Category: Gardening

If you like houseplants but can’t seem to keep them alive, try some of these easy-to-care-for plants – they are difficult to kill and need very little maintenance. However, if your home doesn’t have enough humidity, it will be difficult to keep anything alive. If your home is too dry, you can use a humidifier. Be sure to choose the proper size humidifier for the space you have; otherwise, it won’t make the air humid enough. The plants will also provide some humidity, but not enough to keep them alive, especially in larger rooms.

Aloe

Aloe doesn’t like a lot of water. If you overwater it, it will die. Aloe prefers bright, indirect light. Let it dry out completely between waterings – you might water it a little bit once per month. Aloe is toxic to pets, so be sure to keep it out of your pet’s reach.

While this plant is toxic to pets, it’s good for you. When you get a cut or a burn, you can cut an aloe leaf open and wipe it over the cut or burn. It will heal faster and discourage scarring.

Snake Plant

If you don’t have a lot of lighting because of the way your house is positioned, snake plants might be the best plants for you. The snake plant is also known as the “mother-in-law’s tongue.” They do well in bathrooms with no windows, but they will also grow in bright, indirect light.

Water snake plants monthly, letting them dry out completely between waterings. Snake plants are toxic to pets, so be sure to keep them out of reach.

Succulents

Succulents come in many forms. They do need bright, indirect light and water about once per month. As with aloe and snake plants, water them once per month, letting them dry out between waterings.

If succulents die, try moving them to a room with more light, as long as it is not direct sunlight. The other way you can kill them is to water them too much. Most succulents are toxic, so keep them out of reach of kids and pets.

Spider Plants

These plants will thrive in just about any condition, but it is the happiest hanging in a window. They need bright, indirect light, misting every couple of weeks, and watering every week. They are not toxic to pets.

Spider plants make “babies” that hang over the edge of the pot. If you want more, just snip one of the babies off, put the bottom of it in a glass of water, and plant it in potting soil when it starts to root.

Pothos

Sometimes referred to as devil’s ivy, the pothos is very forgiving. They come in many variations and colors, including marble green (variegated), bright yellowish green, and golden (green and yellow pattern).

Pothos prefer bright, indirect light or low light. You will need to water these plants every week. You might get away with watering them biweekly, but if you notice them wilting in the second week, give them water and then water every week. Pothos are toxic to pets, so keep them where your pets can’t get them.

Growing your own food and becoming more self-sufficient can be as rewarding as it is nutritious. But not everyone has the space or climate for a big outdoor garden. Whether you have a whole room to spare or just a wall, one of these 5 hydroponic growing systems can get you growing.

1. Ebb and Flow

In this setup, your plants reside in a growing medium like rock wool or perlite inside containers —  one plant to a small container.  Those containers sit inside a large base. 

To feed and water your garden, you flood the base with nutrient-rich water without overflowing it. The system then drains the water and stores it for the next watering.

Like many of these systems, you can use a timer to maintain standard watering intervals for maximum plant health and production.

This one works for small to medium-sized plants, including berry bushes. So it can support most things you’d grow in a food garden.

2. Drip Hydroponics

A hydroponic drip system slowly releases a controlled amount of nutrient-treated water directly onto the plant’s root system. Any nutrient water the plant doesn’t use returns to the reservoir for the next feeding.

Manage the drip rate from controls. Then, run your own scientific experiments to maximize yields with the least resources.

This one shouldn’t be confused with outdoor drip irrigation. That does follow similar principles but allows the water to enter the soil instead of returning it to a reservoir.

Drip Hydroponics can grow most of your homesteading faves like:

• Melons
• Leeks
• Peas
• Tomatoes
• Root vegetables

Nutrient Film Technology (The Original NFT)

NFT may sound technical. But it can be one of the easier hydroponic systems to create.

It includes a sloped platform along which you can plant your garden in the traytop. You slowly pump water down the slope and back into the reservoir at its base.

Only small plants do well. But you can increase the number of small plants in the tray top, making it very scalable.

As long as those plants still have adequate airflow and can access light, this system can hold a lot of smaller plants. 

Ideal for:

• Leavy greens
• Some herbs
• Brocolli

4. Aeroponics

Some people won’t consider aeroponics a hydroponic system. But the only real difference is in how you administer the nutrient water.

Aeroponics works by nutrient-water misting the plant roots rather than submerging them. You need no grow medium if the containers are correctly sized for the plant. 

People choose aeroponics because it reduces the ability of the disease to travel from one plant to the next. Water that touches one plant doesn’t then flow to another.

Aeroponics also works well as a vertical gardening method, maximizing use of limited space and reducing the chance of large-scale crop loss. You can grow everything from lettuce to raspberries to sweet potatoes in this system. 

5. Deep Water Culture (DWC)

With water culture, you grow each plant in a net pot suspended over a large water basin filled with oxygen and nutrient-rich water. An air pump keeps the water at a good temperature for the plants to avoid overheating.

Depending on its size, DWC can grow any size of plant, even tropical plants (limes, mango, coffee, cocoa) with deep root systems.

Even if you don’t have space for a garden, you can still grow vegetables. Many will grow in containers inside your home as long as the air isn’t too dry. During the spring and summer, you can also grow vegetables in containers on a deck or patio. And, you don’t have to look for seeds – you can grow these veggies from scraps.

If you stagger planting in containers – plant new veggies every couple of weeks – you’ll be able to grow all the fresh vegetables you want. If you have room inside, you can grow fresh vegetables year ‘round.

Potatoes

Set a couple of potatoes aside. You can use any kind of potato, including large baking potatoes, red potatoes and smaller white potatoes. Put them in a cool dark place. As soon as the eyes start sending out shoots, they are ready to plant.

Cut the potato so two “eyes” are on each chunk. Plant the potato about 6 inches down with the eyes facing up. If you use a tall bucket, you can put 12 inches of dirt in the bottom, then 6 inches over the potato. As the plant grows, add more dirt until the pot is nearly filled. The plant will keep growing and making more potatoes. The bottom potatoes will be larger than the top, so if you like baby potatoes, you’ll have the best of both worlds.

Celery

Cut the root of a bunch of celery about 5 inches from the root. Place toothpicks around the celery about 3 inches from the root. Fill a glass with water and set the celery on the glass – the toothpicks will hold it out of the water. Make sure the water touches the bottom of the root.

As soon as the plant grows root tendrils, you can plant it and let it grow into a new bunch.

Carrots

You can grow carrots two ways. Cut the tops off, leaving about a half-inch of carrot. Some people have luck planting them directly in the dirt. If that doesn’t give you results, stick toothpicks in them and support them over a glass of water. Make sure the water just touches the bottom of the carrot. When it starts growing tendrils, plant it in potting soil.

If you don’t get new carrots from the regrowth, let the plant go to seed. You can then plant the seeds for new carrots.

Sweet Potatoes

Cut a sweet potato in half and place each half over a shallow container of water. Suspend the sweet potato above the water using toothpicks. Once the sprouts (not the roots) reach about 4 inches high, cut them off and place them in a container of water. New roots will grow from the cuttings. Plant the cuttings once they start growing roots.

Scallions, Onions, Garlic, Shallots and Leeks

This trick works for any member of the allium family. Place the base of a stem or bulb with roots attached in a dish of shallow water. New greenery will start to grow. You can harvest the new green growth, or you can plant the new plant. Garlic and onions will form new bulbs. Shallots will divide, so the harvest gets bigger every year.

Growing your own food is a rewarding process for so many reasons! Garden fresh food is often tastier than any food you can get from a supermarket, and this only becomes more true when you think about how your own hard work paid off. Growing your own food is a hobby that only gets better as you become a more skilled gardener. Below are five things you can do to make your vegetable garden a success.

1. Start Small

Gardening isn’t as easy as it sounds. You’ll make many mistakes in your first years as a gardener. Starting small with your first garden allows you to learn from your mistakes, and get better at gardening, while minimizing your investment.

Start with a small plot that’s about half the size of the plot you hope to have in future years. Starting small also enables you to gauge how much work a garden really is, so you can decide for yourself if you’re really ready for a larger plot to work. As years go by, you can expand. 

2. Have a Plan

Make a map of your garden, with a diagram that shows what foods will be grown where. Choose a limited number of vegetables to grow for your first garden. Some easy-to-grow vegetables include:

• Zuchinni. This rewarding vegetable is a prolific producer that requires little attention throughout the summer. Once the plant releases maturity, you may harvest zuchinni multiple times throughout the week.
• Snow peas. Snow peas require almost no maintenance. After a short period of flowering, snow peas can produce vegetables that need to be harvested every few days. 
• Green beans. Like snow peas, green beans need little maintenance until they start to produce beans. Once beans begin to grow, plan to harvest at least once per week, if not multiple times. 
• Potatoes. Potatoes are a set-it-and-forget-it vegetable that need only to be planted at the beginning of the season, and then forgotten about. Allow potatoes to die back to the ground before digging up the tubers. 

3. Keep Up With Weeds

Weeds suck water and nutrients from the soil, which in turn can stunt your garden plants. Plan to weed your garden throughout the summer to prevent weeds from taking over your garden.  

4. Prep the Soil

Lack of nutrients in the soil can get your plants off to the wrong start. Prep the soil before planting your vegetables every season. Add 30 or 40 pounds of composted manure for every 100 square feet of soil. The manure should be composted, as fresh manure can burn the roots of your plants. 

This can be done in fall before the ground freezes, or in spring before planting. As you work manure into the ground, turn the soil by tilling it – this puts air back in the soil, which is good for root growth. 

5. Space Your Plants Appropriately

It’s tempting to crowd plants into your garden, but crowded plants will fight for nutrients and water. Space your plants according to the instructions provided on seed packets or with the seedling you purchased. Spacing plants appropriately pays off, and ultimately, plants are able to grow and thrive if they have enough room to do so. 

Following these tips will help you have positive experience growing your own food. Good luck!