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Archive for July, 2010

What Makes Good Soil for Gardeners?

universal potting soil
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Soil type is one of the most important parts of gardening, especially if you love your plants, vegetables and blooming floral displays. Soil is never straightforward due to its changeable properties from one place to another, and this being the case, gardeners have to be selective about what they choose to grow.

Soil can be broken down into some relatively straightforward kinds, which, as a beginner in the garden or as someone who’s keen to understand the differences and how these affect plant growth, these should be understood.

Firstly we’ll look at clay soil. Soils that are heavy in clay are called clay soils, making them more wet and sticky as well as heavy than many other types. Clay soils are prone to poor drainage because of the lack of air and therefore become waterlogged easily. Loosening up clay soil can be achieved by the addition of sand, otherwise it can be hard to work. Well drained clay soil will make vegetation grow superbly due to the remarkable levels of plant nutrients in clay compounds.

Sandy soil is the exact opposite of clay soil being well draining and lower in plant nutrients. The addition of organic matter to sandy soil will enable it to retain moisture and plant nutrients making it a great for growing and easy to work.

Avoiding chalky soil is sound advice for gardeners because these soils make for poor quality. Chalky soils are alkaline and are often full of stones which makes them drain rather quickly as well as preventing plants from getting the nutrients they need.

The main kinds of soil then to look out for are listed here, but you can get others like silty and peaty. Most can be used by the gardener, however chalky soils require so much additional input such as fertilizers and organic matter that they can seem pointless to work.

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Understanding Container Gardening

Brian Farrell with helper plants at Our Commun...
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If you’re a flower garden lover, but have no space for your gardening appetite, take it easy gardening is not necessarily out of your reach. In the available space of your house say balcony, patio, deck, or sunny window, you can create a container gardening, which will not only bring you joy and also vegetables. So, are you ready to begin container gardening yourself…

In the past, gardening is an exclusive realm from the landowner. Nowadays even the flat dweller can grow his dream garden without having any fuss. One’s dream can be fulfilled by container gardening, which means the gardening in a special container. Container gardening gives delights of landscape without weekly mowing. In the container, you are able to raise some perennials, annuals, and even shrubs and small trees.

Don’t think container gardening could be achieved very easily. Container gardening also requires proper planning just like that of traditional gardening. Planning includes finding your USDA zone (this will help to identify the suitable plant variety of your zone), amount of daylight you are receiving inside your apartment, and finally choose your beloved plant variety.

It is usually advisable to buy the plants from nearest nursery unless you have right conditions to go for indoor seedlings. You should not keep your tender plants of container gardening outside below 45° F temperature or in soaring winds. Moreover you shouldn’t leave the new plants through out the night in the outside to get frost it out.

There is a false notion that all the plants grow in the ground won’t grow in the container gardening. It’s not so. If you have any doubt, please do experiment on it.  Moreover, any container with holes for drainage may be used for your container gardening.

Container gardening requires little budget in the initial stage. But it is having low maintenance with good satisfaction. Container gardening requires little fertilizer and water according to the specific needs of the plants.

There’s numerous pot growing vegetable varieties as container gardening. In this type, the vegetable plant requires only sunlight and water. Providing these two things can easily help you get fresh vegetables for your ratatouille or salad. You can get more satisfaction by serving these varieties nurtured by your own hands for your beloved pals.

Don’t despair-if you’re not having balcony or deck? Get nod from your landlord for window boxes, a modern container gardening. It’s highly possible to grow many bloomy annuals year-round and indoor vegetables in your sunny window. There’s another type of garden called community gardens, which will satisfy the city dwellers.

There is no need to end your container gardening since you have entered autumn. But you can continue your container gardening by selecting the plants which are withholding the frost. The common plant varieties that stand up to the frost are Eulalia grasses, Mexican feather grass, Cornflowers, Lavender cottons, Jasmine, Million bells, Stonecrops, etc.,

In order to extend the life of your flower garden from early spring to fall, you can replant to match the conditions. Even you can contact some of the America’s best gardeners through online to obtain design for the container gardening. They offer suggestions such as caring and choosing for pots, how you can grow tips for succulents, roses, and bulbs, in containers.

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Kagome started as a tomato grower, and its mai...
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I was looking at my tomato plants and was kind of proud to see them coming along, I could even see a couple of tomatoes starting. I love watching them grow in size every day.

Then my fishing buddy Jamie picked me up to go fishing and we stopped back at his place to put the canoe on the roof of the car. He showed me his tomato plants and I almost fell over. They were already three feet tall, while mine were still just pushing two feet.

Jamie has done a great job with his tomato plants, great job Jamie.

Why Were Jamie’s Tomato Plants So Big?

I asked him what he was feeding them and he just laughed and said he wasn’t doing anything other than giving them water if they did it.

Then he mentioned that when he plants things close to the house like his tomato plants they can be planted early season and they grow like weeds with the extra time in the ground and the heat provided by the sun beating off the house.

Maybe I will plant my garden all around the outside of our house next year and see if I can get tomato plants to grow like that.

Cucumbers Climbing on Lattice

Jamie sent me a picture of one of his cucumber plants grabbing onto the lattice. I think this is an excellent way to guide the cucumber plant and save garden space.

cucumbersonlattice

We have limited garden space this year as I didn’t have the energy I was hoping for and didn’t get to triple our garden size. It just got too hot to soon and I was done for.

Maybe this fall my son will help me remove enough sod from the yard and we can increase the garden size for the next season.

I really like the idea of using a lattice to guide creeping plants. It may even work for our zucchinis

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Simple Tomato Growing Tips

A scanned red tomato, along with leaves and fl...
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Tomatoes are herbaceous plants that are easiest to grow and they are largely seen growing abundantly in most home gardens. For the reasons that they are very popular, useful and nothing can beat the taste of a fresh grown home tomato. This article will reveal some salient information on simple tomato growing tips. And if you need to know about these tips, then read this. There are a lot of things you can do to succeed in your tomato gardening and here are some helpful tips you can try to achieve best tasting tomatoes from your own garden.

When you are setting up your tomato bed, try adding horticultural corn meal at about two pounds for every 10 by 10 foot area. Adding horticultural corn meal will make the soil healthy as well as your tomato plant can be protected against fungal diseases.

You can also add two pounds of dried molasses for every 100 sq. feet of bed soil to minimize fungi from attacking, as well as to add up more nutrients in the soil. Furthermore, planting marigold together with your tomatoes does not only add up to the appearance but it will aid in reducing the number of harmful nematodes in the soil. Aside from marigold, you can also plant some chives and basil around your tomatoes to get rid of insects.

Planting other plants together with tomatoes is one best tomato growing tips but not all plant can be. Avoid planting potatoes near your tomatoes because potatoes can bring bacterial wilt. If your tomatoes need extra support, you can tie them up and it is advisable to cut the hose into 2 inches wide strips to prevent the stems from pinching when you tie them.

Furthermore, have your tomato garden watered early in the morning. And when you do watering, avoid pouring water from the top because tomatoes are not that strong. The best water system is the drip irrigation and if you are unlucky enough to have one, you can re-use some old cans by punching some holes in the side. Bury the old cans until it reaches their necks closer to your tomatoes, and slowly pour water into the cans so the water will be slowly gives off into the soil.

When you aren’t aware of the best harvest time, wait until the last possible time to harvest your tomatoes to give them ample time to ripen on the vine. But if you can’t wait, place them in a paper bag after harvesting and store them in a dark cool place. Sunlight is not needed in the ripening of tomatoes. And lastly, select healthy tomato seeds in starting your garden and find the best planting season and spot. Take your time in your tomato gardening and be guided with this simple tomato growing tips.

Linda H. Stephens is a well-experienced gardener who discovered a lot of secrets on how to grow big, juicy, and quality tomatoes and helped other people through specific <a href=”http://www.supertomatogrowingsecrets.com/tomato-growing-tips/”>tomato growing tips</a>. She compiled all her knowledge about growing quality tomatoes in her book “SUPER Growing Secrets: The Perfect Guide To Growing Quality Tomatoes” for other people’s benefit. To learn more about growing quality tomatoes, visit her website <a href=”http://www.supertomatogrowingsecrets.com/”>http://www.supertomatogrowingsecrets.com</a>.

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Not Impressed With Using Beer To Get Rid of Slugs

Øl (bud light beer) og snaps
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Well I decided to give using beer to get rid of slugs but the first night I put out a container of beer our neighbour drank it, okay that’s not really true. But it did rain so hard that the beer all washed out and all that remained in the morning was a container of H2O.

Bad luck or timing so I decided to give it another try. This time I checked the weather forecast and it was clear so I filled the container again and went to bed.

I came out this morning and the container was still full of beer but no slugs at all. What a waste of two perfectly good beers. But I thought later that maybe our slugs were picky and didn’t care for Bud Light beer.

Anyways I can’t see using beer and having to keep a supply just to get slugs drunk.

I went out and bought an eco-friendly slug bait called Slug-B-Gon and just finished putting it out. I will wait and see if the damage in my garden stops now.

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