Grow & Make Your Own Luffa Sponge!

Luffas sponges are probably best known for use in the shower to exfoliate your skin, but they can also be used for washing dishes or windows.

If you have never done this, here is an opportunity to grow and make your own luffa sponge!

There are several species of Luffa plants that you can do this project with, and they are:

Luffa cylindrica
Luffa acutangula
Luffa aegyptiaca Mill

They are all in the Cucurbitaceae family. Most seed catalogs offer luffa seeds, so they are not hard to find.

Growing the plants:

1. The plants are very easy to grow with no insect problems, but frost will kill these plants so be careful to make sure either it is warm enough out, or you give them some frost protection until all threat of frost is over.

2. They need around 4 to 5 months to grow and produce sponges that you will be able to use, so sowing your seeds now, in the spring or early summer is the best time.

3. Like many gourd and squash plants, they like full sun, regular water, and they are natural climbers so you can train the vines up a trellis or fence, or up the side of a wall or your house.

4. The fruit is edible when young, but will get very tough to eat if allowed to get too big.

5. They can get about 15 feet (4.6 m) tall.


Making the sponge:

1. Harvest mature sponges in the fall; you can pick the fruit just after the first frost kills the vine, and then peel off the outer skin.

2. Cut of the ends, and then squeeze the fruit repeatedly from the middle towards the ends to remove the pulp and seeds that are inside. Some people call this “milking” the squash.

3. If seeds do come out, make sure you set some aside for next year!

4. Next, if the sponge is discolored, soak it for 5 minutes in warm water with a little bit of bleach.

5. Allow the sponge to dry thoroughly by hanging them up or placing them on a drying rack.

6. Last, make sure to clean your luffas throughout the year in the washing machine. Most luffa sponges will last for years!

Note: It is also possible to dye the luffas if you want your sponge to be a different color than it’s natural tan.

For more Gardening Tips and Gardening Advice visit our main gardening website at Weekend Gardener Monthly Web Magazine - www.weekendgardener.net

Talk to you next week!

How to Rotate Your Crops For Healthy Plants and Soil

Last week we talked about how much easier it is to plan your vegetable garden, and figure out how you'll rotate your crops, when using sticky note pads.

This week we'll finish up with why it is important to rotate your crops, and give you a sample four-year plan to help.

Crop rotation is when you plant your annual crops in different areas of your garden every year to avoid the buildup of soil-borne diseases and pests like potato scab, or nematodes.

When you grow different plants on the same site every year, pests and diseases won't have the host plant that they prefer, so their populations tend not to build up to critical and damaging levels.

The most important thing about crop rotation is to have a plan on paper, so you can remember what you planted, and where you are going to move plants the following year.

One easy way is to separate your crops into 3 types: root, leafy, and fruit crops. Even better, is to group your crops by botanical family (like in the Solanaceae family you have tomatoes and peppers, in the Leguminosae family you have peas and beans etc.).

Following is a sample rotation with 4 growing seasons. Each year includes tomatoes, and a soil improving crop (buckwheat, clovers, oats, rye, vetches, and wheat). You can add other crops as space permits in your garden.



For more Gardening Tips and Gardening Advice visit our main gardening website at Weekend Gardener Monthly Web Magazine - www.weekendgardener.net

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Planning A Vegetable Garden

It's time to start planning your vegetable garden and here's a tip to help make it easy for you.

Use "Post-its" - those small note pads that are sticky. They make it easy and fast.

Here's How:

1. Work on a hard surface - a board or tabletop

2. Decide the scale of your garden - example: 1 inch (2.5 cm) equals 1 foot (.3 m)

3. Each Post-it equals a plot in your garden

4. Write each crop name on a Post-it

5. Simply lift and restick each crop as many times as you want until you're happy with the arrangement

This works very well with succession planting as well because you can simply layer Post-its on top of each other.

For example if you plan to follow an early crop of lettuce with a crop of beans, you can use two Post-its on that plot to show the succession.

Post-its also work really well when figuring out how you want to rotate your crops to keep the soil and plants as healthy as possible.

We'll be getting into that next week and we'll also be giving a four-year plan to show you how to successfully rotate your crops.

For more Gardening Tips and Gardening Advice visit our main gardening website at Weekend Gardener Monthly Web Magazine - www.weekendgardener.net

Talk to you next week!

How Does Companion Planting Work?

Part 2 of 2

Last week we discussed what companion planting is, how it works, and gave a few examples. This week we will finish off by giving a few more examples for you to try out in your yard or garden this year.

If you have never tried doing this, do, it really does work!

Here are a few more companion planting examples:

Potatoes and sweet alyssum: Sweet alyssum has tiny flowers that attract delicate beneficial insects, such as lady bugs, and predatory wasps. Plant sweet alyssum alongside bushy crops like potatoes, or let it spread to form a ground cover under plants like broccoli. What is also nice, is that sweet alyssum is so fragrant that it gives a nice scent to your garden all summer long.

Radishes and spinach: Radishes lure leafminers away from spinach, and since the damage the leafminers do to radish leaves doesn't prevent the radishes from growing nicely underground, it is a nice compromise.

Lettuce and tall flowers: Tall flowers such as Nicotiana (flowering tobacco) and Cleome (spider flower) give lettuce light shade, giving it a cooler environment, which is what lettuce grows best in.

Corn and beans: Beans attract beneficial insects that prey on corn pests such as leafhoppers, fall armyworms and leaf beetles. Plus, bean vines climb up the corn stalks, which means you don't have to stake them, the corn provides a natural trellis for them.

Cauliflower and dwarf zinnias: The nectar from dwarf zinnia flowers attracts ladybugs and other predators that help protect cauliflower; and since cauliflower is already a tough crop to grow, any help is beneficial!

Collards and catnip: Studies have found that planting catnip with collards reduces flea-beetle damage on the collards.

Marigolds: Plant these all through your garden. They discourage Mexican bean beetles, nematodes, and other insects. Called the "workhorse" of companion plants for all the benefits they bring to the garden.

For more Gardening Tips and Gardening Advice visit our main gardening website at Weekend Gardener Monthly Web Magazine - www.weekendgardener.net

Talk to you next week!

How does companion planting work?

Part 1 of 2

Gardeners have known for centuries that a good mix of plants gives you a healthier garden, but even better, in recent times, several scientific studies about companion planting have proven that it actually works, but how?

Here are a couple of explanations:

1. Companions can help each other grow. For example, tall plants can provide shade for smaller, shorter plants that can't take as much full sun.

2. Companions can attract beneficial insects; so some plants that have a tendency to get eaten alive, will now have the protection of beneficials which are the natural predators of certain pests.

3. Companion plants can prevent pest problems. Certain plants can actually repel some pests, like onions and marigolds, while other plants can lure pests away from your garden and keep your plants from getting attacked.

4. Companions plants can use garden space efficiently. For example, you can plant vining plants to cover the ground and help with moisture, while planting upright plants to grow vertically. This way more ground is being used more efficiently.

Here are a few companion planting examples:

Roses and chives: Garlic is said to repel rose pests, and garlic chives are just as repellent, so this is a good way to protect your roses.

Tomatoes and cabbage: Tomatoes are repellent to diamondback moth larvae, so they can keep your cabbages safe because diamondback larvae are caterpillars that chew large holes in cabbage leaves.

Cabbage and dill: Dill protects cabbage family plants, like broccoli and Brussels sprouts because dill attracts beneficial wasps that control cabbageworms and other cabbage pests.

Peppers and pigweed or ragweed: Leafminers like weeds better than pepper plants. One note of caution however, make sure you remove the weeds' flower head before they set seed or you'll have created more problems for yourself!

Cucumbers and nasturtiums: Nasturtiums are known to repel cucumber beetles, and they provide a great habitat for predatory insects like spiders and ground beetles so nasturtiums give you 2 for the price of 1.

For more companion planting suggestions, come back next week for part 2!

For more Gardening Tips and Gardening Advice visit our main gardening website at Weekend Gardener Monthly Web Magazine - www.weekendgardener.net

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Tough Fast Growing Trees

Everyone needs a tree that can take extreme cold, heat, wind, and is fast growing, so today we're going to list three trees that can do just that.

These trees have also been used for years in the Great Plains as windbreaks.

1. Green Ash
(Fraxinus pennsylvanica)

• A large tree that grows up to 60 feet (18 m) tall
  
  
• It has green leaves that can turn a nice yellow in the fall, but don't count on the color
  
  
• Zones 2 - 9

2. Box Elder
(Acer negundo)

• Fast growing to 30 to 50 feet (9 - 15 m)
  
  
• Has a rounded top
  
  
• Zones 2 - 9

3. Silver Buffalo Berry
(Shepherdia argentea)

• Can be grown as a tree or shrub
  
  
• Has silvery leaves and red or yellow fruit
  
  
• Grows to 18 feet (5 m)
  
  
• Zones 2 - 6

For more Gardening Tips and Gardening Advice visit our main gardening website at Weekend Gardener Monthly Web Magazine - www.weekendgardener.net

Talk to you next week!

How To Fix Poor Draining Soil

As the ground starts to warm up, many of us are getting ready to plant out new vegetables, trees, and flowers, but some soil isn't as ideal as it could be, and drainage if often a problem.

If you have poor draining soil, this can hinder good aeration for plant roots, and plants can actually drown, so you'll want to take care of the problem as soon as possible.

I recommended using a product called Penmax to eliminate the standing water fast. It is very easy to use, and it has a gypsite base. You can almost watch the water drain away. Penmax will open up the pores of the soil up to 8 feet (2.4 m) deep in about 1 hour.

You can find it at: http://www.westernnutrientscorp.com/penmax.html

Once the water is gone, allow the area to dry out a bit, and then do a quick soil test. You can get a soil test kit at your nursery which will tell you what amendments the soil needs.

Till the amendments in, with lots of good composted organic matter, to create a nice loamy soil, and you'll have a perfect area to plant any trees, shrubs, or flowers that you want!

For more Gardening Tips and Gardening Advice visit our main gardening website at Weekend Gardener Monthly Web Magazine - www.weekendgardener.net

Have a great day!