Blog ● المدونة
Blog ● المدونة
by Alzainah Albabtain
on Jul 04 2012
16
It's very hard to enjoy outdoor gardening in the summer, this is why after clearing my raised beds of sun-burned plants, I now leave the beds to bake in the heat.. I will not bother to save my plants if I will not take care of them. it's too hot for me to do a good job. This makes summer my composting time. I've been having kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, garden prunings, and grass clippings piled over the last few months, and guess what? It's perfectly matured.
Since I will not be doing any gardening until September, I decided to mix this mature compost into new compost ingredients to speed up their process.
These are some dried up grass clippings from my lawn. I made sure to dry them up into a crispy brown, so they would contain more carbon than nitrogen.
Grass clippings don't go in alone (although they can), I toss kitchen scraps like fruits and vegetable wastes, tea bags, tissues, egg shells (which are excellent for root development) and coffee grounds.
After mixing the ingredients and filling the bins, I add enough water to keep it moist, but not soggy.
And that's all it takes to make crumbly, rich compost, which my vegetables love.
Homemade compost will not only reduce your carbon foot print, it will make your vegetables grow larger, healthier, and tastier. You may find some bugs in your compost, and this is why no one should compost indoors, in my case I have ants, wood lice, and spiders.. It's completely normal, and I'm especially happy to have wood lice shredding away at my compost, and helping it form. They're really harmless.
To have bug free compost before using it in your garden, just lay it out in the early sun, and most insects will go away from the heat, while others get picked by hungry birds.
Get composting! Update: Just 2 days after mixing, look what I have..
Look at how quickly everything is breaking down, and this isn't even the middle of the bin, so its cooking even faster inside. With a quick and simple composting system, I got brown results in 2 days, so I must be doing something right.
Blog ● المدونة
by Alzainah Albabtain
on Jun 26 2012
10
Its here. Summer may be our Kuwaiti gardening 'off season', but there's still a lot to do to improve your future garden.
Just as gardners everywhere else have frost, which is in the winter, we have our summer scorch, as I like to call it.
Since soil in containers can heat up as much as 30% above the air temperature, try to protect your container plants as much as possible, by grouping them together under partial shade, to create a micro-climate of cooler conditions. Summer is a dormant period for trees, with little, or no growth. By mid summer even Hibiscus and Bougainvillia will have slowed down. Prune back your shrubs and trees to reduce water consumption. Summer is also a time of maxiumum water consumption, try to conserve water as much as possible by watering at night, when loss through evaporation is at its lowest. Try to shade plants as much as you can. Most importantly, do as much composting as you can for your next plantings in September!
Blog ● المدونة
by Alzainah Albabtain
on Mar 28 2012
38
When basil flowers start to drop and the flower pods turn brown, it's time to collect seeds. Only pollinated flower pods will have seeds in them so dont expect to find seeds in every pod. This is why having bees and beneficial insects in the garden is important.
Cut away the browning stems, and start unwrapping the pods to find the seeds.
It doesn't get easier than this. Now is great time to plant basil seeds, so start collecting!
Blog ● المدونة
by Alzainah Albabtain
on Mar 12 2012
644
It was only yesterday, I was admiring my colorful Swiss chard.
It's pretty obvious, I wasn't the only one enjoying the colorful leaves.
Ive got Cabbage loopers, which are small caterpillars with big appetites. They can be one of the most destructive pests in the vegetable garden. The bugs love plants in the cabbage family, including cabbage and kale. This insect will also attack potato, tomato, spinach, and cucumbers. They leave behind nice gifts for me to hose of the leaves too. I used my regular Espoma insecticidal soap to spray on the underside of leaves. And every cabbage looper I found I hand picked and disposed of the compost bin. Not a fun process. Did cabbage loopers eat holes through your garden?
Blog ● المدونة
by Alzainah Albabtain
on Feb 15 2012
5
For me, winter gardening has been all about leafy greens, I found that these do extremely well in our very cold winter! Things like Kale, spinach, rocket, Swiss chard, parsley, cilantro, carrots, mustard, and lettuce did really well! On the other hand, a lot of plants suffered from the cold nights, like tomatoes. If you had success with tomatoes this season, you're one lucky gardener! Tomatoes love sun and warmth, and there's been too little of both to keep tomatoes going. Basil plants suffered from the lack of sunshine too, this resulted in small leaves and premature bolting.
Blog ● المدونة
by Alzainah Albabtain
on Feb 10 2012
5
Today I am harvesting cosmic purple carrots. They smell amazing as I am pulling them out!
About us
Plantnmore began with a simple question:
Can we grow our own food, here in Kuwait?
Today, everything we offer is chosen to help you grow and enjoy food at home in our climate, and in real life.
It all grows.
Click the image above to read our story..
Plantnmore began with a simple question:
Can we grow our own food, here in Kuwait?
Today, everything we offer is chosen to help you grow and enjoy food at home in our climate, and in real life.
It all grows.
Click the image above to read our story..