Category Archives: Gardening

This year was our first year growing potatoes, and we tried them in barrels. We had one barrel of Red Pontiac and one of Yukon Gold. The idea is that you take a big barrel, drum, bag, or other vessel and make sure it can drain out the bottom, then put in about 6 to 8 inches of soil and plant your seed potatoes.… Continue reading →

About half way through the growing season, the lackluster performance of some of our veggies prompted us to pull out the test kits and check our soil out. The most important discovery is that throughout our garden, the soil PH is far higher than it should be, over 8 in some places. Most plants perform best in a range of 6 to 7, with some acid loving plants performing well as low as 5. An elevated soil PH can keep plants from absorbing available nutrients, which inhibits growth, invites pest problems, decreases yield, and makes the food produced less rich in micronutrients. Continue reading →