Archive for June, 2010

Growing a stevia plant

2.9 years ago stevia, sugar

003

While heading to my local home improvement I noticed an unusual plant in the herb display and moved closer to investigate.  It turned out to be a Stevia plant which is more well known as the primary ingredient in a new artificial sweetener Truvia.  I immediately grabbed a good looking plant, I have wanted to grow one of these myself but given the high price of the seeds and it is known to have serious germination issues and normally leads to failure.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags:

First pepper of the year

2.9 years ago peppers

001

It has been slow to warm up this year but finally getting some warm enough nights to bring my peppers outside for a little while.  Though they were flowering in the grow box I was surprised to see a sweet yellow pepper already growing.  This is definitely a record for me by at least a good month.

Tags:

How to freeze strawberries

2.9 years ago freezing, strawberries

014

One thing I realized halfway through the winter was that I did not nearly save enough berries to make it through.  With local strawberries showing up in my garden and in the farmers market this seemed like a perfect time to get an early start this year.

Freezing strawberries is much like freezing other berries strawberries are just as easy with just a few simple steps:

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: ,

Winner of the "Garden Safe gift pack giveaway"

2.9 years ago Uncategorized

GardenSafe_Composite_highRes2

And the winner of the GardenSafe Gift Pack is…Ashley.  Thank you for everyone who entered.  I am still looking for more giveaways coming soon so you should have another chance to win shortly…

Garden Safe gift pack giveaway

2.9 years ago cheap, free, free gardening tool, giveaway

016

Last week I was contacted by Garden Safe asking if I would like some samples and given I used the last of my insecticidal soap protecting my peas from aphids I graciously agreed.  Expecting to get a couple bottles to try out I was definitely surprised to get the lifetime supply (at least fro my little garden above)

Not wanting to share the love with my readers they also agreed to offer a gift pack to giveaway.  Not only does it include the products pictured below but also a garden tote bag with a weeding fork, sprayer, hand rake, trowel, transplanter, and clipper AND $20 gift card to Lowe’s.  I don’t know the exact retail value of this gift package but my back of the envelope estimate is at least $100.

GardenSafe_Composite_highRes2 
Rules:

1. Enter one comment to enter

2. Mention this contest on your blog, enter another comment for another chance to win

3. Entries in by 06/25/2010 12:00PM Pacific Time

4. Become a fan on Facebook , enter another comment for another chance to win

5. Winner will be randomly chosen from comments on Saturday, 06/25/2010 

Tags:

Scallions, green onions, and spring onions

3 years ago green onions, onions

image

I guess while we are at lets not leave out shallots, salad onions, bunching onions, and green sticks.  For the purists a scallion is technically slightly less mature than a green onions.  No matter what you call them this is a very versatile version of the conventional mature bulb version of the vegetable and shouldn’t be overlooked in your garden.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: