Bacteria, protozoa, fungi – while the wrong kind can make you sick, what a lot of people don’t realize is that not having enough of the right kind can make your plants very unhappy.
Soil isn’t just made up of dirt. It’s a blend of organic and inorganic materials and living organisms that provide your garden with the nutrients it needs. Most plants can’t just use the components in fertilizers straight from the ground. For the bulk of trees, flowers and vegetables, microbes and other friendly helpers in the dirt are needed to convert the vitamins, minerals and even water into a usable form. Without those little critters, plants do poorly.
So what does this mean for your garden? Have you ever tilled the garden until you got the dirt to be nice and loose? Then you dumped in some fertilizer and planted, only you didn’t get the amazing results you’d hoped for? What you don’t realize is, that by tilling heavily, you may have actually disturbed/destroyed what good bacteria, microbes, and other living organisms and soil structure those plants actually needed to thrive. Read the rest of this entry »
Do you have trouble figuring out where you should put your plants? Do you put them in the garden and just hope for the best, which, if you’re like me, is practically a death sentence for each poor plant?
While surfing Amazon.com , I came across this nifty little gadget that looks like it was created with just me in mind: THE EASYBLOOM. Check it out:
How It Works
1. Set It
Plug the EasyBloom Plant Sensor into a USB port–you will be brought to your My EasyBloom Dashboard page. Put the sensor into Recommend or Monitor mode.
2. Place Sensor
Place the sensor in a spot where you would like to grow a plant, or adjacent to the plant that needs monitoring. Let the EasyBloom Plant Sensor gather a ‘plant’s eye’ view of that location.
Every year, I can’t wait for the end of June, beginning of July, as that’s when our sweet cherry tree goes to town.
When we moved into our house, it was the dead of winter, with snow on the ground, and not a tree in sight had leaves, so we had no idea what kind of fruiting or flowering we could look forward to come spring.
Imagine our surprise the first summer to see that we had a sweet cherry tree! (My absolute favorite fruit! Give me a bing cherry or 300, and I’m a happy – and bloated – puppy. I also adore blueberries, raspberries, Thompson green grapes and raw English snap peas, but if I could only have one, it would be the cherries hands-down.)
And given the prices of cherries these days, up to $8 or $9 a lb., having my very own tree is heaven!
I don’t know about you, but I love Japanese gardens, both the rock garden style and the more lush traditional type. The simplicity and tranquility of Japanese gardens help me still my mind after a busy day. With just a few simple items and plants, strategically placed, you can have an area of beauty and restfullness and it doesn’t take a lot of space to achieve it.
Japanese rock gardens (karesansui) can go on a desk, in a small space in a corner of a yard, or can be created to take advantage of a large lot. It’s up to you how much space you want to devote to yours. They vary anywhere from very austere (rocks and sand only) to ones with a few plants added in. The traditional Japanese garden adds water features, decorations and many more plants. Whichever type you choose is only limited by your imagination (and budget). Read the rest of this entry »
Now that’s one way to combine two things I need to do: get both me and my garden in shape!
This book focuses on keeping the gardener fit and flexible, which can only help improve our garden. I mean, how great do your plants grow when your back is too out of whack to bend over to get those pesky weeds out of their way?
The GET FIT THROUGH GARDENING book gives you all sorts of great exercises you can do while working on your garden, whether it’s a small kitchen garden or a whole acre or more. Even if you just cut the grass regularly, you can pick up some great tips on making sure your knees, neck and back don’t suffer any more than they have to to have a great garden or landscape.
If you love a good California wine, you’re not alone. Enough people enjoy California wine that there are over 1100 vineyards producing it! (They grew over 3 million tons of wine grapes just in 2008 alone…) In fact, California, if it were a country, would be the 4th largest one producing wines in the world, just after France, Italy and Spain.
While most people think of California wines as coming from the Napa or Sonoma Counties up near San Francisco, in reality, the bulk of the grapes are grown in the Central Valley (reaching from Sacramento to San Joaquin.) This area produces over 75% of the grapes grown to make California’s wines each year. Read the rest of this entry »
Q: I’ve been thinking of subscribing to some magazines, I don’t know much about gardening but I’d like to start one next spring, vegetables and flowers, and I’ll probably be planting some stuff this fall, too (tulips! maybe other stuff too?) So some magazines with lots of information and tips would be nice. I was thinking of getting Better Homes and Gardens, but I’m not sure, maybe that and another one.. Any suggestions?
This magazine has no advertisements. It has lots of great contests with small (wind chimes) and large (garden tractor) prizes. It also has lots of stories (funny and helpful) written by readers.
Backyard Living’s entire magazine is devoted to landscaping, planting, and gardening, while Better Homes and Gardens also features indoor decorating and cooking, as well as some self-improvement articles. It isn’t as gardener-intense as Backyard Living.
I am a landscaper/planter/gardener by hobby, and Backyard Living is a “never throw away” magazine!
Another poster suggested Birds and Blooms. This is also an excellent “no advertisement” magazine; I believe it’s published by the same folks that do Backyard Living and Taste of Home.
Q: Getting married August, so having a garden party at our own home. I have brought two Marques and have thought about balloons and ribbons, but really have no ideas…have thought about a dance area, but will it not be difficult to dance on grass???? Any decorating ideas or tips would be much appreciated as the web seems empty.
A: Unless someone is ballroom dancing, or tap dancing… dancing on grass is fine. Plus, 1/2 of the women in the group will be grateful for a reason to take off their shoes. As far as decorations go… balloons strike me as "Birthday Party" or "Retirement Party" or "Real Estate Open House Party". Not worthy of a wedding, the embarkment on a new life. Ribbons (if they aren’t plastic) draped along stairways and fences would be nice. Candles in an enclosed vase on each table is nice, assuming you will have tables. Even inexpensive flowers like daisies can look gorgeous depending on the arrangement.
If you are getting married in the evening or having the reception after dark, you can use inexpensive white Christmas lights on the trees and bushes to create an air of mystery and fantasy. Once people are actually at the garden party… they really won’t care about the decorations., particularly if you have a dance area! I guess it’s a matter of what is important to the 2 of you. If you have tables, placing a disposable camera on each table is great gift… that keeps on giving. Everyone will take candid shots, and send the camera back to you! (Or that’s how it’s supposed to work). Even if you get a couple of them back, you will get some great photos of what went on during your wedding party that you didn’t possibly have time to notice! Trying to do a wedding on a budget? Check out the link below:
Q: We have an 11 week old puppy. IMPOSSIBLE to house train. When you walk him, he will wait until he returns home, then dirty in the house. It’s 50/50 if he will use the paper on the kitchen floor. He will be let out in the garden regularly, but still dirties the house. ANY IDEAS,TIPS? PRODUCTS? Will he be an impossible dog to stop being dirty in the house? We have had the puppy since he was 6 weeks old, This is NOT my first puppy. I am quite aware what’s involved in raising a puppy. However this pup is impossible in as much in the six weeks I’ve had him, he’s not showing any interest in being paper-trained using the garden area to mess in or now that he’s being walked to do so when he’s walked. ~ THANK YOU TO THOSE SO FAR WHO OFFERED UNSARCASTIC FRIENDLY ADVICE, The crate idea is useful not one I had used in the past ~ All ideas very much appreciated – I know he’s still a baby, but same is true he’s old enough to have routines put into practice. My previous and other current dogs did show some interest in at least being paper-trained by this age.
A: "Impossible" puppy? If he’s only 11 weeks, I’m not sure why you’d be saying that. When it comes to housetraining, 11 weeks is nothing at all. When you get a puppy, you need to be ready for a long, messy process. If you’re getting this frustrated with him, and he’s only 11 weeks old, I’m not sure how you expect this "having a puppy" thing to work out. Many puppies are not reliably housetrained until 4 to 6 months of age, and it could even be longer than that; some breeds are notoriously difficult to housetrain. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and have a pup that will train lighting quick, but for the most part, everything you describe is completely normal for many pups that age. Welcome to the joys of puppyhood.
Bacteria, protozoa, fungi – while the wrong kind can make you sick, what a lot of people don’t realize is that not having enough of the right kind can make your plants very unhappy. 
, I came across this nifty little gadget that looks like it was created with just me in mind: THE EASYBLOOM. Check it out:
Japanese rock gardens (.jpg)
Now that the weather is warming up again, our friendly neighborhood bees are starting to wander by our yards, helping to pollinate our plants. 
Q: We have an 11 week old puppy. IMPOSSIBLE to house train. When you walk him, he will wait until he returns home, then dirty in the house. It’s 50/50 if he will use the paper on the kitchen floor. He will be let out in the garden regularly, but still dirties the house. ANY IDEAS,TIPS? PRODUCTS? Will he be an impossible dog to stop being dirty in the house? We have had the puppy since he was 6 weeks old, This is NOT my first puppy. I am quite aware what’s involved in raising a puppy. However this pup is impossible in as much in the six weeks I’ve had him, he’s not showing any interest in being paper-trained using the garden area to mess in or now that he’s being walked to do so when he’s walked. ~ THANK YOU TO THOSE SO FAR WHO OFFERED UNSARCASTIC FRIENDLY ADVICE, The crate idea is useful not one I had used in the past ~ All ideas very much appreciated – I know he’s still a baby, but same is true he’s old enough to have routines put into practice. My previous and other current dogs did show some interest in at least being paper-trained by this age. 
