boho bites

Picture is property of  seedsnow.com   For a limited time get a free lettuce seed starter kit with purchase from seedsnow.com!    Click on the banner on the top of Seeds Now's home page. Kit includes Tom Thumb lettuce, directions and a seed starting disc. Organic, Non-GMO seeds staring as low as $.99 a pack. Shipping starts at $1.99.  SeedsNow.com is a great source for Non-GMO and Organic seeds. They also carry a great line of growing gifts and seed starting supplies. Plant the lettuce in a sunny window and plant some Kale outside and enjoy fresh salads every day!  Happy Growing

Usually I toss the scraps from my veggies into the compost bin. What about using them to grow new veggies to eat from the roots, cuttings and seeds? I was looking for something else and came across a very good article  on exactly how to and what yummy things can become new plants. We have tried many of these with some mixed success. Our most recent; the avocado pit. We got farther than we ever did before. I had a tiny tree, 6 to 8 leaves and about a foot tall. I moved it from my air conditioned kitchen to my very hot, but shaded back porch. By the time I did a walk through the garden pulling some weeds, it looked very sad and wilted. Twenty minutes was all it took to make all of the leaves fall off. I snipped the top off and waiting to see what happens. Staring a new one on the sill today. Check out this article 7 Fresh Veggies You Can Grow From Kitchen Scraps   for more ideas on what to try!

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Kale is the hot new super food. Not only is it super easy to grow, but it's very versatile too. Recipes are all over the web for green smoothies, salads, sautes and soups. In our house the favorite way to add some extra vitamin punch from Kale is in salads. Our favorite Kale salad has most of the ingredients growing in our back yard; kale, romaine, carrot, tomato and cabbage. A few posts back,  I talked about growing kale as an easy winter crop . Living in the desert we can grow a few things year round that others can't. By staggering plantings I can keep a fresh supply of salad greens all year. By changing up the ingredients to match what's on hand or to suit your taste, will keep the super food on your plate! Mixed Green, Blue Cheese and Bacon Chop Salad Use any combination: Kale ( find organic and Non-GMO seeds ) Romaine Nappa Cabbage Green cabbage Radicchio Red Cabbage Spinach Shredded Carrot Blue Cheese Dressing Blue Cheese crumbles Bacon, cooked a

Space is a premium in space gardens. If it's pots on the patio or in a suburban backyard, there's never enough room. Going up is a great way to grow! I have a several small backyard raised and border beds in my back yard. I love using inexpensive tomato cages to multiply my space. These cucumbers two cucumber plants are thriving. Without the tomato cage moving them up instead of out, they would easily take up a quarter of the raised bed they are in. Cucumbers are natural climbers. They don't have the grip to go up walls and must be well supported. When I planted the seeds, I simply pushed the tomato cage in the soft dirt, centered over the small mound. As the plants grow you can gently move them up through the middle and over the top.  Not only is this a space saver, but it stops the common problem of "blossom end rot". It's devastating to go check on the tiny veggies and find them turning yellow and dying where the blossom is still attached. Blossom rot

Photo from seedsnow.com Now is the time to start planing and planting a winter garden. Kale has become one of the super foods that everyone is interested in at the moment. Kale is a great container crop. Kale is full of antioxidants, beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, lutein and  rich in calcium. SeedsNow.com  has sample packs of Blue Curled Scotch and three other varieties for only $.99 for approximately 50 seeds, larger packs for $4.99. The small packs are great for a patio garden, or a backyard garden like mine. Plant Kale in pots or in flower beds of summer's fading flowers now. Refresh beds with some fresh compost or manure, greens like this love high nitrogen! Kale is frost tolerant and most people think the frost or a snow fall improves the taste, making it sweeter. In warmer climates like mine in Arizona, plant Kale in a partly shady spot that wont get the hot afternoon sun. Shop the  entire selection of Non-GMO seeds at SeedsNow.com

Wikipedia's  definition of  Genetically Modified Organism:  "Genetically modified foods (or GM foods) are foods produced from organisms that have had specific changes introduced into their DNA using the methods of genetic engineering. These techniques have allowed for the introduction of new traits as well as a far greater control over a food's genetic structure than previously afforded by methods such as selective breeding and mutation breeding." Corn is one of top GMO foods consumed daily in the US. In simpler terms: a GMO is produce, grains, fruits and livestock that has been changed in a lab to be bigger, more productive, more resistant to pests and diseases to increase production and profit. This has been done for years with cross pollination in plants and breeding animals with more desirable traits. That process was slow and took several generations of plants and animals to get closer to the end outcome. Altering the DNA in a lab is quick, often the outc