Let’s Talk about Gardening!

Earth Child asked:


I need to do a controlled experiment where I remove co2 from a closed area.

I can’t gain access to soda lime, but will gardening lime, pickling lime, or something else work?

JEFFERY

Michelle asked:


For example : container gardening, organic gardening, hydroponics, landscaping or creating a japanese garden. I know there are alot of free information in the internet bt too sre whether they are accurate or able to help gardeners in general. Do you think people will buy these kind of ebooks

EUGENIO

Anna Hart asked:


Every spring, whether northern or southern hemisphere, many people begin to think about gardening. Some have been gardening every year since they were old enough to help in the family garden back of the house. Others have begun gardening only recently. Most have questions, though.

How to make an organic garden is a question that arises more frequently these days, as people become more concerned about health issues. They want to know that the produce they are eating is good for their health and safe for their families to eat. They want to begin an organic garden.

Many books have been written about how to make an organic garden, and we cannot compete with them in one article, but we offer here 7 basic steps for beginners.

How to Make an Organic Garden - Step #1

Begin your organic garden by learning your plant hardiness zone. You will need to know your climate, and what organic produce will grow best there. If you live in the United States, you can access the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map on many gardening sites or seed websites. Planting directions on seed packets are based on the average last frost date. The last frost date for your area will be the last spring day when you might have a killing frost.

How to Make an Organic Garden - Step #2

After you have determined your local climate, it is time to choose a location on your property for your organic garden. The area most convenient to your back door may not be the best for an organic garden. Look for a location that never has standing water. Your plants need good soil drainage. Check to see if the plants will be protected from the wind. Will your organic garden be close to water so you can easily care for it?

How to Make an Organic Garden - Step #3

Next, you will need to test the soil for your organic garden. In the U.S., check online for your county or state Home/Agricultural Extension Service. They will guide you in taking soil samples from different areas of the location you chose for your organic garden. Be sure you label each sample of soil as to part of the garden, and send it to be analyzed. This analysis will help you know what to add to the soil for a great harvest. Remember, one of the basic things you will do in your organic garden is to feed the soil so the soil can feed the plants.

How to Make an Organic Garden - Step #4

Order seeds, using information about your climate and soil. Be sure you order certified organic seed so that you can have an authentic organic garden. A good online seed supply source is Main Street Seed and Supply. You can buy as little as a teaspoon of seed for a small organic garden, or pounds of organic seed for farming. While ordering seeds, be sure to include onions, garlic, and marigold flowers. These plants can be a first line of defense in an organic garden’s pest control program.

How to Make an Organic Garden - Step #5

While you wait for your seeds to arrive, you need to prepare the organic garden bed. If there is grass growing in the location, removed it first. Use a sharp, flat-edged spade to slice out the sod. Shake off as much soil as you can, and remove the grass from the area. Till the soil to a depth of about 12″, and work in organic fertilizer, checking your soil analysis to know what amendments are needed.

How to Make an Organic Garden - Step #6

If you have organic seedlings to plant, water them well the day before you intend to plant them in the organic garden. The best time to set them in the garden is a still, overcast day. If you must plant on a sunny day, take care not to stress the plants more than necessary. Use the seedlings’ pots to determine how deeply to plant them.

If you are planting seeds in your organic garden, follow instructions that come with each type of seed.

How to Make an Organic Garden - Step #7

Apply organic mulch soon after planting. Mulch conserves water, cools soil, and keeps weeds at bay. If you use compost, chipped bark, shredded bark, shredded, shredded leaves, or straw, your mulch will also improve soil quality in your organic garden. Apply 2 to 4 inches of mulch, being careful not to get it too close to the plant stems. Mulch can rot the stems. It can also become a hideout for nibbling little garden mice.

Organic Garden Tip:

Label your plant rows and keep a record of your garden’s progress. Save seed information for everything in your organic garden. A garden journal, with photos throughout the gardening season, will help you know what you want to repeat or change in next year’s organic garden.



SHAWN

BabyDeer27 asked:


Mother’s Day is coming up and I once got my stepmother a nice kit with pots and seeds to grow her own flowers, preferably tulips as they are her favorite. I cannot recall where I purchased this and cannot find anything alike on the usual flower websites. Any other gardening gift ideas would be appreciated as well.

GREGORY

Ashley asked:


I live in TN. So, far we have had about 2 weeks of warm weather (60s & 70s) before spring even set in. Last year, our winter ended right around this time also unlike past decade where cold weather ( < 60F) would last through April. So, should I wait a little longer or can I go ahead and start my flower gardening now?

DELBERT

Nigel asked:


A beautiful garden is one of the most sort after additions to any home. A beautiful garden takes many hours of dedication and hard work but can be achieved by not only gardening experts but beginners as well. One of the most important gardening tips for any avid gardener is to have good gardening advice. Below are some basic gardening tips to get you started on creating your dream garden.

Gardening Tip 1. Consider your plants health as well as your own. Ensure you keep yourself well hydrated whilst gardening. As most gardening is done in the sun, involves physical labour and is very engrossing, it is easy to work away for hours on end without noticing the time flying by. Keep drinking lots of fluids and make sure you are wearing adequate sun cream and a hat. Your garden will only suffer if you are in bed for a few days with dehydration or sun stroke. Remember, skin cancer is still one of the top killers so dress appropriately.

Gardening Tip 2. Design your garden before you start digging. Your time and energy is precious so don’t start digging holes and planting plants without having a garden design first. You may choose to employ a professional garden designer or you may just want to draw your desired garden on a piece of paper yourself, depending on your budget. Either way if you have a plan of what you are doing and what you want to plant where, you will save yourself many back breaking hours digging and planting unnecessarily.

Gardening Tip 3. Make a list of the tools and materials you will need. After creating your garden design, list the tools and materials that are required to create your masterpiece. You may need specialist equipment like heavy earth moving machinery that needs to be hired and booked in advance or you may wish to plant exotic plants that need to be ordered and grown specially. You don’t want to get half way through your project only to find you cannot get a piece of equipment on hire for 2 weeks. When this happens it is very frustrating and can sometimes hold up the entire job.

Gardening Tip 4. Plan your gardening activities with small tasks and regular breaks.

You will no doubt be full of enthusiasm and excitement about your new gardening project but do not over do it. Gardening is an extremely good method of exercise and is good for your health as you are outside in the sun and fresh air. Make sure you break your activities into small achievable tasks and take breaks in between those activities. This way you will not burn yourself out and your gardening will be more enjoyable.

Gardening Tip 5. Use the correct gardening tools for the job. Some gardening tools are designed for specific tasks and can save the gardener a great deal of time. If you need to purchase gardening tools you can compare prices and makes quickly and easily over the internet. If possible purchase tools with long rubber handles as they are easier on your muscles and joints as they are less prone to jarring.

Gardening Tip 6. Consider the maintenance requirements of your garden. Before creating your garden you need to decide how much time you want to spend in the future maintaining it. If you want an easy maintainable garden you should investigate ideas like weed suppression methods in your flower beds. This can be achieved by using a special mesh that allows water and moisture to permeate through but doesn’t allow plants (primarily weeds) to grow through. Bark mulch is another good method of weed suppression and gives your flower beds a professional and natural look.

Gardening Tip 7. Choose the correct plants for your gardens location. Some plants are very choosey about where they live. Some like hot weather and lots of sunshine, whilst other plants prefer a cool, shaded and moist environment. Before purchasing your garden plants do some research on whether those plants or plant types will grow in the location in which you are going to plant them. If the plant does not like where it is planted it will be stunted in height and of poor appearance and in the worst case will die. Probably not the look you are after.

Gardens can become the show piece and social gathering point of many homes and communities. No matter where you live or what type of garden plants you like with some basic planning and design you can create a wonderful garden that you and your family and friends can enjoy for many years to come. The most important thing about creating your garden is that you enjoy yourself whilst doing it.



GARLAND

Organic Gardener asked:


Ten basic rules for gardening 

Rule #1 - Buy plants from a very reputable source–I prefer nurseries over discount stores and warehouse stores. 

Rule #2 - Select plants that will grow in your climate–consider your high and low temperatures. 

Rule #3 - Plant your plants in the right place in your yard–sun-loving plants in the sun, shade-loving plants in the shade. 

Rule #4 - Provide your plants with complete nutrition. Most fertilizers and plant foods don’t. Spray-N-Grow and Bill’s Perfect Fertilizer provide major and minor elements identified by botanists as necessary for plant growth and production. 

Rule #5 - Water your plants properly. 

Rule #6 - Keep your plants bug free. Look for bugs on your plants as often as possible. Apply an organic and environmentally friendly bug killer if necessary. 

Rule #7 - Watch for plant disease. Spray your plants with Physan 20 or Serenade if you see any wilting, black spots, etc. 

Rule #8 - Weed around your plants or use All Down Organic Weed and Grass Kill or Burnout Weed and Grass Killer. 

Rule #9 - Deer, rabbits, squirrels and other animals may try to feast on your plants. If you see evidence of munching, use a humane animal repellants. It may take a little detective work to figure out what type of hungry animal is invading your garden. 

Rule #10 - Gardening is a physical activity–take care of yourself. Wear a hat and gloves. Use sunscreen and watch for stinging insects. Use safe products–many common gardening products are not organic or all natural. To buy garden products mentioned in this article, visit Spray-N-Grow’s website ( http://www.spray-n-growgardening.com ). Their garden products are safe for people, plants and pets.



DARIUS

Anna Hart asked:


Organic gardening has increasingly become an important part of the curriculum in schools around the world. Teachers at every grade level find themselves teaching it to students, and sometimes being called on to give a speech to a group of parents. As a career educator and principal, I know the difficulty of opening up time for speech preparation, and offer this organic gardening speech for your use. Feel free to edit it to fit your needs.

Organic Gardening Speech

How selfish are you? On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, how selfish would you rate yourself? If you are the least bit selfish, you might be interested in organic gardening.

An organic gardening speech might seem more appropriate coming from a Home Economics teacher, but I am just selfish enough that I love organic gardening. I want to share that love with you and with your children.

Imagine

I want you to come with me, in imagination, to a time and place before the Industrial Revolution. The year is 1707. It is late summer. We find ourselves walking the streets of a small town. Houses are spaced well apart for privacy. Land stretches out behind each house. As we look, we notice that much of that land is taken up by gardens. Here and there, we see both adults and children actively engaged in gardening. The plants are beautiful.

You call to one of the adults and ask what they use to make the garden so lush. A broad smile breaks, and through the smile come the words, “Feed the soil, and the soil will feed the plants.”

You shake your head. Poor people. Too bad they don’t know about that miracle combination of chemicals you saw advertised on TV last week. That’s the easy way to grow spectacular plants!

Dinner

The organic gardener invites us to join them for the evening meal, and we accept. At dinner, we join in the prayer of thanks, and then watch in amazement as the children, one after another, begin eating fresh vegetables.

You yourself are not that fond of vegetables, but you politely take a small serving of each. You bite into a leaf of steamed cabbage, and your eyes open wide in amazement. It is sweet - twice as sweet as the cabbage you buy at your local market! You watch a small child fill his mouth with dark green kale, and shudder. There’s a small spoonful of the nasty vegetable on your own plate, and you pick at it, putting a single small leaf in your mouth. Amazing! It, too, is twice as sweet as any kale you ever ate. The same seems true of every vegetable on the table. You decide that if your supermarket vegetables were this good, you would eat a lot more of them.

Our imaginary trip ends at that dinner table, and we return to the present.



Organic Gardening’s Benefits

Organic gardening has many benefits. If you are completely selfish, you will want those benefits for yourself. If you are unselfish, you will want those benefits for your family. Let me give you just three of organic gardening’s benefits.

1. Taste: Organic gardening has been proven to produce tastier fruits and vegetables. A Hong Kong study measured Brix levels, the percentage of sugar in plant juices, using produce from organic gardening and from non-organic gardening. The results showed that organic gardening produced produce that was 2 to 4 times as sweet as that produced by non-organic gardening. Sweeter fruits and vegetables are tastier, and easier to eat, whether you are a young person or an adult. Organic gardening helps us eat better by providing tastier fruits and vegetables.

2. Nutrition: Organic gardening has also been found to provide nutritionally superior produce. Virginia Worthington, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, compared the composition of vegetables grown simultaneously under different farming conditions. Her work included 41 studies with 1,240 comparisons of 35 vitamins and minerals. Worthington found that organic gardening produced vegetables and fruits that were higher in most minerals and vitamins than those from non-organic gardening. Not only that, organic gardening produce was lower in potentially harmful nitrates, which result from nitrogen fertilizers. Dr. Worthington concluded that produce from organic gardening is nutritionally superior. You and your family will enjoy better health with fruits and vegetables from organic gardening. (Effect of Agricultural Methods on Nutritional Quality: A Comparison of Organic with Conventional Crops, Virginia Worthington MS, ScD, CNS, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1998, Alternative Therapies, Volume 4, 1998, pages 58-69)

3. Exercise: Finally, organic gardening offers you and your children regular daily exercise in the outdoors. Organic gardening helps you build muscles, especially important core muscles. Organic gardening gets you into the sunlight where you can absorb essential vitamin D. Organic gardening is a great stress management tool. Organic gardening gives you an outlet for creativity. It provides satisfaction as you see your work produce useful fruits, herbs, and vegetables.

We could talk about the aesthetic pleasures of organic gardening - how beautiful that garden might become. We could talk about how you can save money with organic gardening - growing your produce instead of purchasing.

Finally, we could talk about how important it is for our children to learn about organic gardening, to embrace it as the way to better health, and to practice it with school, home, and community gardens.

An organic gardening speech could go on for hours, but I’m going to stop here, hoping that I have whetted your appetite enough that you will seek out more information on organic gardening.

Helpful Tip for Speech-givers

A few large bowls of beautiful organic produce can be set on the platform or around the room to help visual learners picture organic gardening.



DANIEL

lindabouma asked:


I wear a ballcap but that doesn’t really help. Is there a spray or homeopathic solution to get these pesky insects away from me when I am outside working in the grass and garden? I live in the mountains. They arrive in late spring and don’t leave until early October. It makes it almost impossible to stay outdoors.Our township does not have community spray for the area.

PATRICK

Cris Ramasasa asked:


HOW TO ESTABLISH  URBAN GARDEN FOR FUN AND PROFIT 

Urban gardening is ideal in the city or town where your space for planting is limited. If you’re employed in the city and you’ve no time to go to the province to do your farming activities, then urban gardening is best for you. 

Benefits you can get from urban gardening: 

It could be therapeutic. Tending your plants early in the morning or after office hours relieves you from stress in the workplace and in the home.  It could be enjoyable. When you see your plants with attractive flowers and vigorous growth, your imagination wanders like you’re in heaven with a happiness and satisfaction you can’t explain.  Generate additional income. You can sell your extra plants to others if you think they are surplus for your personal needs. The city is a ready market because there are plenty of people and there’s the purchasing power.  Reduce waste accumulation. You can recycle used materials such as; tin cans and plastics, sachets, tin foils  for potting, Styrofoam for seed boxes, biodegradable products for composting, and others. 

Strategies in Urban Gardening 

Select the right crops to grow, depending on the purpose or purposes of going into urban gardening.  Identify a particular target market if you’re into commercial production.  Develop your own passion or specialization and concentrate on that line.  You can rent or borrow vacant lot.  You can use your roof top if you have any.  You can create plant boxes along your fence and walkways.  You can grow plants in pots and other containers. 

What kind of plants are ideal for urban gardening 

You can grow all kinds of plants from fruits, vegetables, and ornamentals. 

Fruits. You can grow fruits if not in the ground, you can plant them in containers, e. g. citrus, guava, lemon, balimbing, etc.  Vegetables. Many varieties can be grown both in the ground and in containers.  Ornamentals. There are many types of ornamentals you can grow, depending on your target market, capital required, and your inclination in urban gardening. 

Requirements you need to know in urban gardening 

Before you enter into urban gardening, strictly observe the following requirements in order to be successful: 

Water. Water is the most important item for any kind of plant. Without it, your gardening activities will be amiss. You have to consider the cost and continuous availability of water.  Soil media. If you intend to grow your plants in containers, soil or potting media are important. You should have available supply of it all the time.  Source of pots and containers. Try to know where to get the cheaper source and continuous supply for pots germinating trays of different hole sizes, and containers.  Tools and implements. All of these should be at hand for your gardening activities, such as shovel, hoe, pick mattock, spade, trowel, sprayer, tractor (with accessories for bigger areas), and others.  Manpower. Provide yourself with available workers to help you in the garden. Though you can do it yourself, but at least there is one you can trust to tend your plants when you’re out for some other business.  Materials and seeds. See to it that you have available of these materials and seeds in your nursery such as; seeds and other planting materials. Get your planting materials from reputable source or certified seed suppliers. 

Improving unsuitable soil 

When your place is stony or adobe and you think there is no more hope for the plant o grow, don’t panic, there is still remedy to improve it. The strategies to undertake are:

 Look for plants that will grow in rocks or adobe stones (rock gardening). There are plants that grow vigorously on rock such; balete tree, some cactus species, etc). Arrange them in such a way that they will not compete with space and sunlight. Add garden soil or organic material such as manure, compost, and others. You can make holes on the rock just enough to hold the soil media in place for specific plants. For larger plants you can make bigger holes so that more soil media may be placed to sustain the growing period of the plants. Look for possible sources. 

How to earn profits from your urban garden 

There are so many ways you can promote your urban garden to make it known to the public and earn you a profit. 

The following tips can enhance your promotional strategies: 

Attend garden shows or trade fairs. You can bring and  display your exotic plants in the garden shows or trade fairs so the customers will see them. Display your gardens’ name, location, proximity to the market, and plants grown.  Publish in all media outlets. Submit pictures of your garden and plants in magazines, TV, Internet, and newspapers to have a wider dissemination to the reading public.  By word-of-mouth. Often times you invite some visitors for some special occasions like; birthdays, get together, Christmas parties, or any occasions you may establish.   Show to your guests your beautiful urban garden plants. You may give them as a  token out of your plants and tell them your plants are for sale if they have some friends interested to buy plants from you at discounted price. Send brochures of your urban garden to gardening sites. Invite site owners to help you promote your urban garden plants for a percentage fee say 50-60% for the gross sale of your plants. This methods is called affiliates, resellers or partners wherein both of you earns an income. A win-win strategy.  Accept consultancy or speaker ship.   As an expert you can accept consultancy in symposia to those interested in urban gardening. While at this event you can insert your garden in your talks. You can tell your audience about your urban garden, what plants are grown and they are for sale. You may also bring with you your sample plants to the events and sale or give them to your audience. 

In urban gardening you can enjoy the work in your garden, feel the freshness of the surroundings because of the smell of sweet flowers, the vigorous growth of your plants, and at the same time it can provide you with additional income. 

Enjoy urban gardening and let your expertise flourish for the benefit of others while giving you fresh vegetables and fresh flowers. Above all gives you an income out of your plants. 

Come on, stretch out your aching back and body and let the soil and plants in your garden provide the solution to relieve your pain and at the same time earn you an additional income. 

What about that, are you serious in urban gardening? 

Then, come on let’s go, roll out your sleeves. 

 

Cris Ramasasa, Freelance writer, writes about home gardening and Internet marketing tips. You can get a copy of his latest ebook “How to get started in Flower Gardening” and “Vegetable Gardening Made Easy” and also get lots of tips, Free articles, and bonuses at: www.crisramasasa.com

 

 

 

 

 



TERENCE