Grow It Organically Blog

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Vegetable Garden Planting, Planting a Vegetable Garden, Garden Spacing

Vegetable garden planting is all about getting garden spacing and timing right between vegetables. Interplanting, succession planting, trap cropping, companion planting, and vegetable crop rotation ar

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Broccoli Varieties, Types of Broccoli, Varieties of Broccoli

Broccoli varieties vary mainly in the shape and size of the head, time to maturation, side shoot production, and disease resistance. Home gardeners should look for blends of multiple varieties to exte

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Growing Broccoli, How to Grow Broccoli, Planting Broccoli

Growing broccoli is easy, if you plant it at the right time, and make sure it has steady, regular water. There are some soil tweaks and pests to watch out for, but timing and water are the key issues.

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Pepper Varieties, Bell Pepper Varieties

Pepper varieties range from the familiar sweet bell pepper, in a rainbow of colors, to paprika peppers and Italian pepperoncini. Not to mention hot peppers—they get a page of their own.

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Organic Calcium Sources, Organic Calcium for Gardens

Organic calcium sources like dolomite lime and ground oyster shell are cheap and readily available, but your kitchen generates free organic calcium you probably didn’t know about—eggshells. Dried, gr

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Organic Phosphorus Fertilizers, Organic Phosphorus Sources, Colloidal Phosphate

Organic phosphorus fertilizers include bone meal, fish bone meal, rock phosphate, and colloidal phosphate, a.k.a., soft phosphate. Bone phosphate is more readily available to plants, but mineral phos

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Organic Nitrogen Fertilizer, Organic Nitrogen Sources

A good organic nitrogen fertilizer should be added to the soil every growing season. A high nitrogen organic fertilizer like bat guano or blood meal fuels early growth of leaves, the powerhouses of pl

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Artichoke Varieties, Types of Artichokes, Varieties of Artichokes

Many artichoke varieties are bred to produce artichokes the first season, and most will overwinter in zones 6 and up, provided they’re mulched heavily with straw or dead leaves. Gardeners in cooler z

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Growing Artichokes, How to Grow Artichokes, Planting Artichokes

Growing artichokes may seem exotic, but they’re easy to grow even as annuals. Many artichoke varieties are frost hardy in zone 7 and above, but some varieties are bred for heavy yields in a single se

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Growing Cucumbers, How to Grow Cucumbers, Planting Cucumbers

Growing cucumbers is easy, if you follow a few simple rules. Don’t plant until the weather warms up, plant them in a loose, rich soil, with enough space around them, give them plenty of water, and onc

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Cucumber Varieties, Types of Cucumbers, Varieties of Cucumbers

Cucumber varieties come in slicing, pickling, and “burpless” types. Heirloom cucumber varieties like lemon cucumbers are old favorites, but many modern hybrids may a better choice for disease resista

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Organic Garden Consulting in the San Francisco Bay Area

Need help with your organic garden in the San Francisco Bay Area? If you live on the Peninsula, I can come out for a site visit and consultation, to recommend soil amendments and plant varieties that

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Growing Tomatoes, How to Grow Tomatoes, Planting Tomatoes

Growing tomatoes is probably the number 1 reason people start a garden. The first time you slice into a sun-warmed, vine-ripened tomato, you’ll be hooked.

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Tomato Varieties, Types of Tomatoes, Heirloom Tomato Varieties

Tomato varieties come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. The types of tomatoes range from grape and cherry tomatoes you can pop in your mouth, to sweet-tart salad slicers, to huge sweet juicy beefstea

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Spinach Varieties, Types of Spinach, Varieties of Spinach

Spinach varieties come in savoy, semi-savoy, and flat-leafed types. Most varieties of spinach perform better in the cooler months of spring and fall, but early and late cultivars let you extend the s

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