GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Tag: raised beds

  • Talking about Gardening & Food, not ourselves…. GF Radio 341

    Talking about Gardening & Food, not ourselves…. GF Radio 341

    An unkind iTunes review starts our show, and Eric asks that you go to the GF Radio page on iTunes and write an honest review. And attest to the fact that we do talk about gardening and food, and sometimes ourselves as well. Lots of gardening and how to and DIY on this show, btw.

    Our newest GardenFork Video about Artisan Bread baking is bread recipe about Artisan Bread with Caramelized Onions. Rick asks how we make caramelized onions, and points out how Eric Wides said that there is a fine line between caramelized and burnt. Eric tends toward burnt onions, but is getting better, letting the onions steam for a bit, then cooking them down to brown.

    Pressure cooker to the rescue, as Eric learns one of his guests is gluten free, and uses the pressure cooker to crank out some white beans and onions to serve with the short ribs. And we talk about the virtues of  saving yogurt containers, which work great for interim gutter downspout pipe! So its ok to save yogurt containers! Tell your significant other how important it is to save them…

    talking-about-gardening-foodEric likes the Jacques Pepin Fast Food My Way tv shows that are now on YouTube. Jacques makes it all simple, and we like that.

    Rick tells us about his grafting of tomato plants.

    Viewer Mail:

    From Jackie:

    Eric, try this; add a hand full of whole grain oats to homemade cornbread mixture, bake it, taste it. I swear you’ll, afterward, suggest it to fans who hate oats but know they should add oats to their diet to lower their LDL cholesterol.

    From Rod

    How would I can my own homemade dog food? I have a friend that is into making his own dog food and I would like to do the same but also can the food so it will last a long time and I can make a larger batch for my dog.
    Cheers,
    Rod

    • I’ve had to do many a patch from leaks on ceilings that were popcorn textured in apartments I had to turn to get ready for new tenants. Two tips that help the repair that I have seen are 1. Use the dry mix and add just enough water to make a ‘lumpy oatmeal’ thickness. Take a clean dry paint brush and dab on the texture using the brush. It is a little messy but the results are far better than the can and easy enough to do. 2. When trying to match a ceiling that has been “aged” as it were by use, try taking some paint that will closer match the color of the ceiling and add that to the dry mix. It is a closer match than the pure white you would see otherwise.

  • Beekeeping 101, a look back on the first year GF Radio

    Beekeeping 101, a look back on the first year GF Radio

    GF Contributor Matt joins Eric to talk about his first year of beekeeping. Matt reflects on what real world beginning beekeeping is like after watching the Beekeeping 101 – How to keep bees videos on Gardenfork. Losing a hive, getting stung, how to find the queen in a hive, how not to kill the queen are all touched on.

    Matt wrote a series of articles on beginning beekeeping for our site, as he chronicled his first year of beginning beekeeping.

    Matt tells us about how to work a hive and yes, you should wear gloves and beehives are heavy. We agree with Rick’s use of metal handles, as beehives get heavy. bees

    Beehives die, and why do they die? As Rick says, bees are bugs in a box, and bees don’t read books. Eric offers a few reasons why the beehive died: a stressed queen, the queen was crushed when working the bees or putting the hive back together.

    Eric gives reasons for not buying bee packages, and especially not having bee packages sent in the mail. Buying local nucs is much better. Matt’s experience with beginning beekeeping bears this out. His package of bees died, his nuc is going strong.

    Matt talked about a program in Virginia that funds beekeepers,

    Matt also talked about homemade  or DIY honey extractors, like this one on Mudsongs.org .

    We also talk about raised beds, and how to build raised beds using bricks or plastic lumber and the pros and cons of using different materials for building raised beds.

     

    photo by micky07

  • Growing Hot Peppers with Sir Jimmy GF Radio

    Growing Hot Peppers with Sir Jimmy GF Radio

    growing-hot-peppersToday we talk with longtime GF viewer James on how to grow hot peppers, how to dry hot peppers, and bringing your own condiments into a restaurant, and what can happen when you do that.
    James tells us of how he migrated from a regular in ground vegetable garden to using raised beds, and we talk about our how to build raised garden beds videos. James may make a video himself soon, we look forward to it.

    We also touch on freezing vegetables, especially summer squash, which James has a good technique for.

    James is co-host of The Book Guys Podcast, avail on their site and iTunes. We talk about how to start a podcast and what gear we use to record our podcasts, and what we get from podcasting. James has been using Go To Meeting to record his show, we use Skype with a plug in called Call Recorder that records the conversation and saves it as a quicktime file that can be edited.

    Then we get into Mushroom Identification, and the recent GF Video on Oyster Mushroom identification and how to cook mushrooms. James, like myself, is a recent convert to mushrooms, interesting how as one slowly becomes an adult you start to like adult foods.

     

    photo by mugur

     

  • How to build a raised bed for vegetables or flowers GF TV Video

    How to build a raised bed for vegetables or flowers GF TV Video

    Build a simple raised bed with this DIY video. With this raised bed plan we show you how to make raised vegetable or flower beds without using pressure treated lumber  The current raised beds in the garden have been there about 8 years now. So we must have done something right. how unusual… If you want to build raised beds, the ones we have are good for vegetables and flowers, check it out, let us know your thoughts.

    Our raised beds are 4 feet wide and 12 feet long, make sure the raised beds are 4 feet ( 48″ ) wide on the outside dimension. This will make it easy to use floating row fabrics or plastic sheeting that comes in 48″ wide rolls. I learned this the hard way.

    DIY raised bed plan complete

    You may want to consider putting 1/2″ galvanized wire screening across the bottom of the raised bed frame before siting it and loading in all the dirt, this will keep out moles and voles. We haven’t had a huge problem with that, but I see how it could for some people.

    For our garden soil, we had a delivery from a local nursery that sells a garden soil mix. It can be hard to find a company nearby that sells what you want, you may end up mixing it all up yourself. Let me know how you have built your raised beds below: