The Door Garden

Helping You Get the Most Out of Your Garden

Archive for December, 2008

Potting Soil From Compost

December 31st, 2008

Every year lately I make a big batch or two of potting soil – it saves quite a lot of money and it’s more convenient than working with a bunch of awkward leaky plastic bags. Plus I know what goes into it.

This is the rig that I use to screen compost – it works very well and is built out of scrap lumber and a piece of 1/2″ by 1″ galvanized wire mesh left over from building some rabbit cages.

The last time I painted the garage roof I gave my retired commercial wheel barrow a nice thick coating with the last bit of roof paint to keep from having leftovers. It’s ugly, but it keeps it from rusting.

A simple efficient compost screener

Just work your compost around with a hoe and pull the big pieces off the back. Toss them back on to the compost pile when you finish. » Read more: Potting Soil From Compost

10 comments »

Posted in How To

Tags: compost organic gardening potting soil

Anyone Can Raise Rabbits

December 25th, 2008

Welcome Stumblers! How about a thumbs up if you find this article to be interesting or useful?

Anyone can raise rabbits, but then why would you want to?

Raising rabbits is enjoyable – the animals are gentle, and interactive – they often “thump” at you when they hear you come outside if they want attention. If you are actually raising rabbits as opposed to just keeping them as pets then you will have litters of baby rabbits on a regular schedule, and that is also enjoyable.

Rabbits don’t take up much space, and they make almost no noise at all. They don’t smell as long as the rabbit keeper does his or her part.

Raising rabbits is not very expensive to begin – breeding stock can be had for $10 – $20 each or less, and the required equipment can be built from inexpensive or recycled materials by anyone with a modicum of skill. » Read more: Anyone Can Raise Rabbits

23 comments »

Posted in Livestock

Tags: backyard domestic rabbit meat rabbit

Thanks for the Comments

December 16th, 2008

friends_titles

While perusing some of the comments that we’ve been blessed with lately I checked into some of the blogs and other web sites that our readers have…

Chris at – Urban Horticulture has some great gardening how to articles, and a beautiful site with lots of photos and video content. His article on Brown Turkey fig trees caught my eye. I’m thinking of trying some container fruit trees now that I have a greenhouse which I can use to protect them from our notorious late spring frosts.

Dave at The Home Garden is another Tennessee gardener who blogs on his pastime. Lately he’s done some good posts on propagation – free plants, you gotta love that.

Cheryl blogs with plenty of photos on her gardening experiences at Cheryl’s Garden Goodies . Her friendly writing style and replies to comments are something that I really enjoy as a visitor.

Andrew at – Garden Hacker – reports on his garden experiments and links out to other interesting/experimental garden sites.

Bill comments on sustainability and environmental issues at his Recycle blog – just another voice crying out in the wilderness, but maybe if enough of us get on our soapbox our leaders will realize our concern isn’t just a fad.

Dave’s Workout has great articles on Health, fitness, and nutrition as well as healthy / vegetarian cooking. Don’t be intimidated by the sign up form on the home page you can just click on the articles without all that if you want.

Merry Christmas!

2 comments »

Posted in Uncategorized

Enter your address to Subscribe by Email - Never Abused!
Your email:
Subscribe by RSS feed
Popular Posts

$50 Greenhouse

Gardening on the Cheap

Easy Organic Compost

Home Made Bottom Heat - the key to successful seed starting

Simple Cold Frame from Recycled Materials

Mini Polytunnel Greenhouse - boost your gardening success in about an hour with this simple project

Potting Soil from Organic Compost

Plant Spacing for Intensive Gardening
Other Great Sites
Tips

* Digging a hole in hard ground for a tree or shrub? Dig a starter hole and fill it to the top with water - come back later and you will be amazed at how much easier it is to dig. After you dig fill it with water again, and wait for it to soak in before back filling and planting - the more stable soil moisture will give your tree a better start.

*

* When planting trees don't mix a lot of organic matter into the soil or the tree might grow a compacted root ball in the improved soil without sending roots out into the surrounding ground. Just dig a hole and put the loosened dirt back in - then add compost or rotted manure as a mulch on top of the ground.

*

* If you get your beds ready before time to plant, consider covering them with a plastic tunnel to both warm the soil, and to keep it dry so that when the right day for pea planting (or whatever) rolls around you won't be delayed by frozen mud.

*

* Try starting lettuce in a length of plastic gutter and transplant out all in one piece.

*

* When shopping for spring seeds buy some for the Fall garden while they are available.
*

* When planting tiny fragile seeds cover with fine compost, potting soil, or peat moss so that the emerging plantlets don't have to fight through crusty soil.

*

* When starting seeds indoors you will get much quicker and more reliable germination by keeping the soil warm - about 70 F. But, once plants emerge they can get leggy under artificial light if you keep them too warm.

*

* When starting seeds under fluorescent lights you should keep the lights as close to the tops of the plants as possible - but even then the intensity is far less than real sunlight. Move your plant starts outside as soon as weather permits.

*

* When starting seeds keep the soil moist and warm until the plants emerge, but then try to let the surface of the soil dry out a bit between waterings.

*

* Check the germination rate of your seeds by putting 10 each between sheets of wet paper towels, keep moist and warm. In a week or so you will see how many you need to put in each spot.

*

* One of the most important factors to successful gardening is to plant at the right time. Nothing else matters if you get this wrong.
Meta
You are currently browsing the archives for December, 2008.

Back to Top

Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional | Valid CSS 3