From The Old Farmer's Almanac.
For a plug and play stand-alone or closed circuit of hydroponic grow beds, WaterFarm was designed to be the new era of hydroponic home growing for the average American concerned about the quality of fresh produce and the ecological footprints caused in transportation.
When we think of the future, we think of the availability of clean, organic and most importantly, fresh vegetable foods; hydroponics, offers itself as a solution that makes sense.
Just think, a fresh salad everyday, with fresh tomatoes and fresh lettuce. Just imagine what that would do to your quality of life, not to mention the appeal it will create with visitors as they question and ask about the fascinating realm of hydroponics, that until recently was a mystery to most.
Condensing your grow area into a nutrition-filled solution and using the advantages behind square foot gardening, you can grow anything that you would be able to grow in soil, but faster and without the parasites that thrive in soils, providing a far better yield than if the conventional amount of space were being used for soil beds.
WaterFarm makes use of its self-contained system and will easily hook up to a larger circuit if necessary, making it possible to add-on to your year round garden as much or as little as your familys needs demand.
The One foot by one foot, square design with hydroponic catchment system underneath and grow bed above with gravity drip system WaterFarm is simple, easy and fun to put together, for those looking to get an advantage on the grow season all year round, right in the comfort of ones own home.
This plug and play system is a General Hydroponics product that measures one foot by one foot, ships at 16 pounds and is a complete set including a four gallon reservoir, two gallon growing chamber, pumping column, column support tube, drip ring, half inch grommet, drain level tube, Elite 800 air pump 9L Hydroton and three part Flora Kit.
WaterFarm was designed for the average American home owner, concerned about the environment and the quality of fresh produce, allowing anyone to take the worlds future, into their own hands, right now.
Bloomingwriter's blogger, jodi DeLong, issued a challenge to the gardening blogging community to show where they are on the world's stage. Well, here I am in beautiful Busselton, Western Australia.
Busselton is a coastal town 220km south of WA's capital city Perth. With a mere 24,000 residents it's not exactly your bustling metropolis. But it does cater for most things and if we can't get it here, then Bunbury, a short 52kms north, makes up the difference.
For climate and gardening conditions, Busselton is second to none. Even with Austin's 18 garden bloggers they still fall far short of our blog per capita ratio of 1:24000 (Austin's is more like 1:83000) which proves that we are far more into gardening than this US city would let on.
Basically, Busselton is built on a flood plain 2m above sea level. The hills that surround it provide the necessary water for many of our low-lying wetlands and is diverted away from the town through a flood-mitigation program. Much of the water runoff also leeches into the soil and refills our vast Yarragadee Aquifier. This aquifer is the source of all our water consumption.
The town's history was born through the shipping of timber from Geographe Bay. While the bay is a safe harbour it's very shallow and required the building of an almost 2km long jetty. Shipping ceased soon after Cyclone Alby tore through the region in the early 1970's and the jetty has now become a tourist attraction and the source of much contention to who will foot the bill for maintenance.
Chookie from Chookie's Backyard asked about info relating to our founding 'amateur botanist' Georgianna Molloy. While there's much written about this great pioneer you will get a very different story about her from many people who live in Busselton. Whereas she should have been honoured for her gardening work she is reasonably vilified for introducing the arum lily to our moist wetlands. All because she thought they looked wonderful in her English garden back home.
Gardening in Busselton is not as easy as it seems though. Sandy soils that leech nutrients faster than a greyhound on race day and soil alkalinity from the ocean's salt, take their toll. But once the soil's been built up with rich humus there's not a lot that won't grow in this environment. Hot summers reaching into the mid 30's C and mild winters with minimum's still above 0° C ensure gardeners don't give up easily.
In my recent post Bloggers score a win against spam I claimed victory over one site that was scraping gardening blogs. It appears that the victory wasn't sustained and the site in question is still very much up and running.
So here's your chance to get rid of this blogging parasite. The site is hosted at NetJaguar, an US based hosting provider and they would LOVE to hear your complaints through their Abuse Department.
I came across this article TWICE in one week so thought it prudent to share it with you.I mean, really, I don’t want to run into you on the street and have you accusing me of leaving you out of THE LOOP. You know, the groovy loop. The loop of all hip things in gardening. You have a right and a need to know, dear reader/gardening friend. YES YOU DO.
So check this out: . This dynamic duo has created a farm/garden and party room a courtyard in Queens, Long Island, NY.
Post from: Idaho Gardener
Brussels' Impressive Impatiens!
Cartier Building, Brussels
Brilliant floral displays abound in Brussels!
While we haven’t gone completely organic, but over 90% of our fertilizers our. My largest organic line is E.B. Stone Organics. All the fertilizer in the picture are organic. What I like about these fertilizers, besides being organic is the addition of Humic Acids and soil microbes including mycorrhizal fungi. We have been recommending mycorrhizal fungi be added to the soil for years. These fungi are part of the web of life in the soil that is often missing from soil that has been disturbed, (digging, tilling, grading).
Our best seller in the organic line is Sure Start. In an attempt to keep it simple, in the beginning we always recommend the addition of Sure Start at planting time with supplemental feedings with the All-Purpose. The E.B. Stone line also has specialty foods like Azalea-Camellia food or Tomato and Vegetable food which are also popular. The Tomato Vegetable food is great for those trying organic food gardening. We like the Fish Emulsion too, since it also has Kelp Meal added which seems to make a difference.
You’ll see that we do not carry any Miracle-Gro. We decided a while ago to stay away from the easily identifiable products sold by the chain stores. The other reason is Miracle-gro in our area seems to cause tomatoes to grow, but delay the blooming and fruiting. This is quite common as we have lots of customers who come in early summer complaining about the lack of fruiting. “Sure the plants grow great , but…” Nine time out of ten they are feeding with nitrogen rich Miracle-gro. We switch them to our organic Tomato and vegetable food which solves that problem. I love it since it shows that we are different with ideas that work. 
I would imagine that there are some customers who choose not to buy the organics based on price or lack of name recognition. After a couple of years of carrying the organics most now know what we offer and either jump on the organic bandwagon or still head to the box for what they know. I will say however that being known as the place to find organics is a great thing. If you have been thinking about switching some of your fertilizer lines to organic I don’t think you will be sorry. Its hard at first when you get the confused look some people get when you tell them you don’t have Miracle-gro. Nothing like seeing someone leave without purchasing, but it takes time to get the word out. Once the word is out those looking for that lifestyle choice will find you and others will learn why organic fertilizers are actually better than synthetics.
Some Frosted plants this morning. The Strawberry plants seem to hold the frozen droplets like diamonds on the leaf.