Hello Gardeners,

This infrequent blog will share gardening observations and techniques that are somewhat uncommon and hopefully useful to others.

My own gardening focus follows several areas of exploration:

1.  First time success. How to grow a good vegetable garden right away without first building up the soil over years, without using compost, without using any purchased fertilizers.  The idea is that if you needed to all of a sudden start growing some of your own food, what can you do, and do it organically. Compost is obviously great for a garden and if you have it, use it. But for a first time garden, most people will not have been composting themselves and to save money, might not want to purchase compost.

2.   No wilt gardening.  My own garden only gets afternoon sun, not morning sun. This creates great challenges I've found. By the time the sun hits the plants, it is already hot and they start wilting, so they don't get a lot of good direct sunlight photosynthesis time.  Morning sun, before it gets hot and the plants start wilting is the best.
This especially retards transplants and seedling growth.  The young plants need a lot of shade, until the roots get established.  Comparing my garden to others in the area, I believe my transplants and direct seeded plants take an extra 3 weeks to get established.
So figuring out how to get young plants "wilt free" in direct afternoon sunlight has/is a key focus for me.

3.  Low maintenance, low cost gardening. I like setting up gardens, but not maintaining them.

If you've found some useful techniques along these lines, please comment and share.

Happy gardening,
GardenSeek