfect level. But at most stores, hydroton is expensive. So you can also use gravel or crushed coconut. But there are a lot of other things you can use.
  5. Then you are ready to plant your plants in the system! 
    I’ve planted 3 peppers, 1 celery and 1 tomato. But you can plant anything you want in this system.

You put the airstone of the oxygen pump into the bin with water. Otherwise your plants/fishes will die.

This system can also be used as an aquaponic system.
All you need extra is fish and fish food.

Aquaponics has almost the same advantages as hydroponics.

  • It reduces work that has to be done in a garden
  • helps you to save more water
  • and it requires less space.

And in an aquaponics system you can grow fish while you’re growing vegetables at the same time!

They say that the plants’ roots shouldn’t be in the same water as the fish. But I don’t think that it matters. I have a few pepper growing in a raft system and look at them, they’re growing great!


Extra tips:
  • If you have another bin, you can fill it up with water and put it in the sun to create algae. This can be feed to the fish.
  • If you have a transparent bin, you should paint it white. Otherwise algae will start growing into the bin. And algae take the oxygen out of the water.

Bright Agrotech

Posted on by Posted in Aquaponics, Hydroponics, Plants/Garden Leave a comment

Who or what is Bright Agrotech?

Bright Agrotech is a group of small vertical farmers on the high plains of Laramie, WY.  We’re passionate about growing healthy, nutrient-dense food for our local community and empowering a new generation of farmers to do the same. We supply fresh herbs and greens to several restaurants, grocery stores and individuals in Laramie with lush towers of live produce. We also manufacture and distribute our ZipGrow Towers to commercial producers and hobbyist growers who recognize the benefits of vertical hydroponics or aquaponic production.

I heard you guys started a project. What project is this?

We’re about halfway through a Kickstarter project we’ve launched to try and crowd fund the first production run of our home vertical gardening/farming kit called “The Spring.” The project is titled: “Grow Up. Vertical Farming for Everyone” and you can find it here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/569973520/grow-up-vertical-farming-for-everyone.

Why did you guys start this project? What is your goal with this?

We launched this project partly because we’re really excited about this technology we’ve developed and partly because every time we showed our ZipGrow Towers to someone, they always asked how they can get one in their own homes. So, with the goal of empowering others to grow vertically, we set out to design a user-friendly home farming kit using our ZipGrow Towers. Our goal in creating this product is not only to enable people to grow their own fresh herbs and veggies, but also to empower a live CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program – one that would allow a local farmer to bring a living tower of greens to someone’s home to be harvested when they need it and replaced when necessary. This will ensure the consumer has access to the FRESHEST produce possible and offers the maximum flavor/health benefits that fresh produce offers.  By using Kickstarter as our funding platform, we can directly connect with individuals wanting to grow their own healthy veggies and herbs for their families without taking up a lot of space and without much work.

If you would like to help out with this project, you can help by donating. Check out this widget below.

Why using egg cartons in worm composting

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Everybody will one day end up with an egg carton. If you have a worm compost, you can use these egg cartons for your compost.

Egg cartons make a great compost bedding for worms. Compared to newspapers, egg carton doesn’t form chunks. It breaks down much faster than cardboard.
Also, this egg carton provides the worms with fiber. My worms love them. When feeding, it’s good to put some fiber (such as egg carton, newspaper or cardboard) with the food. I put the worm food inside the egg carton and put that in the worm compost. They love it this way. Some of them even go live in there until it breaks down.

Another good thing about them is that when the soak up the water, they soak just the right amount to keep it damp and not soggy.

Before you put the cardboard in the compost, let it stay in water overnight. The next day, when you’re putting them in the compost, it will be easier to tear up. Since it’s wet.

But if you’re compost is too wet already, you can tear the cardboard and put it dry in the compost. This way it will soak up excess moisture itself from the bedding. When I put the egg carton with the food inside in the worm compost, it soaks up the moisture if the bin is too wet.

So the next time you have egg carton in house, save it and put it in your worm compost to provide your worms with fiber and at the same time soak up excess moisture.

How To Make Seed Starter Pots Using Toilet Paper Rolls

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An easy way to start your seeds indoors is to use toilet paper or paper towel rolls.

There are two advantages of using toilet paper rolls. The first is that they are free. It’s likely that you already have both items available in your apartment. Ain’t no better price than free. The other is that that they can be put directly into the soil when transplanted because the cardboard will biodegrade into the soil.

What you’ll need to get your toilet paper roll seed starters made:

  • Toilet paper or paper towel roll
  • Razor
  • Scissors
  • Duct tape

How to make a seed starter pot using a toilet paper roll:

  • Cut the toilet paper roll in half using your razor and scissors.
  • Take one of the halves and cut four slits about 3/4″-1″ or so up the roll.
  • Fold the toilet paper roll into each other to form the bottom of the seed starter pot.
  • Use tape to secure the bottom.
  • To fill put your soil inside, followed by your seed and cover with more soil.

 

How You Can Make Gardening Cheap

Posted on by Posted in Aquaponics, Compost, Help, Hydroponics, Nutrients, Pests, Plants/Garden, Seeds Leave a comment

One of the reasons that people won’t start growing their own food is that they say that it is too expensive. There are free and cheap resources out there, you just need to seek them out. Here are some ways that you can make gardening cheap, so that you canstart to grow your own food.

  • 5-Gallon Containers Check your farmers markets, delis and restaurants. Most will gladly give them to you because they are just going to throw them away. If not, offer up a dollar or two. These are great to make self-watering containers with.
  • Soda Bottles Unfortunately soda bottles are everywhere. If you don’t drink soda, then check your local recycling bin or ask friends and family to save them for you. You can use them to make hanging soda bottle planters or self-watering containers made out of a soda bottle.
  • Coconut Shells If you buy coconuts, then save the shell and you can plant shallow rooted herbs and veggies in them like lettuce. On this website I found a great tip on how to use coconut to plant seeds.
  • Horse Manure Call up any local horse stables or riding academies to see if they have any horse manure that you can take off their hands. Most usually do and will give it away for free or for a small cost. It makes a great addition to compost.
  • Cafes and Coffee Shops Hit up your local cafe or coffee shop and ask them for their coffee grinds. Most keep them on hand to give out to local gardeners. The grinds works great as a fertilizer and help to feed the plants. They also make a great addition to your compost.
  • Beaches The next time you are at the beach make sure to bring some sand and seaweed home with you. If you are having drainage issues, the sand will help with that. The seaweed will really help to mineralize certain plants.

Now you know that gardening isn’t too expensive. Start now.

Britta Riley: A garden in my apartment

Posted on by Posted in Aquaponics, Help, Hydroponics Leave a comment

This video is a great video. See how people with less space come with ways to grow their own vegetables using the space they have. This is a great opportunity for gardeners living in apartments.

This video shows how you don’t need a lot to start growing your own vegetables. They make them using soda bottles. They are very cheap and everyone can get one.

I think they also have a site that you can visit and get the instructions on how to make it yourself.

Watch the video and let me know what you think about it.

Britta Riley: A garden in my apartment #TED : http://on.ted.com/Riley

Starting seeds in eggshells

Posted on by Posted in Help, Seeds Leave a comment

This is a Eco-friendly way of starting seeds. The next time you eat egg, save the shell because now you can plant in them!

  • Wash the shells
  • Plant 1 to 2 seeds in every eggshell.  So they won’t be crowded when they come out.
  • You can use a marker to write the type of plant you planted in there. So you don’t forget what you planted in there.
  • Put the seeds on top of the soil. Remember not to fill the shell full with soil yet. Water them carefully and then add more soil on top of the seeds.
  • You can use a shower cap to cover the shells. You can put them in a sunny window in a relatively warm area. During the day the seedlings get some sunlight and because they are covered, they are retaining heat and gaining necessary moisture.
  • When you’re transplanting them, you can just break the shell and put them in the soil. This will be a compost too. Or you can also put them in immediately in the container.

This is an Eco-friendly way of gardening. This is also very affordable.

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