July Garden Tour

Thank you Logan Lyon for giving us an incredible tour of Woodhead Garden in Orem.  He uses sustainable techniques and grows an incredible amount of plants in a small area along with chickens, rabbits and composting worms.  He waters with a solar driven aquaponics system that recycles between a fish pond and the plants.  Logan grows and sells heritage, organic plant starts and composting worms from his garden and the Provo Farmer's Market.

Logan is happy to give tours of his garden to those of you that missed it, click on this link Woodheadgardens.com to call and schedule a time.

How to Make Compost Tea

This is a great website that explains how to make compost tea.  I've been using my compost tea on my lawn instead of any fertilizer this year, and my neighbors are commenting that it's never looked better.  I also spray it on many of my plants and trees and they love it.  You can use any compost - just make sure it's broken down and composted before you use it. 

http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/brewing-compost-tea.aspx

The Utah Seed Exchange is Expecting Twins!

Great news, both of the squash blossoms that we hand pollinated at class were a success and we are expecting two pure squash for seed!

An idea I had that worked:

I planted my lettuce in the Spring on the North along my foundation where it only gets a few hours of sun each day.  It has grown beautifully, hasn't bolted yet (except for the Arugula), is delicious and makes a very pretty foundation planting! 

I sowed the seed, then covered it with wood chips, and then watered.  I alternated red and green varieties for visual interest since it's a feature in the front of my house.

This picture was taken this morning, it's making me hungry.

June Class Videos are posted

We had an amazing question and answer session at our June class!  You have to be at the meeting to get all of the amazing, timely information that is shared in those sessions, but I do have the garden demos for you under Links on the right hand side of the home page.  The June demos are Saving Rutabaga Seed with Caleb, and Hand Pollenating Squash with Caleb.

-Allaire

Fall Planting Schedule

I know you've just started to miss peas and your lettuce is bolting, the good news is that fall planting is coming up soon!  I have added the fall planting schedule to our planting schedule on the left column of our home page.  This schedule is based on a 1st frost date of October 10th and the dates are chosen in order for the harvest to be done about that time.  This may require some protection from July and August heat on some varieties that are marked with an *.   A great way to protect them is to grow them in the shade of taller plants.  You can also choose to wait and plant later, you will just shorten your harvest, unless we have a later frost. 

If you plant cold hardy varieties of lettuce and spinach, you can lengthen your growing and harvesting time into the winter.  See chapter 6 of 'The Forgotten Skills of Self-Sufficiency used by the Mormon Pioneers' by Caleb Warnock for cold hardy variety recommendations.

-Allaire