A garden is more than just a way to decorate. It is also more than just something people with green thumbs can do. A garden provides the person who has put time into it a way of finding tranquility, peace, and a feeling of appreciation of life. When one is good at gardening, the rewards are outstanding.
You can use the wooden handles of your tools as measurement sticks. Tools with long handles, such as rakes, shovels or hoes can work as great measuring sticks. Put the handles down and measure them with a measuring tape. Label the distances with a permanent marker. Next time you are working in the garden, you will have a large ruler at your fingertips!
Baking Soda
If you notice powdery mildew on your plants, do not buy an expensive chemical. Mix a solution of baking soda, water, and a tiny bit of dishwashing liquid. You then want to spray this mixture on your plants one time a week until you notice the mildew disappear. Baking soda will bring no damage to your plants, and will treat the mildew in a gentle and efficient manner.
Use the correct type of soil for best results. Depending on what type of plants you have, your soil may or may not be adapted. It’s also possible to make a fabricated area that contains only one type of soil.
Using natural materials in the garden will keep pests away. A good way to keep slugs away is to create a border with onions around a garden with vegetables. Marigolds would do this trick as well. Another way to get rid of pests is to spread wood ash at ground level around shrubs and tree plantings. Using these methods eliminates your need of chemical pesticides.
Be sure to buy a wheelbarrow and a kneeling stool that you can use for your garden. Spending too much time on the ground working can be quite hard on your knees, and a gardening stool can help alleviate this, plus make things more comfortable for you. Gardening also typically involves transporting bags of topsoil, fertilizer and other heavy items, so using a wheelbarrow to make these tasks easier is a sound investment for your garden, and your back.
Tend to a garden as a way to relax. There are countless ways that people find to relax. Gardening is fun, and it is definitely one of the best ways to achieve this state. It doesn’t require a lot of cash up front, but pays major dividends. Perhaps the most rewarding aspect is the sense of peace and calm that comes from nurturing your plants.
Top all your garden beds with several inches of organic mulch. Covering the beds with mulch serves multiple purposes; it helps the flowers by retaining moisture and adding nutrients, and it discourages the growth of unwanted plants. In addition, your flower beds will have a beautiful, finished appearance year round.
It is common knowledge that grounds from brewed coffee are good for soil. Coffee grounds have nitrogen that plants will utilize. The more nitrogen you have in the soil, the greater the growth of your plants will be, so adding grounds or compost will ensure your plants grow large very quickly.
When you’re making a compost pile, you should use fresh and dried plants to get it started. When you pull weeds from your garden, throw them in the compost. The same goes for vegetable trimmings and grass clippings. These are considered green materials. For the dry end of the spectrum, think of things like paper and cardboard, sawdust, hay, etc. Avoid meat, ashes, charcoal, plants with diseases and manure from carnivores.
Use a beer trap to capture slugs and stop them from eating your plants. Place a jar into the soil so that the top of it’s mouth rests parallel with the soil. Pour enough beer into the jar to fill it below an inch from the top. Slugs are attracted by the beer and won’t be able to exit the jar once they enter.
Use mulch to enhance the health of your soil. Mulch acts as a protective shield for the soil it covers. On hot days, mulch insulates the ground, keeping it cool and protecting your plants’ roots. It will also stop the soil from losing it’s moisture in the hot sunlight. It will also serve as a method of controlling unwanted weeds.
When checking out tomatoes to buy, do a bit of poking in the soil. Oftentimes, tomato seedlings that show verdant green starts have poor roots. Reason being, these kinds of starts stay attached to the seedlings for many weeks, which causes the seedlings to not grow until the starts are gone.
If you want to consistently grow healthy tomatoes, wait three weeks between planting each set. Doing this will cause your harvest to come in at differing times, allowing you to gather up the majority of them and cut your losses. If one crop is ruined for some reason, the next one will be healthy.
If you’ve spent even a little time gardening, you’re probably well aware of how beneficial compost can be, but how much do you know about what it contains? Compost is actually a mixture of grass clippings, wood-chips, leaves, produce scraps, twigs, and straw which all breaks down to “psuedo-soil”. It is recommended that you use this compost in place of commercial fertilizer on your organic garden.
Know what to look for when choosing plants for your organic garden. This is especially important when buying annual or perennial plants. Purchase plants that have budded, but have not yet fully bloomed. This is how your new plants can a begin a strong network of roots.
Use this article to revive your garden. You will be rewarded by healthy plants full of life. Horticulture can have a powerful effect on your life, so give it a try.