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Square Foot Gardening
Square foot gardening is the practice of dividing the growing area into small square sections, typically on a side, hence the name. The aim is to assist the planning and creating of a small but intensively planted vegetable garden. It results in a simple and orderly gardening system, from which it draws much of its appeal. Mel Bartholomew coined the term "square foot gardening" in his 1981 book of the same name. Overview The phrase "square foot gardening" was popularized by Mel Bartholomew in a 1981 Rodale, Inc. book and subsequent PBS television series. Bartholomew, a retired engineer, devised a raised square bed with a grid. Each of these 4 by 4 square beds was then divided into sixteen one-foot squares, the grid. Each square is planted with a different crop species based on a formulation of either one, four, nine or sixteen plants per square depending on the plant's overall size. Once a “square foot” is harvested, a different crop can be planted for a continual harve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tagetes
''Tagetes'' () is a genusSoule, J. A. 1996. Infrageneric Systematics of Tagetes. Pgs. 435-443 in Compositae: Systematics, Proceedings of the International Compositae Conference, Kew 1994, Vol. I, Eds. D.J.N. Hind & H.J. Beentje. of annual or perennial, mostly herbaceous plants in the family Asteraceae. They are among several groups of plants known in English as marigolds. The genus ''Tagetes'' was described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. These plants are native to Mexico, growing naturally since Mexico's valley down to the south and even reaching several other Latinamerican countries, but some species have become naturalized around the world. One species, '' T. minuta'', is considered a noxious invasive plant in some areas. Description ''Tagetes'' species vary in size from 0.1 to 2.2 m tall. Most species have pinnate green leaves. Blooms naturally occur in golden, orange, yellow, and white colors, often with maroon highlights. Floral heads are typically (1-) to 4–6 cm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gardening Books
Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants as part of horticulture. In gardens, ornamental plants are often grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance; useful plants, such as root vegetables, leaf vegetables, fruits, and herbs, are grown for consumption, for use as dyes, or for medicinal or cosmetic use. Gardening ranges in scale from fruit orchards, to long boulevard plantings with one or more different types of shrubs, trees, and herbaceous plants, to residential back gardens including lawns and foundation plantings, all the way to container gardens grown inside or outside. Gardening may be very specialized, with only one type of plant grown, or involve a variety of plants in mixed plantings. It involves an active participation in the growing of plants, and tends to be labor-intensive, which differentiates it from farming or forestry. History Ancient times Forest gardening, a forest-based food production system, is the world's oldest form of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raised Bed Gardening
Raised-bed gardening is a form of gardening in which the soil is raised above ground level and usually enclosed in some way. Raised bed structures can be made of wood, rock, concrete or other materials, and can be of any size or shape. The soil is usually enriched with compost. Vegetables are grown in geometric patterns, much closer together than in conventional row gardening. The spacing is such that when the vegetables are fully grown, their leaves just barely touch each other, creating a microclimate in which weed growth is suppressed and moisture is conserved. Overview Raised beds lend themselves to the development of complex agriculture systems that utilize many of the principles and methods of permaculture. They can be used effectively to control erosion and recycle and conserve water and nutrients by building them along contour lines on slopes. This also makes more space available for intensive crop production. They can be created over large areas with the use of several ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Organic Gardening
Organic horticulture is the science and art of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, or ornamental plants by following the essential principles of organic agriculture in soil building and conservation, pest management, and heirloom variety preservation. The Latin words ''hortus'' (garden plant) and ''cultura'' (culture) together form ''horticulture'', classically defined as the culture or growing of garden plants. ''Horticulture'' is also sometimes defined simply as "agriculture minus the plough". Instead of the plough, horticulture makes use of human labour and gardener's hand tools, although some small machine tools like rotary tillers are commonly employed now. General Mulches, cover crops, compost, manures, vermicompost, and mineral supplements are soil-building mainstays that distinguish this type of farming from its conventional counterpart. Through attention to good healthy soil condition, it is expected that insect, fungal, or other problems that sometimes plague plants ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Intensive Gardening
French intensive gardening also known as raised bed, wide bed, or French market gardening is a method of gardening in which plants are grown within a smaller space and with higher yields than other traditional gardening methods. The main principles for success are often listed as soil improvement, raised beds, close spacing, companion planting, succession planting and crop rotation. Originating in France, the practice is very popular among urban gardeners and small for profit farming operations. History Beginning in the 1500s in neighborhoods in and around Paris, market gardens, as they were then known, were lauded for their high yields and high return on investment during seasons that were often bad for typical growers. "Maraîchers" or market gardeners employed techniques of fermenting manure to warm the soil, building stone walls to keep the wind at bay, and planting crops together to produce high yields. The work of two French market gardeners, Moreau and Daverne, who wrote thei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Companion Planting
Companion planting in gardening and agriculture is the planting of different crops in proximity for any of a number of different reasons, including pest control, pollination, providing habitat for beneficial insects, maximizing use of space, and to otherwise increase crop productivity. Companion planting is a form of polyculture. Companion planting is used by farmers and gardeners in both industrialized and developing countries for many reasons. Many of the modern principles of companion planting were present many centuries ago in forest gardens in Asia, and thousands of years ago in Mesoamerica. History In China, mosquito ferns (''Azolla'' spp.) have been used for at least a thousand years as companion plants for rice crops. They host a cyanobacterium (''Anabaena azollae'') that fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere, and they block light from plants that would compete with the rice. Companion planting was practiced in various forms by the indigenous peoples of the Americas pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friable
Friability ( ), the condition of being friable, describes the tendency of a solid substance to break into smaller pieces under duress or contact, especially by rubbing. The opposite of friable is indurate. Substances that are designated hazardous, such as asbestos or crystalline silica, are often said to be friable if small particles are easily dislodged and become airborne, and hence respirable (able to enter human lungs), thereby posing a health hazard. Tougher substances, such as concrete, may also be mechanically ground down and reduced to finely divided mineral dust. However, such substances are not generally considered friable because of the degree of difficulty involved in breaking the substance's chemical bonds through mechanical means. Some substances, such as polyurethane foams, show an increase in friability with exposure to ultraviolet radiation, as in sunlight. Friable is sometimes used metaphorically to describe "brittle" personalities who can be "rubbed" by seemingl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compost
Compost is a mixture of ingredients used as plant fertilizer and to improve soil's physical, chemical and biological properties. It is commonly prepared by decomposing plant, food waste, recycling organic materials and manure. The resulting mixture is rich in plant nutrients and beneficial organisms, such as bacteria, protozoa, nematodes and fungi. Compost improves soil fertility in gardens, landscaping, horticulture, urban agriculture, and organic farming, reducing dependency on commercial chemical fertilizers. The benefits of compost include providing nutrients to crops as fertilizer, acting as a soil conditioner, increasing the humus or humic acid contents of the soil, and introducing beneficial microbes that help to suppress pathogens in the soil and reduce soil-borne diseases. At the simplest level, composting requires gathering a mix of 'greens' (green waste) and 'browns' (brown waste). Greens are materials rich in nitrogen such as leaves, grass, and food scraps. Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vermiculite
Vermiculite is a hydrous phyllosilicate mineral which undergoes significant expansion when heated. Exfoliation occurs when the mineral is heated sufficiently, and commercial furnaces can routinely produce this effect. Vermiculite forms by the weathering or hydrothermal alteration of biotite or phlogopite. http://www.mindat.org/min-4170.html Mindat.org Large commercial vermiculite mines currently exist in the United States, Russia, South Africa, China, and Brazil. Occurrence Vermiculite was first described in 1824 for an occurrence in Millbury, Massachusetts. Its name is from Latin , "to breed worms", for the manner in which it exfoliates when heated. It typically occurs as an alteration product at the contact between felsic and mafic or ultramafic rocks such as pyroxenites and dunites. It also occurs in carbonatites and metamorphosed magnesium-rich limestone. Associated mineral phases include: corundum, apatite, serpentine, and talc. It occurs interlayered with chlorite, bio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coir
Coir (), also called coconut fibre, is a natural fibre extracted from the outer husk of coconut and used in products such as floor mats, doormats, brushes, and mattresses. Coir is the fibrous material found between the hard, internal shell and the outer coat of a coconut. Other uses of brown coir (made from ripe coconut) are in upholstery padding, sacking and horticulture. White coir, harvested from unripe coconuts, is used for making finer brushes, string, rope and fishing nets. It has the advantage of not sinking, so can be used in long lengths in deep water without the added weight dragging down boats and buoys. Coir must not be confused with coir pith, which is the powdery and spongy material resulting from the processing of the coir fibre. Coir fibre is locally named 'coprah' in some countries, adding to confusion. Pith is chemically similar to coir, but contains much shorter fibers. The name coco peat may refer either to coir or the pith or a mixture, as both have go ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peat Moss
''Sphagnum'' is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as sphagnum moss, peat moss, also bog moss and quacker moss (although that term is also sometimes used for peat). Accumulations of ''Sphagnum'' can store water, since both living and dead plants can hold large quantities of water inside their cells; plants may hold 16 to 26 times as much water as their dry weight, depending on the species.Bold, H. C. 1967. Morphology of Plants. second ed. Harper and Row, New York. p. 225-229. The empty cells help retain water in drier conditions. As sphagnum moss grows, it can slowly spread into drier conditions, forming larger mires, both raised bogs and blanket bogs. Thus, sphagnum can influence the composition of such habitats, with some describing sphagnum as 'habitat manipulators'. These peat accumulations then provide habitat for a wide array of peatland plants, including sedges and ericaceous shrubs, as well as orchids and carnivorous plants.Keddy, P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
