Why buy from TOD Farms? (Part 2)

SEEDLING TREATMENT Treatment of seedlings Once your seeds have emerged, ensure that they get adequate water every day. Most seedlings die from lack of water or overheating. If your seedlings have been grown indoors or under protection, they will need to be ‘hardened’ before being transplanted outside. Hardening is best achieved by exposing them to direct sunlight for increased amounts of time over the period of about 7-10 days. An example would be. Day 1-3 expose for 3 hrs, Days 4-7 expose for 5 hrs, Day 8-10 the whole day, then transplant outside. Light plays a very important role in the growth of your seedlings. Too little light and the seedlings will ‘stretch’ and grow towards the light giving you tall, leggy seedlings with a pale colour. Adequate light will give you strong robust seedlings with a good colour. To help the...

Why buy from TOD Farms? (Part 1).

Welcome to TOD farms. We follow high quality control procedures in producing our crops, here's how: PLANT TYPE T = Tender A = Annual P = Perennial H = Hardy HH = Half Hardy Ease of Growth 1 = Very Easy 2 = Medium 3 = Can be challenging Seed Treatment Key Soak Overnight Certain seeds like beetroot and swiss chards have a very corky seed coat. Soaking them overnight allows water to penetrate the coat and assists with germination. Sow shallowly in beds and cover with a hessian cloth. Fine seeds are best sown very shallowly, the problem now is that the top surface of the soil dries out very quickly. Covering with a hessian cloth, traps the moisture in the top soil layer allowing the seeds to germinate effectively. Chill in fridge for 2 weeks A number of seeds need cold treatment prior to sowing. If not chilled, the...

How to Grow Your Own Tomatoes, Part 3: Staking, Training and Pruning

Tomato beds have an unfair reputation as the messiest, ugliest, most disease-ridden parts of a vegetable garden. To keep them from devolving to this sorry state, tomato plants need your care and support. More specifically, they need the support of a trellis, stake or cage, and they need you to train them to grow on it while primping and pruning their vines into a respectable form. If you do, the plants will be healthier and more productive—and more presentable when you’re showing off your garden to visitors.   Support Structures Before you get started, you need to know whether you have neat and compact determinate tomato plants or one of the more unruly indeterminate varieties. The former group consists of varieties that have been bred for stems that grow only to a specific length; many of the modern...

How to Grow Your Own Tomatoes, Part 2: Transplanting

You’ve sowed your tomato seeds, and now the seedlings stand like little green soldiers in your window, patiently waiting to be liberated from their pots and plunked into a warm bed of earth. What they don’t realize is that conditions are harsh in the outside world. Between desiccating winds, the heat of the sun, and armies of bugs and diseases that may be waiting in ambush, there is much that can go wrong for a young tomato plant. To help them along, there are two things you need to do before you transplant your seedlings: Prepare the soil and something gardeners call hardening off. Hardening Off “Hardening off” tomato seedlings means gradually introducing them to the outdoors. This should happen over a 10-day period. Acclimating tomato seedlings to outdoor conditions is a bit like helping your child adjust to kindergarten—it takes...

How to Grow Your Own Tomatoes, Part 1: Starting Seeds Indoors

Growing tomatoes from seed isn’t hard, but there are a few things to be aware of. As with all things agrarian, timing, genetics and environment have to be in alignment to reap the rewards of your efforts. Time and Place Tomato seeds are almost always started indoors—whether in a greenhouse or a sunny window ledge—and then transplanted to beds once they have at least a few leaves and an established root system. Starting seeds indoors is optional with many vegetables, but tomato seeds need a constant soil temperature of at least 60 degrees, and preferably 80 degrees, to germinate. In temperate climates, it may be midsummer before the soil gets that warm, and by then it’s too late for tomatoes to grow and mature before the end of the growing season. Tomato seeds are typically started “six to eight weeks before the average date of...

TEA

There is ever increasing evidence on the benefits of tea drinking. Tea has high levels of vitamins, including vitamin C, vitamin B, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid and minerals such as potassium and manganese. The presence of polyphenols, particularly in green tea, gives tea high anti-oxidant properties. Polyphenols can represent around 15% of the dry weight of tea and may assist in the prevention of numerous types of cancer and various other problems including heart disease. What is tea? Tea is made from the dried leaf of Camellia Sinensis. This plant is native to China and India and is now cultivated around the world. Tea was discovered nearly 5000 years ago, not reaching Europe until the early 1600's. How is tea manufactured? After picking, tea goes through the following stages: Withering: The leaves are spread out and a current of warm...

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF ORGANIC FARMING?

The organic farm management plan has brought enormous benefits. It helps build a healthy global community by employing safe agricultural practices which work in harmony with our planet. Organic farming has produced a reversal from the loss of top soil, loss of animal and plant species, contamination of waterways and defoliation. New organic top soil is produced by composting, streams and rivers run free of toxic leaching, and plant diversity, tree cover, birds and other animal species are returning in great numbers to the plantations and surrounding areas. Often farmers will form cooperatives where the sharing of resources creates better organisation, increases income and helps further development and awareness among farmers. This includes the sharing of knowledge of such techniques as crop diversification and rotation, botanical insect...

BUTTERNUT SQUASH

[vc_row][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_column_text]Butternut squash is very nutritious. The flesh is full of vitamins A and C, and it has a naturally sweet flavor that really emerges when roasted. The seeds are packed with protein and heart-healthy fats. It’s a delicious seasonal squash that can be cooked in a variety of ways– baked or roasted, in a puree, in soups or stews, and as a sweet addition to other hearty winter dishes.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/3"][vc_images_carousel images="5271"][/vc_column][/vc_row]