Creating a New Garden Bed with Milpa
Grow Food, Not Lawns. To create new garden beds from grass, I use a broadfork to turn over the sod, add compost, and then sow Milpa.
Gardening
Your Companion Planting Guide to Deter Pests and Thrive
Which crops you choose to plant next to each other makes a difference. The right choice can provide nitrogen, deter pests, improve flavor, and provide shade or protection. Choosing the wrong plants can stunt your hard work in the garden. Companion planting examples such as the 3 sisters – corn, beans, and squash. The beans … Read more
Interplanting Perennials with Annuals in the Garden
It is still March. The last frost in NE Kansas is still over a month away. It is encouraging to see the perennials – walking onions, bloody dock sorrel, and plantain already prominent and harvestable in modest amounts. I plucked some Narrow Leaf plantain (perennial) and some mustard that overwintered and fed them to my … Read more
How to Start Your Garden: Dream, Plan, then Plant
What new adventures will this growing season hold? Spring is dawning. Whether you have never gardened before, or you are a green thumb, you are excited about what this year may hold. The seed catalogs lay open on the kitchen table or coffee table. The plants are starting to show up at the nursery and … Read more
How I Built a Greenhouse from Recycled Windows
Extend your growing season with a greenhouse and start new seedlings earlier in the spring The first frost in NE Kansas averages around Oct-20. The last frost around Apr-20. That is 6 months of no growing season. I had setup grow lights in my basement to start plants earlier, but it was starting to take … Read more
Get Stuff Done – How to make a comfrey salve or balm on the fly
Make comfrey salve using the cold or warm infusion methods Most gardeners know comfrey as a perennial plant and a dynamic accumulator. Many people know of its reputation for assisting in healing process. When my sister needed surgery after a fall I gave her my last tin of homemade comfrey salve. I then took a … Read more
Food Forest Walkthrough, Year 3 – What Worked and What Didn’t
Permaculture – Your Plants Will Tell You What They Want by Thriving…Or Not In my previous article, How I created a Food Forest, I documented what I did in 2021 to turn an 80’x30′ corner of my pasture into a permaculture orchard/food forest. The Original Design The original design included hand dug swales, and rows … Read more
A Perfect Day – Sometimes it’s the Little Things that Make the Perfect Day
Editor’s Note: As Perpend related in Ep. 14 of Thriving the Future Podcast, his Perfect Day looks like a fairly average day that many would not see as anything special. But it has space, it has room to think, to relax, to breathe, while still Getting Stuff Done. “The whole point is living a life … Read more
How to Milpa Garden – Chaos Gardening
Mixing different kinds of seeds in one garden plot Milpa is a warm season cover crop mix that includes greens, squash, beans, corn, pumpkins, cucumbers, and annual and wildflowers. It is designed to grow as much food as possible in a space without weeding, tilling, and planning. In addition, it also adds nitrogen to the … Read more
How I created an Apple Guild – Permaculture
Turn a corner of your garden into Hassle-Free Permaculture Perennial Production Look at this picture. What do you see? A mess of plants and weeds? This is a permaculture apple guild, with multiple perennials, in the corner of my garden area. This has two apple trees on dwarf/semi-dwarf rootstock (an Arkansas Black, and a Golden … Read more
