Garden cloches are an attractive way to protect tender plants until they get established. You can make your own lightweight protective plant cloches using a standard two liter bottle. If you also want to maintain humidity, just add a wine bottle cork to the top. Of course you could just use the cap that came … Continue Reading
Re-purposing 2 liter soda bottles not only helps the environment, but it can also save you money when you are able make things you might normally buy. Here are several practical uses for 2 liter plastic bottles around your garden and yard. Plastic Bottle Garden Cloche DIY Plastic Bottle Garden Cloche Vegetable Water Wicking Bottle … Continue Reading
Mushroom Culture Experiments Our first experiment in which we used rice water and gelatin as our culture solution (here’s the link) worked really well. We have since also tried growing cultures in traditional agar. But for some reason, the rice water and gelatin always produces the most mycelium from mushroom cultures. So then we moved … Continue Reading
Vertical gardens combine so many great elements together. These container gardens incorporate recycling, water conservation, weed reduction, and creativity while taking up a small fraction of space. You can hang a vertical garden indoors near a sunny window, on a small balcony or terrace, or as decorative features in the backyard. Hang these vertical gardens … Continue Reading
Having just finished our first harvest of oyster mushrooms from a kit, we wanted to try growing our own mushroom spawn from a tissue culture. And we wanted to first give it a try using materials already on hand, and get our cultures from the oyster mushrooms we had just grown. There are definitely more … Continue Reading
Toilet Paper This photo was submitted to the North American Mycological Association by Ron Spinosa showing oyster mushrooms growing inside a milk carton using kitty litter as a substrate. Milk Carton This photo was submitted to the North American Mycological Association by Milton Tam showing oyster mushrooms growing inside a milk carton using kitty … Continue Reading
We use several different methods to keep our outdoor potted plants watered depending on where the plant is located and the size of the planter. Making self-watering systems really cuts back on the frequency of manual waterings, and improves the amount of water delivered to each plant. No offense intended to some of the other … Continue Reading
If you are looking for ways to water your houseplants while you are away on vacation, or just looking for a way to streamline watering all your container plants, there are a lot of options to choose from. There are plenty of products you can purchase, and many DIY methods of watering plants as well. … Continue Reading
Given how much we enjoy gardening, it seemed worth it to give a mushroom growing kit a try. We love cooking with mushrooms and if we can manage to grow them in a kit, maybe there’s a chance we could start growing them regularly as a hobby for our own consumption. The kit seemed like … Continue Reading
Keeping plants in the house over the winter always ends up one of two ways in our home; they are either over watered or under watered most of the cold winter season. We can’t ever seem to find a happy balance between indoor humidity levels, and neglect or too much attention. After participating in a … Continue Reading
