Vegetables
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Grow Big in a Small Space: The Magic of Square Foot Gardening
Dreaming of a bountiful harvest but limited on space? Look no further than square foot gardening (SFG)! This revolutionary method, developed by Mel Bartholomew, allows you to maximize your yield in even the tiniest of balconies or patios. What is Square Foot Gardening? Imagine your garden bed divided into a grid of 1-foot by 1-foot squares. Each square becomes its own mini-ecosystem, planted with specific vegetables, herbs, or flowers according to their spacing needs. This eliminates wasted space and allows for intensive planting. Benefits of Square Foot Gardening: High Yields: SFG utilizes a special, lightweight soil mix that promotes healthy growth, leading to impressive harvests from a compact area. Low…
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Cultivate Longevity: Your Guide to Blue Zone Gardening
After our Lakeway Garden Club Spring mixer last week, we had many requests to share more information about Blue Zone gardening. Enjoy! Have you ever wondered what the secret is to a long and healthy life? Look no further than the Blue Zones! These five regions around the world – Sardinia (Italy), Ikaria (Greece), Nicoya (Costa Rica), Loma Linda (California), and Okinawa (Japan) – boast populations with exceptional longevity. And one key element they all share? A deep connection to gardening. Here’s why you should consider incorporating Blue Zone gardening into your life: Move Naturally: Gardening isn’t just about planting seeds. It involves weeding, watering, harvesting – all activities that…
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Fall into Vegetable Gardening in Autumn
Autumn is a great time to start a vegetable garden in Lakeway. The weather is cooler and less humid, which makes it ideal for growing a variety of crops. Fall vegetables tend to be more productive than spring vegetables in our area. Here are a few tips for success: Choose the right crops. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, collard greens, kale, lettuce, mustard greens, onions, peas, potatoes, radishes, spinach, and Swiss chard are all good options. Prepare your soil. Amend your soil with compost or manure before planting. Space your plants properly. Follow the spacing instructions on the seed packet or plant tag. Water regularly, especially during dry spells.…
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Saving your Vegetable Seeds for Next Year
Many of the vegetables we grow in our gardens produce seeds, which, if harvested and stored correctly, have the potential to grace us with free plants. And late summer is the perfect time to start collecting them. Heirlooms versus Hybrids Make sure the plants from which you’re collecting seeds are heirloom, or open-pollinated, varieties. These are plants in their original forms whose seeds will produce plants with the same qualities as their parent. Hybrid varieties, on the other hand, are created by breeding two or more different types to capture the best qualities of each. Attempting to grow seeds collected from hybrids will yield a harvest of disappointment, as the…
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Know the 6 D’s of container gardening
To be successful at container gardening requires more than just a pot and a plant. The “6 D’s of Container Gardening Success,” as presented by Texas Master Gardener Kirk Walden, highlights how to have better plant-growing results, with the information given in manageable — and memorable D-letter — chunks. The six D’s are: Design Dirt Diameter Depth Drainage Daylight Of course, each topic has subsets of information. Design Gardeners need to keep in mind how much space is needed. Also, they should bear in mind the purpose of the garden, such as whether it is ornamental or intended to grow fruits or vegetables. There are numerous styles of gardens ranging…
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Join us at the Earth Day Open House Celebration
Save the date for the Lakeway Garden Club Earth Day Open House celebration at the Lake Travis Community Library on April 22nd from 12noon to 2pm. All are welcome to join us for some light refreshments and to learn about gardening in our area including native plants, vegetable gardening, container gardens, water wise planting etc. We will even have a fun Earth Day activity for kids to enjoy. See you there!
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Regrow Vegetables on a Sunny Windowsill
Gardening naturally lends itself to reusing and recycling — just think about compost and last year’s seed trays. So if there’s a way to reduce trash while saving money on produce, it is a wonderful thing. And a favorite way to do both is to regrow vegetables from kitchen scraps. Instead of throwing away or composting the bottoms (or tops) of vegetables when preparing them, you can grow them into leafy greens and other tasty tidbits right on your windowsill. It’s important to point out that these methods aren’t likely to produce plants that will grow well in your garden, so it is not recommended to use this method to replace…
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How to Grow Garlic
It was surprising to learn recently that, according to Google Trends data gathered by AllAboutGardening.com, the most popular fall-planted crop in the United States is…. garlic. A good guess would have been kale. Possibly beets. Maybe Brussels sprouts. But garlic? Another deep dive into Google’s search trends, comparing Americans’ interest in growing garlic with interest in growing other fall-planted bulbs, like tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and crocus resulted in yet another surprise. Surely, colorful blooms would trump the spicy, pungent vegetable. No. When people used the search term “how to grow…,” garlic was again the frontrunner when compared with those spring bulb plants. Could it be that Americans have a previously undisclosed obsession with garlic?…
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Must Have Planting Calendar for Vegetable Gardeners
Have you ever wondered when you needed to seed, sow or transplant your vegetable garden? Now you have the answer! Many veggie gardeners here in Central Texas find the fall season to be more productive than spring in our area, so check out the Veggie Planting Calendar to plan your fall veggie garden. The Texas AgriLife Extension Vegetable Garden Planting Guide will show you all the ideal times to plant in order to maximize your garden bounty! You can download a printable PDF of the calendar to post by your garden or bring with you to your favorite plant nursery.
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Supercharge your Garden with Texas Superstar Plants
The new Texas Superstar Guide to strong and stunning plants for Texans, created by Texas A&M AgriLife Research, the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and the Texas Department of Agriculture, is available online. To be designated a Texas Superstar, a plant must be beautiful and perform well for consumers and growers throughout the state. Superstars must be easy to propagate, which should ensure the plants are not only widely available throughout Texas but also reasonably priced. The Texas Superstar program began as a regional program in the early 1980s and became a statewide effort in 1989. The name Texas Superstar was coined in 1997. The designation was applied to all the…