How to Grow Baby Bok Choys

Baby bok choys belong to the cabbage family. They are the non-heading cousins of the regular green cabbage. They are easy to grow. They mature quickly, 30-45 days The key to succeed in growing baby bok choys is to pick the right variety for the right season. The secret is most baby bok choys, or cabbage family for that matter, are cool crops that only do well in the fall. There are special classes of baby bok choys or cabbage that can be planted in spring and summer successfully. These are the breeds either through hybridizing or special selection that acquired the traits that allow them to withstand the spring conditions. So if you are planting them in the spring or summer look for the varieties that are bolt resistant or specifically bred for spring.

Building a Small Homestead

Green lawn or green living? It doesn't have to be one or the other, building a small homestead in your backyard will allow you to save money, eat fresh and nutritious food and reduce your carbon foot step. To fit all the pieces together can take sometime, but next time when you plan your landscaping, consider implementing some of these ideas. Planting fruit trees instead of the regular landscaping trees, they can be beautiful as well as functional. An herb and vegetable garden will allow you to enjoy fine dinning right at your dinner table. Raising chickens or ducks if circumstances allow, is a great way to form a mini eco-cycle, not only you can get the fresh eggs, the animals will eat any leftover food you may have and they are great at keeping the insect pressure low on in the garden. Following a few simple steps, you can too enjoy the green living and reap all the benefits from it.

How to Grow Cucumbers

Fresh cucumbers from the garden is not the same as the super market kind. To grow cucumbers successfully, you need to learn a few tricks. Cucumbers are very sensitive to the soil temperature so do not sow cucumbers until the ground is warmed up significantly. Soil temperature should be at least 55F before you sow cucumbers. Tips for starting the seeds indoors and then transplanting to the garden:  The ideal germinating temperature for cucumber is 75 to 80F. Time the starts so they are ready to be transplanted when they have two sets of leaves plus the tip growth. How long you can achieve this depends on the growing condition, but usually you can do this in 4 weeks. The seedlings will need to be "hardened off" before being transplanted to the garden. Hardening off is a process of exposing the seedlings to the environment where they are going to be growing so they won't experience the transplanting shock. Cucumbers are notorious difficult to transplant, the reason being their root system do not recover well. So if you could sow them directly in the garden.