The Cheap Vegetable Gardener

Attracting birds in your garden/yard

16.3 years ago birds 2 Comments

There are many benefits of having birds in your garden.  The most obvious being the songs they sing in the morning and throughout the day. Now if you are not a morning person this may be a negative, but there are definitely more obtrusive ways to be woken up.

Birds can directly help your garden by eating weed seeds they find throughout your lawn and garden. Like singing, this can be a blessing and a frustration due to the fact they have not learned the difference between those peas you carefully planted and the weed seeds that you really want them to be consuming. Given that I take care of my weeds organically I can definitely appreciate the help of the birds.

Birds also like to snack on insects, like seeds the birds are not indifferent to the pests and the beneficial insects, so they may gobble up some of your spiders, ants, beetles, and worms (ok not an insect) but they are also are nice enough to eat aphids, grubs, Japanese beetles. Some birds such as swallows can eat 100s of bugs in a morning snack.

If you have decided that you want to attract more birds to your garden, what are your options? Like most creatures they have three simple necessities: food, water, and shelter.

Food: Feeding your birds is pretty easy, above I mentioned some of the benefits of the insects and weed seeds that your birds can feast from. There is the obvious bird feeder and given the seeds/food you choose can help determine the species birds you will have visiting. For example most songbirds prefer black oil sunflower seeds, while white millet is preferred by most ground feeding birds. Now of course the more food your birds are eating from your feeders the less pests and weed seeds they are eating from your lawn and garden, but the feeder should attract more birds to your lawn/garden so best to keep those feeders full.

Water: Birds need water to drink but also bathe in, now you can invest in something aesthetically pleasing like this one (click below):

If you are on a budget you can always make your own, basic requirements is needs to be less than 3 inches deep and have a comfortable surface for the birds to perch on. Some ideas are metal garbage can lid, circular planter, or even larger pot drip pan. Simply place on the ground of on top of some shrubbery, rough up the bottom of the surface with some steel wool and water. You will want to clean your bird bath about once a week with a diluted bleach solution (3/4 cup bleach to 1 gal water) since unfortunately the birds may use their bath occasionally as a bathroom.

Shelter: Shelters give animals a place to nest and/or hide from predators. Now there are two types of shelters natural and man-made. If you have some well established trees and/or shrubbery you probably have some birds already living with (whether you know it or not) Like many people I live in a relatively new development (< 5 years old) so most of the trees in my neighborhood are still developing so I opted to supplement with an man-made solution, the classic birdhouse. I couldn’t find the instructions I actually used but here are some free instructions to create a similar birdhouse from a single cedar fence picket. Not sure if you can tell from the picture but everything did not line up exactly as it should but it should keep some birds dry and safe and the girls had a great time “decorating” it.
 
Whether you just want to attract more birds to hear singing in your backyard or you want to put them to work getting rid of pests and weeds in your lawn and garden doing the steps above should give you plenty of both.

Catching garden pests in the darkness with OutbackCam night camera

13.4 years ago infrared, night cam, pests, product review 3 Comments

In the past I have had a few critters scale or crawl under my fence to snack on my tomatoes.  Without knowing what is going after my crops it is difficult to figure out how to attempt to prevent these attacks.  When Swann approached me to review their OutbackCam I decided this would be the perfect tool to answer this question.

The OutbackCam is a small device that holds a digital camera which with the help of motion sensor and an array of infrared LED lights can take quality pictures/videos of anything that moves within its range during the day or night.

Installation of the devices is very simple, you use the provided strap to attach the device to a fence post, tree, etc. and pull snuggly to keep it in place.  This is fine for catching animals in the act, but if humans are your target you may want to provide your own cable and lock or protected enclosure to prevent someone with a pocket knife walking away with your camera and evidence it may have captured.

The camera provided numerous settings to allow you to choose between taking photos and videos and also the amount of time you want to delay between photos to prevent using up the whole card while lets say you are mowing the lawn.  This configuration I would not call intuitive (meaning I actually had to look at the instructions) but I would consider no more difficult than setting a new digital watch.  Once you understand the settings and the flow it is very easy.

Though it is a few months before I will be able to catch any animals going after my tomatoes I did turn it on and captured some less threatening creatures to confirm the image quality and the number of false positives.

Overall the device was very accurate there were very few false triggers and after I was unable to catch any critters in my garden I decided to simulate a zebra attacking a seedling in my kitchen which was pitch black when the picture was taken. 

One things I did notice when taking the picture above the camera does make a mechanical noise when it takes the picture.  Which could scare away the trespasser (which in my case could be a good thing) but if you are looking to catch many pictures of Bigfoot in your back woods this may not be the camera for you.

The camera uses an SD memory card (same used for many digital cameras) which you can plug into the media slot of your computer to view as needed.

Overall I think this is a great gadget for capturing wildlife (wanted or unwanted) and is easy to setup is pretty effective at capturing photos based on movement in its range.  It is rugged we have had some pretty intense weather here over the past few months (hard rain, hail, snow) and the enclosure has stayed completely dry.  As for using for “human pests” I would recommend using this due to the internal storage of photos and the ease it is for the “pests” to walk off with your photos and your camera.  Though if you are able to install this in a location that is not easily reachable or visible it could work as a standard security camera.

Disclosure: I was given a free sample to review this product but not compensated or affiliated with Swann Communications Inc for this review.

Planning garden using GrowVeg (Year #2)

14.6 years ago garden planning, spring, sprouting Leave a comment

Though GrowVeg worked great for planning my garden last year, this year it became even more useful.  By creating a garden plan using my template from my previous year not only did it save time but also showed where I should not plant certain vegetables because I planted the same family of plants in that area last year.  Here is my plan for my larger plot:

I am growing much of the same as I have in past years with the addition of broccoli and Swiss chard.

For my longer fence plot here is what I am going with the following:

New in this area I am going to plan on growing some dry beans for storage as well as some green beans along with our regular cucumbers, tomatoes, and sunflowers.

I also have an area I am planning on growing herbs, though for that I am just going to wing it.

In the end it took me about 3-4 minutes to create this plan thanks to GrowVeg which I can print out and keep by the garden so I don’t have to wonder, “Now where did I plant that spinach again.”

They do have a free 30 day trial if you want to try it out this year.

Mantis 4-cycle tiller/cultivator review – Day 1

9.5 years ago Uncategorized 1 Comment

A week before I was about to move to my new house with a much larger yard I got an email from the nice people at Mantis asking if I would like to review their 4 cycle tiller/cultivator.  Given I needed to start from scratch of a new garden and had a decent amount of land to use it on it sounded like a great idea.

The tiller came in the box requiring some basic installation requiring some basic tools.  This was pretty easy though guessing it was from some of the long days moving/unpacking but I had some trouble handles put on the right way.  Brain kept forgetting I had the thing upside down :)  Though after probably about 30 minutes I had the tiller assembled ready for its first mission…expanding the garden.

I previously pulled this ivy-like ground cover away with a rake and some gentle massaging by yanking on it pretty hard and was hoping to have the tiller do some of this heavy work for me.  The tiller had some serious power though the ivy just wanted to hang onto the tines and eventually had to remove them to get the mess I created cleared.

Though it had the power to clear this ground cover out this is probably not exactly its designed use so results probably should have been expected.

After clearing some ivy I decided to try digging into the ground a bit by pulling the throttle and walking backwards with it.  This caused the tiller to dig deep into the ground where I remembered that my new yard has rocks 3-4 inches down which one ended up getting stuck in the tines where I again had to remove them.  In the future I should reverse the tines to use as a cultivator unless I have cleared the rocks deeper ahead of time.

  

Though I was not too successful with my first use I admittedly was pushing the intended use of this tiller but I was very impressed with the ease of starting (after reading directions) and the power this tiller/cultivator has while still being light enough to pack around with minimal effort.

What is also pretty cool about this tiller is there are optional attachments such as aerator and dethatcher which gives some options to extend it’s functionality without having to take up much extra space in your shed.

My next mission for this tiller is to clear an area of grass under my youngest daughters playset before laying down some wood chips which I expect will go much smoother than this mission…

Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers for seed starting/hydroponics

15.7 years ago indoor seed starting 1 Comment

Many times I see some packaging and eventually get an idea how I can reuse it with some minor modifications for starting seeds or some other purpose in the garden. I had one of these moment as soon as I opened my Healthy Choice General Tso’s Spicy Chicken Café Steamer   In case anyone is wondering what the purpose of this new packaging is, I could try to explain it but I will allow their marketing department do it for me:

“Our innovative product line utilizes a new and unique microwave Steam Cookerâ„¢–so you can lock in all the naturally fresh flavors of restaurant-inspired meals by steaming them yourself. With new Healthy Choice Café Steamers, vegetables stay bright and crisp, meat and seafood are juicy and tender, rice is moist and fluffy, and pasta is firm.”

After being delighted in the science of their frozen food steaming technology, I discovered I could easily repurpose the packaging completely as-is.

My first initial thought was to use this for starting seeds since it is the perfect size and depth for seeds starts before requiring their first transplant. As an added bonus they already have great drainage holes and even a reservoir in case of excess watering or allowing for wicking if I am going to be away from my seedlings a couple days.

My second thought was hydroponics, which is the process of growing vegetables without using soil. The basic idea is the plant gets all it needs from the nutrient solution which is applied always keeping the roots wet in the preferred growing medium. By adding a growing medium such as coconut fiber or Rockwool, adding some nutrient solution and an air bubbler to the bottom portion of this tray you have a cheap hydroponic system.  It is even big enough to support at least three small plants.

With either option the removal tray is also easily removable incase of overwatering or to change nutrient solution with very little disturbance to the plant(s).

One other benefit use is actually consuming the contents (preferable before used for gardening) which I did try and though the packaging has some interesting uses after you eat it, the meal tastes just about as bad as any other TV dinner I have eaten.

How to braid garlic (for guys)

14.1 years ago garlic bulbs, Uncategorized 5 Comments

I normally hang my garlic off my bike to allow it to cure and store to use over the winter, but given the large amount of garlic I have grown and I have gotten into better shape and am actually using my bike, I decided to attempt to create a pretty garlic braid.  After spending a 10-15 minutes checking on the internet on the various knots and techniques to braid garlic.

Lacking some basic knowledge and first hand experience braiding, I eventually got confused, gave up, and  just winged it and discovered a technique I call “Braiding Garlic For Guys” knowing if I handed the bulbs to my two daughters they would have made a perfect braid with them in just a few minutes.  And yes, my wife does not trust me to do our daughters hair…

Step 1: Dry your bulbs

Lay them out into the sun to dry for one hot day.  You will be letting the garlic dry longer though this is primarily to get the dirt dry on the bulbs to make Step 3 (Clean up your bulbs) a little easier.

Step 2: Select the right bulbs

If you are lucky enough to only grow large perfectly formed bulbs with no imperfections you can skip this step, but if you are like me you should have at least a few bulbs with small cloves or some that are split open.  Set these bulbs aside and use right away in your cooking or do like I did and use them to make some garlic powder.

Step 3: Clean up your bulbs (optional)

Though creating a garlic braid is a good compact way to store your garlic it also looks pretty cool when done right.  To make sure it looks its best give each of the bulbs a little haircut by trimming their roots to about 1/4 inch using scissors or shears  Follow this with a quick cleaning by a little brushing of your hand and/or a quick brush with an unused toothbrush.  Given I am just hanging my garlic in my garage I was a little lazy on the clean up.

Step 4: Start your garlic braid

Begin by taking your 3 largest bulbs and laying them side by side in front of you.  Take the stems of the bulbs on the left and right and cross them over the one in the center.

Now take whatever stem (right or left) that is on the bottom and bend it over the stem in the center (which now becomes the new center)

Here is an illustration but easier if you don’t think about it too much:

Step 5: Repeat yourself

Give the right and left side a little tug to make everything is tight and lay a new bulb on the middle of your garlic braid (center) then bend over the stem from the other side over the center (which now becomes the new center) and repeat this step until run out of garlic bulbs.

Step 6: Finish things off

Repeat what you have been doing in Step 5 three or four times obviously skipping the add a garlic bulb to help secure the last few bulbs in place.  Finish by tightly tying a piece of twine or string at the top of the braid to keep things from unraveling and giving you something to hang your beautiful braid in a dry location to have garlic which will keep for about 6 months.

Tip: When you need some garlic just cut or pull off bulbs as you need them.  I personally save the largest bulbs to replant in the fall to harvest the following year.