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- Your kitchen waste is a vegetable garden goldmine
Your kitchen waste is a vegetable garden goldmine
Lisa
May 30, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
Good morning,
Sunshine on your face, birds chirping – summer is right around the corner! And for all those green thumbs out there, it's just about harvest time! Ditch the grocery store for a bit and celebrate the season by harvesting your first crops and enjoying the fresh, homegrown bounty. Get ready for some serious garden-to-table magic!
CHERRY PICKED - JUST FOR YOU
Did you know that a typical four-person family discards anywhere between 10 to 20 pounds of scraps per month? It's shocking how much food waste we generate, especially considering a large portion comes from perfectly usable vegetable scraps.
Instead of throwing them away, why not use those kitchen scraps to grow your own vegetables? It’s simpler than you think.
NATURE’S CALLING
There are 4 days left until National Gardening Week
BRANCHING OUT
Freshly placed mulch can really help to make your garden pop, but in most areas, that clean look doesn’t last long. Thankfully, sprucing up your old mulch isn’t that difficult, and taking these steps can give your plants a nice boost!
Who wouldn’t want to plant bush beans in their backyard? They’re delicious, nutritional, and beginner-friendly. If out of nowhere, your healthy bush bean plants simply stopped growing, this is likely why.
It's easy to spot problems in your houseplants when they are visible in the leaves or flowers. What about potential issues that are going on under the soil, with the roots?
Learn how to identify and fix a root-bound plant before it affects your plant’s health.
DAILY DOSE OF DIRT
By now, your garden should be bursting with life! This week's challenge focuses on two essential tasks for a thriving vegetable patch: weed control and mulching.
The Challenge
Weed Warrior: Grab your gloves and become a weed warrior! Regularly weeding removes competition for nutrients, water, and sunlight from your precious vegetables and herbs. Focus on removing young weeds before they establish strong root systems.
Choose Your Weapon: You can hand-pull weeds, use a weeding tool, or even cover stubborn weeds with a layer of newspaper for a few days to smother them.
Mulch Master: Once you've conquered the weeds, transform into a mulch master! Applying a layer of organic mulch around your plants has numerous benefits:
- Suppresses weeds
- Retains moisture in the soil
- Regulates soil temperature
- Encourages beneficial earthworms
Mulch Mania: Choose organic materials like shredded bark, wood chips, or straw for mulch. Apply a 2-3 inch layer around your plants, keeping a slight distance from the stems to prevent rot.
Bonus! Compost Power: Consider creating your own compost pile using kitchen scraps and yard waste. Not only is it a sustainable practice, but finished compost can be used as a fantastic soil amendment for future plantings!
This challenge ensures your garden stays weed-free and your plants have the optimal environment to thrive.
MORE TO GROW ON
The choices you make when growing flowers or shrubs are one thing, but when it comes to plants that are going to end up on your dinner table, you might want to pay a little more attention to the materials you add to the soil.
Find out whether or not perlite and vermiculite are safe in your vegetable garden and whether or not they can actually give your plants a healthy boost.
Mulching materials don’t come with a use by date. You have to determine when they are too degraded to serve their purpose. Then comes the point of figuring out what to do with the old mulch.
Before removing and throwing away that old mulch, considering these options to give it a second life.
NEVER STOP GROWING
Want even more gardening tips to transform your thumb from brown to green? Browse all past newsletters to unearth some hidden gems you might have missed the first time around. Completely free and available 24/7!
UNTIL NEXT BLOOM…
As always, thanks so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to read this newsletter! Question or comments - just reply.
Happy planting!