Watch (and learn!) as Lynn Gillespie—an organic farmer for over 25 years and owner of The Living Farm in Paonia, CO—plans, plants, tends, and harvests a high-performance garden.
Lynn has a unique “learn along with me” garden teaching system. You will actually get to see everything she does in her garden for the entire season. Will she make it? Will the bugs get everything? Will the deer destroy her plants? Will sudden freezes or the burning summer sun wipe her out?
Lynn’s goal for her garden is to produce enough food so that she can eat something she’s grown every day for a year.
Follow along with the ups and downs of this experienced gardener. It will be just like being in the garden with her!
Catch the next episode below.
(And stay tuned, as Lynn will have another update every week!)
Episode 27: “Clearing the Green Bean Patch”
This week, Lynn clears the green bean patch to make room for more kale, which she hopes will carry her through the winter. And, of course, she harvests some more!
You can access The Living Farm’s “What Can I Plant Today?” lists—divided by month from March through October—online here: https://thelivingfarm.org/high-performance-garden-show
Take your garden to the next level and sign up for the Abundance Garden Course, the official instruction manual for the High-Performance Garden Show.
Click on this link to start your garden adventure.
Use the coupon code TGN19 to get $50.00 Off!
Stay tuned! We’ll be publishing a new episode in this series weekly!
The Grow Network is a global network of people who produce their own food and medicine. We’re the coolest bunch of backyard researchers on Earth! We’re constantly sharing, discovering, and working together to test new paths for sustainable living—while reconnecting with the “old ways” that are slipping away in our modern world. We value soil, water, sunlight, simplicity, sustainability, usefulness, and freedom. We strive to produce, prepare, and preserve our own food and medicine, and we hope you do, too!
COMMENTS(3)
My husband loves his bug paddle! The way they work is that there is a set of thin conductive wires embedded in parallel and a tiny distance apart. I think there is a set of wires that ground the charged wires. The charge comes from a small battery (rechargeable!). A slow swing toward the bug will. cause it to contact the two kinds of wires at once. The peskiest bugs are giant mosquitoes and tiny no see’ums. A charge crosses from one wire to the other via the moisture in the bug’s body. Instant crispy critter, expect a slight puff of smoke. Sometimes he will allow a mosquito to set down on his skin, then gently and slowly position the paddle just slightly above the bug. It will become aware of the approach, lift off and zzzzzt! another crispy!
I use one during our high density bug season when I want to enter our house. Where we are, it can take about 30 seconds to a couple of minutes at peak bug season to reduce the number of bugs at the door. At first they smell me or feel my body heat, usually at dusk, and will increase in number while I am slowly swinging my paddle . This is an opportunity to convert secret, dark, vengeful thoughts into a more positive outlook. After a while the air smokes up and they will move off to friendlier snacking.
While gardening, since I want to focus on the veggies rather than my skin, I cover up and use a mosquito veil from mid-Spring to mid-Fall.
We use an electronic bug zapper in our chicken coop. The coop vents are covered with 1/4″ mesh hardware cloth. Can’t convince my construction crew to install window screen. During the day the girls are great at snatching bugs out of the air for themselves, for their sisters or for us. At night, they get mercilessly bitten on their legs and feet. and any other exposed flesh. We catch a lot of mosquitoes, no see’ums and moths nightly. These devices are equipped with a tray to catch fallen bugs, and the hens love their tormentors as snacks the next day.
As far as protecting veggies from bugs, I just make every practical effort to keep the plants vigorously healthy, encourage beneficials and regularly do bug patrol. So far, having gardened organically for years, this works pretty well. My name for :”Party Jar” is “Bug Safe”.
One of my money making schemes is to invent a much more effective bug deterrent than those floppy screens you attach to your door. So far, my husband says my ideas are impractical for high energy use or cost of materials, but hope lives on!
Try hanging vanilla car tree air fresheners at the base or near the base of the chicken coop to deter the no see’ums. This method works great on dog collars and on people attached to their headbands, on a lanyard also. Keeps pesky black flies and other pesty insects at bay.
It would be neat to see this in Hawaii. Here, there are MANY microclimates. This makes growing say a tomato easy in some areas, harder in some, and impossible in others. Where one can grow year round, there is a little bit more to it than just that here. We grow tomatoes, but not garlic, or carrots to name a few. BUT there are many Polynesian and other same country area foods that can be grown.