Benedict T. Palen, Jr Clears The Concept Of Fruit Bagging

 There are some fruit trees that offer a scene of beauty for every season. It starts in the spring with the pretty blossoms and ends in autumn with a showy fall beauty. Instead of all that, at the end of the day, every gardener wants their fruit trees to bear ripe and juicy fruits. However, common plant diseases, insects, and birds can end up ravaging your precious crop. This is the main reason why many of the gardeners have started growing their fruits in bags.

So, should you follow suit and put bags on the fruit? Here’s what Benedict T. Palen, Jr, an experienced farmer, has to say in the matter.

Should you start bagging the fruits?

At the time of planting the fruit trees in the backyard, your plan was not to start growing the fruits in bags. However, you might not have comprehended back then about the amount of maintenance the fruit trees would need. For instance, commercial farmers who want to get blemish-free, beautiful apples, spray the apple trees often and too early with fungicides and pesticides.

They start spraying the apples in early spring or late winter, and keep repeating it every week through the harvest. It might be more work than you have expected to do and chemicals that you hoped to use on the trees. This is exactly where you start wondering whether you should bag the fruits or not.

Bagging the fruits makes sense if you consider the face that most of the diseases, birds, and even insects attack fruits from its outside. Putting bags on the fruits mean covering the young fruits with clean plastic bags before they start ripening. The bags offer a protective layer between the outside world and the soft fruit.

Benedict T. Palen, Jr believes that by growing the fruits in bags, you get to avoid all the spraying that is done to maintain their health. These plastic bags will prevent the diseases from attacking them, insects from deforming them, and birds from devouring them. It will not affect the growth of the fruits in any possible way.

Growing the fruits in plastic bags

The Japanese were the first people to have started bagging fruits. In fact, the Japanese have relied on using little bags for protecting fruits for centuries now. They initially used special silken bags that were made just for the fruits. But, some growers started using plastic bags, and they noticed that these bags worked fine too.

So, if you have decided to try this proven Japanese technique, here is the method you must follow. The best thing to use are zip lock bags. Try to choose the fruits that are still young and small, and cover each of them with the zip lock baggie. Zip the bag as closely around the stem as you can. Cut the lower corners of that bag to let moisture to drip down. Keep the zip lock bags on until the harvest time.

Benedict T. Palen, Jr Outlines The Reasons To Begin Using Compost For Your Garden

 You can buy compost from your local nursery or generate it at home by using leaves, grass clippings, and kitchen wastes like vegetable and fruit excesses to the compost bin. This bin functions as a silo, which houses decaying and fermenting organic matters until it is ready to be used in your garden.

While most people know that compost is a great thing to use, here’s outlining all the reasons why it is so. Benedict T. Palen,Jr highlights all the reasons to begin using compost for your garden.

Compost has a good quality of humus

While breaking down, most composts have a certain amount of humus content in it. Humus happens to be the byproduct of the compost after decaying is done. It has nutritional content, but not nitrogen. The key benefit associated with hummus is that it can absorb water. Healthy gardens need compost to gain nutritional diversity. Besides, humus is the main component of the topsoil.

Porosity and soil structure comes from compost

Benedict T. Palen, Jr says that soil structure comes from the right mix of the organic particles (humus and compost) with inorganic particles (clay and sand). Good soil is crumbly enough with air pockets to allow easy farming.

Compost can bind to sandy soil, creating a condition where it can absorb more nutrients and moisture. It can also bind to clayey soil particles to create air pockets to let the nutrients and moisture to penetrate into these type of soils.

So, compost can improve the soil conditions, regardless of the type of soil where you do the farming.

The roots of the plants love compost

The wonderful soil structure that can be created by compost lets the roots take up water and nutrients effectively. It helps the roots to spread despite the constraints of the dense soils. So, the health of your garden remains well-maintained.

Composts have the ability of moisture retention

Studies have shown that adding a pound of compost to about a hundred pounds of soil can increase the water retention ability of the soil by four gallons. If the amount of compost is increased to five gallons, the same amount of soil would hold twenty-five gallons of water. You can increase the moisture retention ability of any kind of soil with compost.

Compost brings down the stormwater runoff

Compost functions like sponges, and thus, it lets fewer amounts of rainwater to enter the storm drains. Runoff such as excess irrigation and rainwater have a tendency to pick up garbage, pesticides, grass clippings, and other types of pollutants that can damage the sea life when they end up in the ocean. Therefore, you are not only saving your garden, but also the surrounding water bodies through composting.

So, as you can see, compost can do a world of good to your garden. Thus, you should start making your own compost from today, if you have not done it already.

Benedict T. Palen, Jr - Why Should You Think Of Having Garden In Your Apartment?

 Gardening is more than just making a section of your yard for cultivating flowers or vegetables. It can also provide many other benefits such as assisting the environment or offering stress relief by taking care of home gardens.

Gardening offers individuals a place to go play around in nature and forget about their problems for a while, and at the end they have appetizing fresh vegetables or stunning flowers. Home gardens are simple to make and you do not essentially need a vast plot of land. If you wish, for instance just to beautify your windows with a flower box that can be considered as your little garden. In addition, the flowers can offer nectar for the butterflies or bees, so you are also assisting out nature.

You can also have a small garden if you stay in an apartment, particularly if you have a veranda. All you need to do is get a few huge containers, some seeds, dirt, or baby plants, then add some fertilizer and water and a little care. You do not need a lot of large gardening tools. A simple kitchen fork or spoon can be used to plant your small garden.

If you do have a vast area to make into a garden. You can even select to make something like a tree nursery to assist grow needed trees to assist the environment. Trees and other plants take in the CO2 in the air and give off oxygen, so the more trees the better so we have fresher air to respire.

Here are the reasons for having gardens at apartments:

• In the present times, it is simple for some people to ask, why home gardens are needed when you can just go to the grocery store and purchase vegetables. But, the fact is that home grown vegetables taste a lot better than the ones you purchase in the store. And when you do gardening at home, you do not have to worry about mean chemicals getting onto your food. All you need is a part of the yard, a few basic gardening tools, and some seeds or baby plants to begin.
• It is a perfect way to show kids where their food comes from and assist them to love vegetables as they get the fun out of developing them. With the rise in obesity recently, gardening is a way to make eating vegetables entertaining, plus working in home gardens assists to burn off calories. Few schools have started having a small garden for children to tend to. And these are not only teaching the children about nature, but also are assisting to stamp out hunger as they get to eat what they make.
• Another great thing about gardening is that it can assist ease stress in quite a few ways. Studies have shown that working in home gardens can reduce the formation of the stress hormone cortisol. One study showed that 30 minutes of gardening was better at alleviating stress than 30 minutes of reading.

Benedict T. Palen, Jr., has three decades of knowledge working in management, operations, and agricultural investments. Right now, Benedict T.Palen, Jr., serves as co-proprietor and manager for Great Plains Farms, LLC, administering all from the appraisal of farmland to offering proposal on operator training and irrigation development. 

Benedict T. Palen, Jr - Mistakes To Avoid When Growing Herbs

 Growing herbs can be very satisfying and pleasurable, but a few little things can make it annoying as well. Here are few mistakes new herb gardeners often make and how you can fix them for ultimate garden success!

• While there is something special about starting a plant from seed and watching it developing, there is a lot that can go erroneous when starting seedlings. Seeds necessitate a proper environment for germinating and being kept growing indoors before it is time to plant outside. This enables you to start with a healthy plant and avoiding the displeasure of not having plants to grow in the spring.
• For a first time gardener, basil is an ideal trainer herb. It is a quick grower and it bounces back perfectly well when not watered enough. This flexibility enables you to find things out with a plant that can take a little neglect. The fact basil is so adaptable on recipes and a well-loved herb is yet another added advantage.
• A well-prepped garden with fresh soil can go a long way. Using soil that is exhausted, with no nutrients left, cannot make the cultivation of herbs a success. In your garden, add some compost and manure in the soil to make it perfect for growing herbs. Do not use garden soils in pots instead use a potting soil as it will be lighter and fluffier, perfect for herb growing.
• While house plants and herbs within may flourish with a good watering once a week, that just would not cut it for plants left in the garden. Most herbs will necessitate moderate and regular watering, particularly in the hot summer months. If you are growing in pots, ensure the pot has sufficient drainage; this will stop your herbs from drowning after a long rainy period. The downside with growing in pots is your herbs will require even more water than if they are planted in the ground.
• Few herbs offer complimenting flavors to the food but forget their manners when planted in your garden. Herbs such as mint and oregano are insatiable growers and get downright violent in a garden. To keep the rest of your garden plot protected, think about growing these herbs in pots and burying them in the ground. The extra measure of control a pot puts on the roots of these herbs can keep them from moving in to the rest of your garden and prompting taking over. The surest way to guard your garden from this danger is to grow them in pots grown on ground.
• Unless you are growing edible flowers, you should be cutting back herbs prior to they start growing flowers. Most people often note their sweet basil turns sour in the middle of the summer and this is because those flowers damage the flavor. Keep cutting off flower buds if you find them and it will keep your herb focused on growing leaves.

Benedict T. Palen, Jr., has three decades of knowledge working in management, operations, and agricultural investments. Right now, Benedict T.Palen, Jr., serves as co-proprietor and manager for Great Plains Farms, LLC, administering all from the appraisal of farmland to offering proposal on operator training and irrigation development. 

Benedict T. Palen, Jr - Tips For Growing Citrus Fruits In Pots

 Homegrown, fresh-picked, citrus is not magnificence reserved for gardeners in tropical, sunny zones. You can grow up citrus trees in containers and enjoy their smell and stimulating fruit even in cold northern homes. Even if you are short on garden space or you are in any climatic condition, pot citrus can bring your freshness fix. All it takes is some effortless citrus basics, and you are on your way to growing your very own.

1. Citrus trees require 8 hours of sun and a wind-free, sunny location is best. Citrus trees are also very chill-sensitive and must be moved inside or protected to a covered area in freezing weather. If your winter nighttime temperatures are below 35 degrees F consistently, you will need to shift the citrus indoors for the winter to guard them from frost and offer additional grow lights for the tree. If you only have infrequent cold temperatures, cover the tree with frost cloth or use incandescent lights to warm the air just about the tree.

• The container should be bigger than a nursery pot to offer the roots room to develop. Use a large durable pot. Wine barrel, non-porous ceramic pots work well. If you stay in an area that gets cold in the winter, think about how you will move the pot. The pot should have quite a few drain holes spaced around the perimeter of the pot evenly, not just one in the middle, to make sure good drainage. Drill extra holes if needed. It is best to have the pot off ground on pot feet instead of sitting in a tray.
• Citrus roots like damp but not mushy conditions. The watering requirements of citrus will be diverse when they are in containers as roots will dry out faster. A moisture meter can assist you find out when it is time to water. The top of soil may feel dehydrated, so test it out by putting meter down deeper by roots. Water until water starts to drain out of drain holes. When the temperature is very hot, containers dry out very fast — you might need to water a few times a week. In cooler weather, you will require to water much less. Focus on the foliage. Leaves that are drooped and then perk up after watering are a symbol of roots that have been enabled to dry out too much. Water more frequently. Curled or yellowed leaves that do not develop after watering may indicate they are getting too much water so water less often.
• Lightweight potting blend that drains well with inorganic ingredients such as vermiculite, perlite, coconut coir or peat moss added in is best. A soil that is all organic matter will decay very quickly and become compacted, reducing aeration for roots. Stay away from soils that contain chemical-wetting agents as these retain too much moisture. Native soil is also too compacted and will not offer the roots the air they need.   

Benedict T. Palen, Jr., has three decades of knowledge working in management, operations, and agricultural investments. Right now, Benedict T.Palen, Jr., serves as co-proprietor and manager for Great Plains Farms, LLC, administering all from the appraisal of farmland to offering proposal on operator training and irrigation development. 

Benedict T. Palen, Jr - Advantages Of Hydroponic Farming

 Standard field farming practices have seen a lot of pessimistic press, from fears about soil erosion to huge water consumption to food-borne disease breakouts. The hydroponic farming industry resolves many of these concerns. Hydroponic systems are water-based, soil-less, farming procedures. Instead of using soil for plant nutrition, crops are fed with nutrient-rich water, negating a lot of the things that comes with soil-based methods.

• Field farming uses so much water as so much of it is lost. Water rolls away, evaporates, and puddles, making much of it unfeasible. That is a lot of misuse! Hydroponic systems use about ten times less water as it is delivered in a controlled way. Plus, some systems re-circulate water, lessening consumption extra!
• Plants developed in soil need to spread their roots to find water and all the nutrients they need to live on. This means they should be planted a certain distance aside from each other. In hydroponic systems, roots do not need to spread as water and nutrients are delivered correctly to them. Due to this, hydroponic systems can develop more plants in the same amount of space as soil-based systems.
• While hydroponic systems do not eliminate pest problems, it does reduce the prospective of this happening, resulting in less need for herbicides and pesticides. Hydroponic systems are extremely controlled so there is no risk of weeds taking over your garden. Due to this, there is no necessity for herbicides. Also, as hydroponic systems are frequently indoors, pests cannot infiltrate them, so pesticides are not necessary.
• Hydroponic systems nourish plants using nutrient solution blended with water, offering the farmer improved control over what nutrients their crops absorb. Plants developed in soil may need the assistance of fertilizers to stay alive. But in hydroponics, the plants are already receiving all the assistance they need and the right amount of it.
• Another advantage of hydroponic farming is that it is simple to do indoors. Cultivating indoors comes with its own advantages such as the ability to cultivate year-round, climate and temperature control, and fewer pests. Hydroponic systems are implemented indoors usually due to the environmental control it provides. With near ideal developing conditions, plants grow faster and stronger.
• As more plants can be grown in small spaces with hydroponic farming, hydroponic systems usually yield more per square foot. Also, plants are healthier and grow quick, generating more produce quickly. Indoor conditions also enable for year-round growing, irrespective of climatic condition or season, so plants’ that continue to produce after the first harvest can be harvested more times.

PH levels are occasionally overlooked by cultivators, but it is a crucially important aspect of cultivation which guarantees that your plants can access suitable quantities of the nutrients they need for healthy growth. In hydroponic cultivation, the pH of the solution can be adjusted simply and measured correctly to make sure that an optimal pH is maintained always.

Benedict T. Palen, Jr., has three decades of knowledge working in management, operations, and agricultural investments. Right now, Benedict T.Palen, Jr., serves as co-proprietor and manager for Great Plains Farms, LLC, administering all from the appraisal of farmland to offering proposal on operator training and irrigation development. 

Benedict T. Palen, Jr - Ways To Keep Your Plants Disease-Free And Fit

One of the most puzzling things that can occur in your garden is when a plant gets a disease. The most important thing to know about disease prevention is something known as the disease triangle. Disease can only come about when three things match: you have a plant that can get ill, a pathogen that can attack the plant, and environmental conditions that promote the disease. If any one of these things is not there, the disease will not take place, so prevention includes knocking out at least one side of the triangle. Instead of waiting for a problem to pop up in your garden, think about the best defense against disease to be an excellent offense. Here are the ways you can get rid of at least one side of the disease triangle and keep your plants fit.

• Not all components in a compost pile decay at the same rate. Some materials might have degraded adequately to be put in the garden, while others have not. Methodical composting generates high temperatures for comprehensive lengths of time, which in fact kill any pathogens in the substance. Infected plant debris that has not gone through this process will reintroduce prospective diseases into your garden. If you are not sure of the situation of your compost pile, you should avoid using yard waste as mulch under responsive plants and avoid including possibly contaminated debris in your pile.
• The simplest way to limit disease in your garden is to stay away from introducing it in the first place. Getting a malady with a new plant is not the kind of plus that any of us wants. One of the difficult things to learn is what a healthy plant should look like, making it hard to know if the one you want is ailing. It is a good idea to gather a few books, catalogs, and magazines that show what a healthy sample looks like. Do not take home a plant with rotted stems, dead spots, or insects. These issues can spread to your healthy plants easily and are at times hard to get rid of once recognized. Apart from checking the tops of plants, always examine the root quality. One does not frequently see customers doing this in a garden center, but it should be a general sight. Put your hand on the soil surface with the plant stem between your fingers. Invert the pot gently and shake the plant loose. You might have to strike the edge of the pot against a solid surface to release the roots from the pot. Roots should be solid, usually white, and spaced all over the root-ball. Mushy or dark roots are not a good sign. Even when the tops appear healthy, it is just a matter of time before a rotted root system damages a plant.
• It is always better to clean out the garden in the fall, even if you reside in a moderate climate. This is not only an efficient prevention to disease but also a good way to control diseases already in your garden. Diseases can overwinter on debris and dead leaves and attack the new leaves as they grow in spring.

Benedict T. Palen, Jr., has three decades of knowledge working in management, operations, and agricultural investments. Right now, Benedict T.Palen, Jr., serves as co-proprietor and manager for Great Plains Farms, LLC, administering all from the appraisal of farmland to offering proposal on operator training and irrigation development.