Home Kitchen and Garden Design

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel  The Rusted Garden Over 800 Garden Videos Designed to Quickly Present Information! Please Support The Rusted Garden by Shopping through my Amazon Affiliate Link Basic Principles to Making Container Soil Cheaply & Fertilizing It I am always cautious about offering recipes for the garden because I don't want people to think they are absolutes. There are 1000 ways to do most things in a garden and this holds true for containers soil mixes. I am introducing my general method that does vary based on what I have available and my general mood. So... please use this video and article for the principles. It is also the least expensive way to build container soil when you have to buy products. We all just don't have endless supplies of compost or a yard for that matter. The key to container soil is moisture retention. I recommend making your container soil with at least 50% organic matter. Organic matter will retain water. You can use compost which wil...

 The Rusted Garden Just Hit 15,000 Subscribers  and 2,000,000 Video Views Gardening is a passion that I paired with Google about 5 years ago. I started with The Rusted Vegetable Garden blog and eventually tried YouTube. Maybe you have seen my first nostalgic yet somewhat embarrassing first video Tending Zucchini and Squash and Finding Squash Bug Eggs . That video was from July 6th 2011. I started getting comments and meeting fellow gardeners via the digital world. I was hooked. I decided my original channel would be short and to the point and this year created a new second channel. My new channel for brand new gardeners would have videos that are a little bit longer and more detailed. I do have a goal to help families teach children were food comes from.... and that is the earth and not a grocery store. I believe vegetables want to grow and gardening shouldn't be seen as difficult. My main channel YouTube channel   The Rusted Garden  now has, and I am very thankful f...

How to Fertilize & Prepare Your Asparagus Beds in the Spring: Feed Them! Asparagus is a great tasting perennial vegetable. That means in many garden zones, even with freezing winters, it will come back year after year. It takes about 3 years to establish an asparagus bed but once it takes hold, it will bring you asparagus spears for the next 20 years or more. Asparagus is best planted in a loose sandier soil for drainage reasons. I can tell you it will do fine in a heavier clay soil as that is what I planted it in. The key is to make sure your bed drains well so the root systems of your asparagus don't sit in water. There are many ways to care for asparagus. Most methods agree on a pre-spring feeding of a balance fertilizer where NPK or nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium are all equally present. That could be a 10-10-10 or 15-15-15 fertilizer. This is easier to find as a synthetic mix so if you want to go 100% organic, just get as close as that as you can to an equal balance. ...

Spring Slug and Snail Management: Iron Phosphate Bait Now! When is the best time to treat your garden for slugs and snails?  The answer...  when there is nothing for them to really eat but the iron phosphate bait pellets. In Maryland Zone 7 that time is about mid March. As the days warm up the pests will start coming out of hibernation and they will be looking to eat. Protect Your Greens Before They Get in The Garden I once had a terrible problem with slugs and snails. I tried many methods and final found iron phosphate. It is extremely effective and on the very low end of toxic. It won't harm your garden soil, birds, frogs and other garden life.  A good way to deal with pests and problems is on their natural cycles. They will be coming out to eat with the approaching spring. Leave them a snack of iron phosphate! Another snail and slug control poison is metaldehyde slug bait. It is an indiscriminate killer of wild life and very toxic. I highly recommend against its u...

40 or 50 Tomato Varieties I am Growing This Year:  My Tomato Addiction and Methods So I will admit I am addicted to gardening and will seed start more tomatoes than I need. Well I need them, I just don't have room for them. Or maybe I do. I think. It is denial as I always rationalize my way out of reality and into this ignorant fantasy garden bliss. I do have an annual tomato and vegetable plant yard sale, so a lot go to the sale. But even in keeping 1 plant per variety.... well you can can count the numbers that I will have in my raised beds, containers and land I am trying to annex from a neighbor. I start 95% of my tomato seeds indoors. I always end up buying a couple of plants. It is an impulse buy, however, they are varieties I do not  have... denial. Here is how I seed start my tomatoes and an introduction to seed starting supplies. I did purposely buy over 15 varieties of small and cherry type tomatoes this year as I felt they would make a good focus for several videos....

Designing Your Vegetable Garden with a Space for Perennials:  Bring in Pollinators, Birds and Good Insects! A vegetable garden is my place of serenity.  I enjoy working the land, planting, tending and watching my efforts grow into something I can eat and share. It is were I feel at home and find purpose. I am lucky enough to have found a way to mix it both into my life and around a full time job. For that I a grateful. I have done a lot of videos hoping to help other gardeners find the rewards that I do in the garden. Another side to vegetable gardening is battling pests, disease and hoping your crops produce fruit and vegetables. One huge ally to pests and production are perennial flowers. They not only are beautiful, they attract a host of good insects, butterflies and even birds. I chose perennials because they will come back year after year. They are beautiful and save you money. You want to have bees and pollinating insects hovering all through your vegetable garden. A gr...

Growing Cool Weather Vegetables in a Spring Greenhouse & A Heating Source  I purchased a new greenhouse for the spring. My previous model was poorly built and it was wrecked by some wind back in January. The new greenhouse is a Stafford model and it measures 6 x 7 x 8.5 feet. It has a lot of improvements over my last model. I highly recommend this type of collapsible greenhouse. I review it in the video. Some of the improvements: 1. The frame is 1 piece and you just raise or lower it into place. 2. The seams are better stitched. 3. The seams and corners are reinforced with a tent fabric. 4. The zipper is stitched better and works more smoothly. 5. The plastic shell Velcros to each pole. 6. The bottom of the shell clicks into the bottom of the frame. 7. It has a meshed window that can be zipped opened. 8. The stop sign shape design deflects the wind. I use a small 1200 watt heater to keep the night temperatures in the greenhouse over 32 degree F. I only have cool weather crops i...