Category: Growing Food

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Beneficial Critters, Growing Food, Pest Management, What I'm Growing

How We Eliminated Problems with Birds and Stray Cats in the Garden

Birds stole many of our seeds and cats were walking through our gardens at night. We solved both problems with 3 easy solutions: Hardware Mesh, Motion Activated Sprinkler, and Burlap Motion activated sprinkler in action   Dale SpoonemoreDale Spoonemore is the visionary co-founder of “From Seed to Spoon,” a groundbreaking platform that has revolutionized the way individuals approach gardening. His journey from a novice gardener to a leading advocate for sustainable living and mental wellness through gardening is a […]

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Growing Food, Presentations

Talking Automated Irrigation Using Open Source Hardware at the OKC Open Source Hardware Meetup

I had an opportunity to speak at the OKC Open Hardware Meetup group today about our garden and how I’m planning to use Open Source Hardware to automate irrigation using moisture level sensors in the soil to control watering. I met a lot of brilliant people with exciting ideas about how to make it all happen. I feel like I have a firm grasp on what needs to be done and now it’s just a […]

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Companion Planting, Growing Food

Early Spring 2017 Planting of Peas, Onions, and Rosemary

We started our spring crops off by planting onions and peas! I also planted a rosemary bush I picked up from the nursery and I talk about how we use companion planting to help with cabbage moths. Dale SpoonemoreDale Spoonemore is the visionary co-founder of “From Seed to Spoon,” a groundbreaking platform that has revolutionized the way individuals approach gardening. His journey from a novice gardener to a leading advocate for sustainable living and mental […]

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Growing Food

FAQ – “Can I build a raised bed out of cinder blocks instead of wood?”

Update: One idea to combat some of the issue related to heat would be to insulate the bed with wood chips up to near the top of the cinder block. I’d think this would help with many of the issues related to overheating. I’ve spent some time researching whether or not it would be a good idea to use cinder blocks to build a longer-lasting raised bed and wanted to share the best information I […]

Hinged Hoop House
Cold Weather Gardening, Growing Food

Hinged hoop houses complete!

Three of the hinged hoop house covers are finished! We built these so we can have lettuce, kale and spinach all winter long. More details about how I built them will be coming soon. Check out the video below to see them in action! [ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”1″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_basic_thumbnails” override_thumbnail_settings=”0″ thumbnail_width=”240″ thumbnail_height=”160″ thumbnail_crop=”1″ images_per_page=”20″ number_of_columns=”0″ ajax_pagination=”0″ show_all_in_lightbox=”0″ use_imagebrowser_effect=”0″ show_slideshow_link=”1″ slideshow_link_text=”[Show slideshow]” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″] Dale SpoonemoreDale Spoonemore is the visionary co-founder of “From Seed to […]

One Yard Revolution
Cold Weather Gardening, Growing Food

The best design I found on the Internet for an easy-harvest hoop house

You can grow greens like lettuce, kale, and spinach all winter in Oklahoma if you build a simple hoop house out of PVC and plastic sheeting. I’ve spent many hours researching the best way to build a PVC hoop house so that greens can be easily harvested over the winter. This is the best design I’ve seen by far. This video calls for 2 layers of protection, but we should only need one here in […]

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DIY Home Supplies, Rainwater collection, Watering

Details on our DIY IBC Tote 550 Gallon Rainwater Storage

Update: here’s a video detailing it all! These are our main rainwater collection tanks that can capture up to 550 gallons from just 1″ of rain. I used 2 275 gallon IBC tanks purchased on Craigslist for $75 each. I connected them to the gutter with standard PVC pipe. The first 3 tubes on the left are a “first flush” system that filter out the first 20-30 gallons of water. I plan to build a […]

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Growing Food

How We Harvest Lettuce

We’ve found that we tend to eat a lot more salads now that we grow lettuce. You simply cut however much you want, soak it in ice cold water for 10 minutes (we use an ice chest because we process a large amount at a time) and run it through a salad spinner to dry off. It will store up to a week in the fridge if you put it in a plastic container and […]

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Growing Food, Pest Management

Aphid problems? Try ladybugs!

Ladybugs are great to have in the garden because they eat aphids. These little black bugs you see in the picture are soon to be ladybug dinner. The aphids would destroy the plant if left uncontrolled, but thankfully nature has checks and balances that prevent pests from taking over. Believe it or not, you can actually order ladybugs on Amazon. We ordered 1500 ladybugs in the spring and released a handful of them every night […]

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Growing Food

Fall-planted Garlic is Starting to Come Up!

We planted garlic cloves from the grocery store a few weeks ago. The plants will go dormant over the winter but will have an established root system for the spring and will produce a bulb full of cloves ready for harvest starting in June. Dale SpoonemoreDale Spoonemore is the visionary co-founder of “From Seed to Spoon,” a groundbreaking platform that has revolutionized the way individuals approach gardening. His journey from a novice gardener to a […]