Mailbox for your home

Backyard organic farm can only exist in a house, and all houses must have mailboxes for you to receive letters from the postman. With the advent of the now pervasive Internet, shopping online is a great convenience, and one which I prefer where feasible. If you are shopping for mailboxes, Mailbox Exchange is a great place to do it online. They have a wide variety of mailboxes and mailbox posts you can chose from, and from a long list of manufacturers.

If you are busy with your backyard organic farm, you are likely too busy to keep watch on your mailbox, and there is every possibility of letters being stolen from your unguarded mailbox. You may want to consider Locking Mailboxes. With that, you can continue tinkering with your backyard organic farm without worrying about letters being stolen.

You may also want nice decorative Address Plaques and Numbers for your house to make it easy for visitors and postmen to locate your house and to give a good first impression.

If you are a fussy house-proud home owner in addition to being a backyard organic farmer, you may even want to consider their Curbside Decor Products. With all that, you will then have an attractive home, nice organic produce from your backyard organic farm plus have peace of mind that your letters are safe and wouldn't get stolen.

Blinds for your home

Blinds are an attractive and practical window treatment that enhance the look and feel of your home or building. They can let light and air in during the daytime while enhancing security by keeping them closed at night. Blinds gives a geometric elegance to any window while the consistency of horizontal lines is attractive. They also provide privacy when you need it.

guaranteedblinds.com have a large variety of blinds for your windows which you can choose and shop conveniently online. They have Cellular Shades, Wood Blinds Faux Wood, Natural Wood and Bamboo Blinds, Real Basswood Blinds, etc.

The best part of it is now they are having a May Sales Extravaganza offering 10 to 15% off their blinds. If you are planning to get blinds for your cozy home, this month is the best month for you to grab some bargains from guaranteedblinds.com

Nice Interior for your house to complement your nice backyard organic farm

After a long, hard day at the backyard organic farm, I am sure you would like to relax in a nice interior to soothe your aching muscles after all the hard work. However, interior design is not for everybody to dabble in. If you want a real nice comfortable interior, you have to depend on a professional interior designer.

Interior designer in Longbeach, CA can help you in this task. Long Beach CA Interior Design is run by Sara Arndt. You can read about Sara Arndt here: About Sara Arndt or examine the projects she has successfully completed at Past Projects.

You may want to know about how Sara Arndt goes about undertaking an interior design project. You can get an idea about the process and practices she follows when she undertake an interior design project at Sara Arndt Interior Design services and practices.

Mailbox for your house to complement your nice backyard organic farm

You may have a nice backyard organic farm in your house, but you would also want to present a pleasant facade to your house, and that normally include a presentable mailbox. If you are looking for a mailbox for your house, Mailboxixchange has a wide variety of mailboxes for you to choose from, and for your convenience, you can select and buy them online. Mailboxixchange not only have Wall mounted mailboxes like the one you see in the photo, but they have Single-unit mailbox and Post Packages, Multi-unit Mailbox and Post Packages, Mailbox Posts, etc.

Mailboxixchange don't just have a wide variety of mailboxes to choose from, they also have Address Plaques and House Numbers and Curbside Decor.

With the wide varieties of things for your house front and curbside from Mailboxixchange, you will not only have a nice backyard organic farm, but a very presentable facade or curbside.

Use CouponChief.com to save on your gardening supplies

Need some gardening utensils or supplies for your backyard organic farm. Get free coupons to save on your purchases at CouponChief.com. You can find coupons to save on your home and garden supplies at Home and Garden coupons. This you can do at your convenience at home online.

At CouponChief.com, there is a search box where you can search for the items you need. I tried searching for "seed" and came up with this page: Search result page for "seed". One of the link lead to Henry Fields coupon where you can get $10 off for purchases of $30 and 10% off on Blueberries.

A search for "organic fertilizer" turned up this page: Search result page for "organic fertilizere". Following a link there to Gardens Alive showed that you can save $20 off an order of $40. That is a very substantial discount of 50%.

A search for "gardening tools" resulted in Search result page for "gardening tools" with a long list of links. You can try following those links yourself and see what is available.

Use CouponChief.com for substantial savings for your gardening supplies for your backyard organic farm.

Take a rest from organic farming. Watch some movies on your LCD, Plasma TV, etc.

Take a rest from organic farming. Watch some nice, enertaining movies on your TV. You will get maximum viewing pleasure from watching TV with a LCD, plasma or rear projector TV screen.

Have you bought a LCD, plasma or rear projector TV screen? If you have, you will know that it is a hefty investment, and you should do everything within your power to get the best out of it and to protect your hefty investment.

Get PixelProtector^TM, a DVD based premium screen diagnostic and calibration tool for all types of LCD, plasma and rear projection TV screens. You can get optimal performance for a large flat screen TV and preserve the life of your TV set with PixelProtector^TM. For a cost of a single DVD from PixelProtector^TM, you can prolong the life of your television set and save a bundle in repair or replacement costs.

PixelProtector^TM has many features that will ensure your television is correctly calibrated to gain the sharpest and most colourful image your TV has to offer. If you have a 3 year or new LCD, plasma or rear projector TV screen, getting a copy of PixelProtector^TM will ensure your TV lasts the test of time through correct calibration, diagnostic tools and tips for setting up.

PixelProtector^TM can help resolve common issues with plasma TV like Image burn in, Ghosting and Setup. With with LCD screens include, it can help resolve common issues like Trailing or blocking effect on screen (pixilation), Pixel drop out and Unnatural image blacks are dark grey. Common issues with Projection screens include Alignment, Picture saturation and Blown bulb. You can read how PixelProtector^TM can help resolve these issues at PixelProtector^TM Support

Organic fertilizer for the dragon Fruit cactus

I have written a post about planting dragon fruit cactus in my backyard garden at Cultivating dragon fruit cactus in my backyard garden (click "BACK" button to get back to this page). The cacti need to be fertilized, and since the title of this blog is backyard organic farming, I need to use organic fertilizer, and not artificial fertilizer.

I hope you willl not be squeamish about this, but I urinate into a 5 litre bottle leaving about 9/10th empty. I leave it to ferment for a week, then dilute it with water and used it to water the cacti. I fill the bottle again with water both to rinse it and also used it to further water the cacti and start the cycle all over again. I hope this will help the cacti grow quickly and start fruiting early.

Wedding Anniversary Celebrations for backyard organic farmers

If you are cultivating a backyard organic farm, it is unlikely you are a bachelor or a spinster. You are most likely to be married, and for married couples, there are wedding anniversaries to celebrate and invitations to send out. Rhodes Island Wedding Resources can make the task easy for you.

Backyard gardeners can be of any age, and you may be celebrating your Golden (50th) Wedding Anniversary, or Silver (25th) Wedding Anniversary, or other wedding anniversaries. You may also want to incorporate your photo into the wedding anniversary invitation cards and that can be done as you can see from Photo Anniversaries.

Whichever one it is, you can probably find the right type of wedding anniversary invitation cards from Rhodes Island Wedding Resources.

If you happen to be a happily married backyard gardeners planning to celebrate a wedding anniversary, may I wish you a very happy and auspicious celebration.

Pamper yourself after a hard day's work at the backyard farm with nice ceiling fans and bathroom accessories

Got nothing much to post on the backyard organic farm. The dragon fruit cactus are growing, but very slowly, so nothing new to report.

Well, if you do a lot of backyard farming, you are likely to feel hot and uncomfortable after your strenous farming, and having a nice fan to cool you down or having a nice bathroom with nice accessories to clean up will be very pleasant.

Well, if you are looking for new or replacement fans, or bathroom accessories, you can shop for one at the Farrey's Online Shop. Farrey's have a 30 days return policy, so I suppose you can shope with some confidence.

There is a wide range of fans for you to choose from. Examples are
Ceiling Fans and Ceiling Fan Accessories by Casablanca Fan Company,
Ceiling Fans and Ceiling Fan Accessories by Craftmade,
Ceiling Fans and Ceiling Fan Accessories by Ellington
and many more. You can check them out at Farrey's Online Shop

Farrey's also offers Bathroom Products and Bath Hardware

Ater a hard day's work at the backyard organic farm, you deserve to be pampered with these luxurious items.

Backyard organic farming and window blinds

A big advantage of growing a small organic farm in your backyard is that you get to grow your own vegetables without pesticides and artificial fertilizers. And you probably get lots of exercise too. However, the disadvantage of a backyard organic farm is that it may be unsightly as compared to a garden cultivated for aesthetic purpose.

This is where putting blind on your window can come in useful. With the blinds, you have the choice of shutting out the view of your backyard garden. You can actually shop for window blinds on line. A good choice of an online dealer in window blinds is guaranteedblinds.com. They have a wide choice of faux wood blinds which combine the beauty of wood with the durability of polyvinyl, real Basswood blinds which can take on various wood stain to match your interior, natural wood and bamboo blinds with a choice of open or closed weaves, Cellular shades for small and medium size windows, and Bella^TM Roman Shades available in a wide choice of fabric, color, style and varying level of light control.

There are other choices, and you can get a quick online quote. All you need to do is to select the product and enter the dimensions of your window (see screenshot below. Click to enlarge).



At guaranteedblinds.com, you can also request for free samples.

Cultivating dragon fruit cactus in the backyard

I am retired and my daughter thought it would be a good idea to get me more active in gardening, so she brought back some dragon fruit cactus cuttings for me to plant. I don't know anything about dragon fruit cactus, so I did some searching. I found out that there were various species, and mine could possibly be Hylocereus undatus
a.k.a. Pitahaya or Strawberry Pear. Pitahaya is the Spainish name for the fruit. I was told there are some with yellow flesh and some are red. It seems the red ones are better. I was told the one they brought back is the red flesh type.

Further, I found it is not a free standing cactus, but a vining one. The plant may creep over the ground or climb onto trees or wooden poles using aerial roots. My search revealed that those who cultivate the cactus uses wooden poles for support. However, the house I am staying in was developed from a former rubber estate and prone to termite infestations. I was thus reluctant to plant it. My son-in-law came up with the idea of using plastic pipes and tying the growing cactus to the pipes.

So the next day I walked over to the nearby hardware shop and bought some plastic pipes. However, I made the mistake of purchasing the small 1" diameter poles, and I doubt the pipes would make a good free standing support for the cactus if it is partly buried in the ground. The maid, a Cambodian, got the briliant idea of leaning the pipes against a dividing wall in the garden. Below is a picture of the growing cactus, the pipes, and the dividing wall:

Hard-Times Gardening – Sustainable Without Fertilizers

Hard-Times Gardening – Sustainable Without Fertilizers
by: Jim Kennard

I teach the Mittleider Method of vegetable gardening. It’s often called better than organic gardening, because we use only natural mineral nutrients, and eliminate weeds and pests without pesticides and herbicides. In addition, virtually nothing is left to chance – much different from those who depend on the unknown composition of manure and compost as their only source of food for their gardens.

I teach the Mittleider Method of vegetable gardening. It’s often called better than organic gardening, because we use only natural mineral nutrients, and eliminate weeds and pests without pesticides and herbicides. In addition, virtually nothing is left to chance – much different from those who depend on the unknown composition of manure and compost as their only source of food for their gardens.

I’m asked occasionally if the Mittleider gardening method is sustainable in the long run, “since it seems to be based on the availability of modern day fertilizers.” Since some folks feel that today’s fertilizers may not always be available in the future, how viable is this system for ongoing sustainability in the long run?

First, the Mittleider method is NOT dependent on commercial fertilizers for viability. Our experience around the world for over 40 years, however, is that everywhere we have been - including several countries in Africa, Armenia, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, Russia, and 23 others - fertilizers have always been available.

The careful use of natural mineral fertilizers increases a family's gardening yield many times - sometimes as much as 10 times what they were growing without them. This is what has allowed America to change from one person feeding 4 or 5, to one person feeding 100 other people. So why would we NOT use them?? And why would we not want to teach people in the developing countries to use them - unless perhaps we WANT them to stay in the 19th century?

We recommend people obtain enough natural mineral fertilizers and seed (a #10 can of 15 varieties of heirloom seeds is available at www.growfood.com) for at least one extra year's garden. Mineral Fertilizers keep almost indefinitely, and they cost very little, compared to the yield they produce. Small storable packages of micro-nutrients are also available at www.growfood.com.

Here’s how you can grow a productive and healthy garden using manure tea. Get a large burlap bag and a 55-gallon barrel. Find cow or horse manure (chicken or turkey is twice as hot, so less will be needed), and fill the bag 2/3's full. Place the bag in the barrel and fill it with water. Let the manure "tea" soak or "steep" for 24 hours, then use the tea to water your vegetable plants.

Replace the bag of manure in the barrel and let steep for 48 hours. Use the tea, then dump the spent manure out and dig into an unused portion of the garden - it has almost no nutrient value, but can improve soil tilth.

Remember to plant your plants a little further apart when using this method, because they will be competing for less available nutrition. In addition, every watering should be with the manure tea for your plants to be healthy and thrive. You should expect to grow a smaller garden, and spend some time finding manure.

If manure just isn't available, consider saving kitchen scraps and human waste. Many countries do it all the time, so it's not the end of the world. And all clean, healthy plant residue should be saved and properly composted for re-use in the garden - again preferably as manure tea.

The Food For Everyone foundation teaches the Mittleider method of organic gardening. Know as the poor mans hydroponics you can increase your yields five to ten times. Tomatoes, vegetables, herbs, berries you name it these nutrients will produce the best results.

I’m asked occasionally if the Mittleider gardening method is sustainable in the long run, “since it seems to be based on the availability of modern day fertilizers.” Since some folks feel that today’s fertilizers may not always be available in the future, how viable is this system for ongoing sustainability in the long run?

First, the Mittleider method is NOT dependent on commercial fertilizers for viability. Our experience around the world for over 40 years, however, is that everywhere we have been - including several countries in Africa, Armenia, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, Russia, and 23 others - fertilizers have always been available.

The careful use of natural mineral fertilizers increases a family's gardening yield many times - sometimes as much as 10 times what they were growing without them. This is what has allowed America to change from one person feeding 4 or 5, to one person feeding 100 other people. So why would we NOT use them?? And why would we not want to teach people in the developing countries to use them - unless perhaps we WANT them to stay in the 19th century?

We recommend people obtain enough natural mineral fertilizers and seed (a #10 can of 15 varieties of heirloom seeds is available at www.growfood.com) for at least one extra year's garden. Mineral Fertilizers keep almost indefinitely, and they cost very little, compared to the yield they produce. Small storable packages of micro-nutrients are also available at www.growfood.com.

Here’s how you can grow a productive and healthy garden using manure tea. Get a large burlap bag and a 55-gallon barrel. Find cow or horse manure (chicken or turkey is twice as hot, so less will be needed), and fill the bag 2/3's full. Place the bag in the barrel and fill it with water. Let the manure "tea" soak or "steep" for 24 hours, then use the tea to water your vegetable plants.

Replace the bag of manure in the barrel and let steep for 48 hours. Use the tea, then dump the spent manure out and dig into an unused portion of the garden - it has almost no nutrient value, but can improve soil tilth.

Remember to plant your plants a little further apart when using this method, because they will be competing for less available nutrition. In addition, every watering should be with the manure tea for your plants to be healthy and thrive. You should expect to grow a smaller garden, and spend some time finding manure.

If manure just isn't available, consider saving kitchen scraps and human waste. Many countries do it all the time, so it's not the end of the world. And all clean, healthy plant residue should be saved and properly composted for re-use in the garden - again preferably as manure tea.

The Food For Everyone foundation teaches the Mittleider method of organic gardening. Know as the poor mans hydroponics you can increase your yields five to ten times. Tomatoes, vegetables, herbs, berries you name it these nutrients will produce the best results.

About The Author
Jim Kennard is the president of the Food for everyone foundation and a principal author for the organic gardening website How to Organic Garden.

Malabar spinach experiment

Bought more malabar spinach from the wet market this morning, cut off the big leaves for soup tonight, planted the cuttings along the fence. Posting it for the record here so that I can see how long it will be before I get my first harvest. Then found a little leftover cutting. Decided to do a little experiment. I put it in a glass of water to see if left like this, the cutting will grow roots. If so, I will replant it in the garden later. Just for fun.

UPDATE: Tuesday 8th November 2005

The cutting has sprouted 2 strands of white roots. Only 1 week. Very fast.

New logo for blog

Noticed the difference? The appearance of the blog has now greatly improved because the text title has now been replaced by a colorful logo. This logo is by courtesy of Franco of freelogo.blogspot.com. The original logo he did was in black and white, but he has kindly added color. Not only that, he helped me put the logo into the heading. Very satisfied.

UPDATE: 5 February 2007: I have migrated to the New Blogger, and the graphic title is no more.

Keeping pests at bay the organic way.

Sometime back, I had tried my hands at growing my own vegetables, but most of them except Malabar spinach (or Ceylon spinach) were attacked by pests. I was reluctant to use chemicals so I feeble attempt at home-grown vegetables was mainly aborted. Perhaps there is a solution.

According to CETDEM, pest infestation is not a problem but a symptom of imbalance. When symptoms appear, one should find out what causes it and remove the disturbing factors (Preventive measures). One can also carry out physical, biological and botanical controls (Control measures).

What are the disturbing factors? They include an imbalanced Agro-Ecosystem (caused by monoculture) and an imbalanced Soil Ecosystem (caused by a lack of organic matter, continuous cropping, use of agricultural chemicals which kill micro-organism). The solution will be, of course , to create a balanced agro-ecosystem and a balanced soild ecosystem

Balanced Agro-Ecosystem

The most important role is diversity and the methods include

• diverse cropping to increase the diversity of the population of predactors
• inter-cropping, including scattered planting of insect repellent and medicinal plants like basil, marigolds, ginseng, mint, serai citronella.
• planting perennial trees to attract insect-eating birds
• non-use of agrochemicals

Balanced Soil Ecosystem

• Methods to create and maintain a balanced soil ecosystem include
• crop rotation
• regular supply of organic matter like mulch, green manure, compost
• avoid mixing raw organic matter with the soil
• non-use of agrochemicals

Physical Controls

• Hand-picking done by catching the insects and other predactors like snails and removing them
• Light trap done by putting a light above a container of water so that the insects are attracted to the light and fall into the water
• Net cover. Covering the crops with a net to protect them from insect attack.

Biological Control

• Attracting birds (by planting trees) that eat the insects

Natural Pesticides

• ash
• tobacco dust or leaves
• neem leaves and seeds
• chilli
• pounded garlic

To control aphids, one can make a spray by soaking 250 gm of tobacco, 30 gm of soap flakes in 4 litres of water over 2 nights, sieve, then dilute with 1 part filtrate with 4 parts water.

Using pesticides, however, is not recommended by CETDEM.

Source: Organic Farming Publications
(CETDEM Organic Farming Project).

Note: Organic Farming courses and training are conducted by CETDEM. For more information, go to Courses and Training

Nutrient content of Malabar spinach

Since I am planting Malabar spinach, I might as well post some information about the nutrient content found in Malabar spinach for my own as well as readers benefit. The information was taken from http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/filelibrary/742/4902.pdf which gives the nutrients per 28 gm and per 90 gm for the fresh and boiled Malabar spinach. I have edited the content to per 100 gm for both for comparison purpose.

Table: Nutrient Content of Malabar spinach

Nutrient	unit	per 100 gm (fresh)	per 100 gm (boiled)
Calories	kCal	21	21
Protein	gm	1.8	1.7
Carbohydrate	gm	4.3	4.3
Fat	gm		1.2
Calcium	mg	168	56
Potassium	mg	143	228
Sodium	mg	46	16
Vitamin C	mg	36
Thiamine B1	mg	0.07	0.06
Riboflavin	mg	0.07	0.012
Niacin	mg	0.07	0.12

Malabar spinach is a good source of vitamins A and C, calcium, and iron. (Evaluation of Tropical Leaf Vegetables in the Virgin Islands)

Mulching

What is mulch?

Web definitions for mulch Any loose material placed over the soil to control weeds and conserve soil moisture. Usually this is a coarse organic matter, such as leaves, clippings or bark, but plastic sheeting and other commercial products can also be used.

The advantages of mulching is the avoidance of water loss through evaporation, increase microorganism in the soil, increase water retention, prevention of soil erosion during rainfall, prevention of nutrient loss, prevention of the soil becoming baked hard and cracked.

The disadvantages of mulching is in excess, it may prevent adequate air flow, encourages pests and fungal diseases, shelter slugs and snails.

Instead of dead materials used as mulch, a living leguminous crop such as velvet bean (mucuna), green gram (mung bean), dhaincha (sesbania aculata), groundnut and soya bean may be grown as a cover crop. The advantages is that there will be no need to collect materials, it is more effective and long lasting, it also provides nitrogen fixation to the main crop and it is a way of using solar energy to produce biomass, a source of soil fertility.

Precaution to take when using dustbin as compost bin

I just noticed one troubling thing - the lip (Note: LIP, not lid) of the upturned dustbin being used as a compost bin collects stagnant water. This mean trouble, that is, aedes mosquito breeding. One will have to drill holes at the lip to prevent water collecting. Will have to do that this afternoon if it doesn't rain. To make clear what I am refering to, look the PHOTOS. The lip which used to be facing downward is now at the bottom facing upward.

(Update: done. Drilled many holes. No water collecting now.)

Malabar spinach can be grown from cuttings!

Posting photo of the new leaves sprouting from the freshly planted cutting. Somehow, it is really pleasurable to watch your efforts grow. And it is only 10 days ago when I planted the cutting and it is already grown so vigorously! Looked like I'll have to transplant the cuttings soon. If nothing else, there is one thing I learned, Malabar spinach can be grown from cuttings!

Here are the photos I promised

Here are the photos I promosed:

Compost bin converted from a dustbin. The lid has been replaced by a heavy flower vase because our Beagle is too inquisitive and is able to topple the bin if it is only covered by a light plastic lid. Note the numerous holes drilled into the side for ventilation.

COMPOST BIN


MALABAR SPINACH CUTTING


BACKYARD GARDEN