Happy Accidents

One of the most exciting aspects of being part of a start up is the culture. The culture that says, we can do anything. We are going to beg forgiveness instead of asking for permission. It’s a pioneering attitude and, well, it leads to a lot of mistakes. Perhaps “mistake” isn’t the right work. The connotation is too negative. They are more accidents. Happy accidents.

Click to Read the Latest at San Diego Business Journal

We’ll keep plowing ahead on our mission to create a friendly future. In the meantime, you can read all about our latest… accident… in the San Diego Business Journal.

Let us know what you think the comments and don’t forget to connect with us on Facebook or Twitter.

Cheap Raised Garden Beds

 

San Diego may have amazing weather, great tourism, and a laid back vibe, but what it does not have is quality soil. Aside from the river bed in mission valley, the landscape here is primarily decomposed granite or clay. Not exactly the most hospitable, inviting environment to grow healthy vegetable plants. Well, any plants for that matter. What this means is that growing your vegetables in cheap raised garden beds is the most attractive prospect. Not only do cheap raised garden beds allow you to blend a specific amount of soil with a high-quality fertilizer like Native Soil, the basic rectangular beds make optimizing the square footage an easy task. Length multiplied by width.

Whoever said we’d never need geometry after high school?

In most cases building cheap raised garden beds is as easy as a few stakes and a few fence boards, but there are multiple ways to skin a cat. I’ve compiled several different video tutorials here to get you started on your own cheap raised garden beds.

Truly Cheap Raised Garden Beds

The Crafty Gemini is a woman after my own heart. In this tutorial, she shows us how to build square garden beds for under $15. When you keep the cost of your bed down, you can afford to spend more time, energy and money on making sure the growing medium, the soil, is extremely nutrient dense. One of the aspects of Native Soil that we really like is that it is extremely water soluble, meaning the nutrients are available to plants right away. With a $15 garden bed and Native Soil you could see your starts producing almost immediately.

High-Quality Raised Garden Beds

My raised garden beds were test beds; never meant to look this nice.  Take the time to build relatively cheap garden beds that will stand up to the harsh weather. These beds are using higher quality lumber which means they should last several seasons at the very least.

Neighbor Friendly Garden Beds

My neighbors take extreme pride in their front yards. So much pride that they are quick to tell me when I’m creating an eye sore in my own front yard. When we’re trying to maximize our square footage available for food, I like to include the front yard. Unfortunately, my neighbors don’t always appreciate the DIY ethic I embody. Every cheap raised garden bed project is not appropriate for every yard. Not even ones with high quality treated lumber. This stone border garden achieves the desired square footage for vegetable growing and is easy on the eyes.

Get Out There and Grow

Once you find the right project for your space, get out there and grow. Send us pictures of your progress. The urban gardening movement is extremely exciting. Get out there and plant something.

Join our Email List to learn more about backyard urban vegetable gardening.

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Grow A 6 Foot Tomato Plant With A Garden Infrastructure Plan

While Upcycle and Company creates sustainably sourced fertilizer from upcycled waste that is dynamite, we know it isn’t the only piece to the puzzle. One of the most popular vegetables to grow in any backyard or patio garden is the humble, yet versatile, tomato. With its lycopene density, not only is it one of the easiest plants to start with, it is also extremely healthy. As a vining plant, it needs more direction than a toddler, so garden infrastructure is an important part of garden planning.

Garden Infrastructure

The guys over at Grow It Now Garden Products have some of the easiest to implement garden infrastructure that we have seen. This is obviously a step or two above building your own raised garden bed in an hour. While we support the DIY ethic, we also understand it isn’t for everyone.

If growing is really your ultimate goal outcome, you might consider ordering a prefabricated kit. Watch the video below to learn how to grow a six foot tomato plant using the right technique. Native Soil Fertilizer is essentially the afterburner in this engine. While we are focused primarily on tomatoes here, a more comprehensive infrastructure plan might be the next step.

How to Get Started

Hello this is Russel Smith with Grow it Now Garden Products. I am here with you today in my backyard garden to talk about how to grow a six foot tall tomato plant. In one of my previous episodes I planted this tomato plant. What I did was I buried it deep. I dug a hole about two feet deep. I buried my tomato plant in there so that only about six inches was sticking up out of the ground. And then I put an eleven inch miniature greenhouse over that. Staked it down. And then I put the eighteen inch miniature greenhouse over that.

Add a Little Sun

What those do is they add heat to the plant so it stimulates plant growth. And since I’ve done that video and shared it with the gardening community I have had a lot of questions come back and the questions are what do I do with the plant when it grows out of the eleven inch miniature greenhouse? Do I take both of them off? And the answer to that is no. Only take the eleven inch miniature greenhouse off and then leave the eighteen inch miniature greenhouse over top of it, until it grows out of the eighteen inch miniature greenhouse.

In this case, that was as far as I went. On some of my other tomato plants I actually went to a thirty-six inch miniature greenhouse and added even more growth and plant stimulation to the plant. In that case you are going to have to make sure you come in and shake the plant in order to get the pollination. So with this one, that was the secret sauce.

mini greenhouses are an integral part of any garden infrastructure plan that yields enormous results
Photo by raludwick

I dug the hole, buried it deep so that only six inches were sticking out of the ground, put my eleven inch miniature greenhouse over it and then the eighteen inch miniature greenhouse over that. Since that video I have also had the question well what do you do for fertilizer? So here’s my secret to fertilizing. Since I’m getting in the ground early, I’m planting my tomatoes early and I’m trying to push the season with the miniature greenhouses.

I like to prepare my garden in the fall for spring planting. So what I’ll do every fall is I put four to six inches of cow manure overtop of the garden and then I till it in really deep. So that is one of the things that I use to fertilize.

#NOrganic Fertilizer

[Editor’s Note] This next section Russel discusses the fertilizer blends he used to achieve this result. Native Soil is an off the shelf fertilizer that meets these criteria. We firmly believe that our sustainably sourced blend is better than “certified organic.”  Our future friendly fertilizer blend is as important as any physical garden infrastructure.

The other thing I use to fertilize is I’ll use a dilute solution of fertilizer. Off the shelf fertilizer. So that is a nonorganic way, and then I mix it with other organic fertilizers. So I experiment both ways. If you are a new gardener I would recommend starting out with an off the shelf all-purpose fertilizer and then weaning yourself off of that to a more organic fertilizer. So on this six foot tall tomato plant you can see I have a lot of tomatoes growing. I probably have fifty or so tomatoes on this plant, just going like crazy. And the other thing is that you can see the stems on these up high. Look how thick that stem is.

It is about one inch thick. Down low there is only one stem coming out of the ground and that is feeding off of a massive root base in order to support this whole tomato plant. So tip and trick, burry it deep, put the eleven inch miniature greenhouse overtop of it, eighteen inch overtop of that..

As found on Youtube

Add Native Soil to the Mix

How to Water Your Vegetable Garden for Summer Heat

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the Sun is going to set slightly earlier and the heat index is climbing steadily here in San Diego. As of the date of this publishing, California isn’t currently in a drought, but that doesn’t mean that conserving water, especially in our garden landscaping isn’t important. Saving water in all contexts is important. Vegetable gardens require a fair amount of water to ensure that the plants grow up healthy and happy. Here are some of our favorite tips for how to protect and water your vegetable garden for summer heat.

Summer requires you protect your vegetable garden for summer heat
Photo by velkr0

Water Early

This one is kind of a no-brainer but if you can get the water on the ground earlier, it has more time to absorb and takes longer to evaporate. Not to mention the plants can absorb more water if there is more water available. You want nice big juicy vegetables coming off your plants, so set an early alarm or a water timer and set it for early in the morning, preferably before dawn. If you’re using Native Soil, and I hope you are, you can use less water in general as Native Soil features high water soluble nutrient density. This means less water gives the plants more nutrients than comparable fertilizers.

Canary in the Coal Mine

squash plant photo
Photo by Leeks ‘N’ Bounds

The big leafy plants are usually the first to show signs of dehydration and other forms of distress from the heat. The broad leaves use a lot of water and more moisture is sucked out of the larger surface area. Keep a close eye on your squashes, your lettuces, and your cucumbers to find the plants that are really feeling the stress. Water your vegetable garden for summer heat the minute you see those big leaves start to wilt. That will help you dial in the proper schedule and time of day to deploy your watering.

Water Your Vegetable Garden for Summer Heat Less Frequently

This point is more about conservation so you’ll have to play around a bit to find the most useful frequency to water your vegetable garden in the heat. In most parts of San Diego, even in the summer, a heat wave doesn’t last too long and the coastal microclimates are still pretty mild. In this case, watering twice a week may be sufficient if you’re watering at the right time of day. On the other hand, if you’re in the inland valley areas of the east county, the summer heat can be both consistent and brutal. Even if you have all of your other tips and tricks employed, you may find yourself needing to water four times during the week.

Use Raised Garden Beds

Using raised garden beds aren’t just for areas with limited space and one of the great balcony garden ideas. They are also easier to saturate with water as the volume is finite. You’re not going to find random grasses, weeds, and trees leeching that precious water from your heat stressed garden. Here’s a pro-tip, combine the use of hay bails with a cheap raised garden bed. Straw is extremely water absorbent. In fact, farmers have to worry about their hay bail stacks getting wet as the chemical reaction is sufficient to heat the hay to the point of combustion. You’re not going to have it packed in that tightly, but we highly recommend growing in straw. Check out our article on building cheap raised garden beds to restructure your garden to be as resistant as possible.

At Upcycle we hope you’re able to find the right way to water your vegetable garden for summer heat. It’s a bit of a tricky learning curve, so err on too much water to start and keep an eye on those big leafy plants. There’s nothing like a backyard barbecue featuring your own home grown produce. Find your soil mate.

Garden Planner – Your Seasonal Garden

One aspect of living and working in San Diego is the ability to grow basically anything year round. We don’t really have “garden seasons” like the pour souls in other parts of the country. Our Mediterranean climate means not having to worry about little worries like frost, snow, tundra… you get the point. Even so, if you want a great garden, you need to be a master garden planner.

Just because you can grow anything at anytime doesn’t automatically mean that you should. Planning a garden is half the battle, so knowing what you want to grow and when can be a somewhat daunting task.

Garden Planner to the Rescue

We came across a great app to help out in that arena. It’s called Garden Time Planner and it will walk you through the process of growing whatever you want and give you a pretty accurate estimate of when what you’re growing will be mature.

It is region specific, so even if you’re not in California and are blessed by a mild climate, you can really dial your garden in. Terrible weather is not an excuse not to grow.

https://youtu.be/c6ZHgqoQxT0

The app is made by the Burpee company, so you know it is going to be made specifically for gardeners. Burpee has had gardeners backs from all the way back in the late 19th century. They’re synonymous with home gardens.

As you can see, the app is easy to use and really provides the specific data to ensure that your grow is going to be a hit. Aren’t smartphones wonderful?

Alternatives to Garden Planner

If smart phones and apps aren’t your style there’s nothing wrong with going analog. A simple day planner will allow you to chart your garden progress and growing timelines. There are several day planners and journals that will help you to track your growing season.

I particularly like the vegetable gardeners handbook. Its light and simple, straight forward and to the point with tons of practical advice.

 


Growing in Straw Bales

We’ve been pretty adamant at Upcycle and Company that just about anyone can be a gardener. One of the most common objections we hear from people who would love to grow their own food, but they’re convinced they don’t have space. No outside yard means no growth in their minds. Well, they couldn’t be further from the truth. How about a hay bale garden? We posted a link on Facebook this last week that shows how anything can be grown at home in hay bales.

Gardens can be planted anywhere. Even on concrete balconies or driveways.

The idea behind straw bale gardening is simple.  Plants grow in the top of the straw, which begins decomposing as soon as it gets wet. As the straw breaks down, it turns into a rich, compostable planter that’s ideal for growing vegetables.

The advantage of straw bale gardening is that you can set the bales anywhere where it’s sunny, as long as you can keep it watered.  poor soil?  it doesn’t matter.  you can even set the straw bales on a concrete driveway.
the first step – get a bale of straw.  you can find them at most garden centers and feed stores for under ten-dollars.

A hay bale garden can be placed atop nearly any surface. Just keep it wet.
Photo by Jason Riedy

Sounds like a pretty good deal. At Upcycle, we created #NativeSoil to help those without appropriate growing conditions to get out there and do some practical growing.

Prep Your Hay Bale Garden

Prepping the hay bale is a two-week process, so make sure you plan ahead. Step 1, thoroughly wet down the hay bale. From gardeners.com:

The first week

  • Water the bale thoroughly, until water runs out the bottom of the bale. Sprinkle the surface with a nitrogen source (see box), applying at the recommended rate.
  • Every other day, add more of the nitrogen source; water thoroughly. Do it a total of three times during the first week.
  • On the days you don’t apply nitrogen, just water the bales thoroughly.
  • The second week
  • For the next three days, apply the nitrogen source daily at half the original rate. Follow up with thorough watering.
  • After three days of adding nitrogen, water daily.

The last step is to add a well balanced all around fertilizer like #NativeSoil.  Since Native Soil is a slow release powdered fertilizer, the nutrients are available immediately and released slowly over the growing season. This allows you to have a one and done fertilizing philosophy. Once the hay bales begin to decay from the inside, they will begin to heat up. In roughly a week, you’re looking for an internal temperature of 75 – 80F.

At that time, the bed is primed and ready to receive your vegetable starts.

Make sure you keep your hay bale garden wet.
Photo by Doug Beckers

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that your concrete slab isn’t a great place to grow some tasty vegetables. When you’re growing in small spaces, you have to sometimes think outside the box.

The best part though? No weeds and you don’t even have to get your hands dirty.

Watch KTVB’s coverage of this hay bale garden phenomenon.

Photo by Doug Beckers

Superfood Consumption – You Really Are What you Eat

As Americans, we have developed a bad habit of not really watching what goes into our bodies as fuel. We tend to eschew this part of our daily routines. So busy that we run out of the house without eating breakfast, subsisting on coffee and donuts until the mid afternoon when we break for a lunch that ends up being pure junk. Because junk is quick. At Upcycle, we prefer to take life a little slower and make sure that we keep an eye on our superfood consumption.

Superfood Consumption Benefits

What’s more is that you can grow so many different superfoods right in your own home. You don’t have to go to the local health food store to get some fancy macrobiotic, genetically engineered frankenfood. No way. You can pull your superfoods for consumption right out of your own plants. And it’s a double whammy. While you’re saving money growing your own superfoods for consumption, the basic act of nurturing a plant from seedling to mature, produce producing, plant is mentally satisfying in its own right. Wait… that’s a triple whammy.

Recent dietary research has uncovered 14 different nutrient-dense foods that time and again promote good overall health. Coined “superfoods,” they tend to have fewer calories, higher levels of vitamins and minerals, and many disease-fighting antioxidants.

What Should I Grow?

Blueberries are a great food for beginning superfood consumptionBeans (legumes), berries (especially blueberries), broccoli, green tea, nuts (especially walnuts), oranges, pumpkin, salmon. soy, spinach, tomatoes, turkey, whole grains and oats, and yogurt can all help stop and even reverse diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and some forms of cancer. And where one might have an effect on a certain part of the body, it can also affect the health of other body functions and performance, since the whole body is connected. With these 14 foods as the base of a balanced, solid diet, weight loss gimmicks and other fly-by-night programs can become a thing of the past in your life.

Why Should I Be Consuming Superfoods?

Conversely, the ill-effects of an unbalanced diet are several and varied. An unhealthy diet causes low energy levels, mood swings, and exhaustion. Add weight change, body image issues and you’ll know your diet is unbalanced. An unbalanced diet can cause problems with maintenance of body tissues, growth and development, brain and nervous system function, as well as problems with bone and muscle systems.

Symptoms of malnutrition include lack of energy, irritability, a weakened immune system leading to frequent colds or allergies, and mineral depletion that can trigger a variety of health concerns including anemia.
And since the body is connected, realizing that an unhealthy body will result in an unhealthy spirit only makes sense. When we nourish our body with these superfoods and complement them with other nutrient-dense and healthy fresh foods, our spirit will be vitalized and healthy as a direct result.

Start Today

Don’t wait. Every day you wait is a day you’re living with your poor diet.

Many modern diets based on prepackaged convenience foods are sorely lacking in many vitamins and minerals. That vitamin deficient diet will affect our mental capacities as well. It will cause anxiety, confusion, and the feeling of ‘being in a fog’ all the time. If you’ve ever spent a day at the office where you have the mental prowess of a block of ill-treated wood, you know what brain fog is all about.superfood consumption can mitigate stress, anxiety and brain fog

As a result it is so easy and rewarding to grow your own superfood from scratch. Native Soil serves as a perfect amendment to any home garden. Urban areas, tend to have nutrient deficient soil. It is as if the soil absorbs the personality of the humans scurrying around it. Just a little bit of Native Soil to restore the soil health is a no-brainer.

Conclusion

Superfoods can be the basis of a sound, healthy, nutritious solution to curing many of these ailments and more. Don’t let another foggy day slip by. Seize the day. Get your hands dirty.

Easy Seasonal Gardening Tips for Beginner Gardeners

Gardening isn’t just fun; it also has many practical benefits. Whether veggies or flowers are your passion, the very act of creating a garden is immensely rewarding. Adding seasonal gardening to the mix will keep give you a reason to keep in your mind in harmony with the seasonal changes. It can even help with conditions like seasonal affect disorder (SAD). The information below provides a little advice and a few pointers when it comes to both your garden, and the act of growing.

Attune to Seasonal Gardening

Your plants will respond better to gradual changes of environment. Not that we have a tremendous amount of seasonal change in San Diego, but there are certainly some nuances to follow. Put the plants outside in the sun for one to two hours in the beginning. Throughout the week, you should leave your plants out for a little longer each day. By the weekend, the plants can make that big move without a problem!Healthy soil gives the seasonal seasonal gardening a leg up

Starting seedlings in pots before planting in your garden is a smart idea. This increases the chance that your plants will survive to adulthood. This method also gives you the freedom of tightening time periods between each planting. After you remove the mature plants from your garden, you can immediately replace them with the seedlings and start the cycle over again.

Start with the Basics

The first thing you can do to avoid pests is to start with healthy soil in your garden. Healthier plants are greater in strength and resistance to illness and insects. For the most vigorous and healthy plants, start with high-quality soil, and stay away from chemicals. These can accumulate salts over time. A product like Native Soil helps to balance out otherwise spent soil. Nutrient rich soil makes seasonal gardening easier in that it improves your chances of successful growth immensely.

Use biennials and annuals to beautify your flower beds. By utilizing quick-growing biennials and annuals, not only will you be brightening up your flower bed, you can also alter its look each season and each year. Use them to fill gaps between shrubs and perennials in the sun. The most popular varieties to use include petunia, zinnia, cosmos, snapdragon, marigold, hollyhock, and sunflower.

Vary Your Seasonal Gardening Plants

night blooming jasmine is a great vine for seasonal gardening
Photo by dinesh_valke

Plant vines like ivy to cover fences and dividing walls. Plants that climb are extraordinarily versatile, and can help hide an unsightly wall or fence, usually within one season. They may grow up through some existing shrubs and trees, and can even be worked to grow around an arbor. Some climbers you plant will have to be tied off and supported, but others have no problem attaching themselves to any surface using their tendrils or twining stems Some of these plants include, wisteria, jasmine, climbing roses, clematis, honeysuckle! I love the smell of night blooming jasmine in the summer time with a nice glass of lemon water on the patio.

To achieve the best growing results, plants need sufficient carbon dioxide. A high level of CO2 provides an optimum environment for growth. A greenhouse can concentrate the levels of CO2. When it is exposed to high carbon dioxide levels, a plant has the best growing condition possible.

Stick with it. Make Seasonal Gardening a Lasting Habit

Whether you have been gardening for a few days or a few decades, you must never deviate from the instructions on the labeling of all implements and chemicals. If you miss this easy step, you run the risk of harming yourself due to the chemicals that can irritate your skin. Keep your health intact and follow the directions to the letter.

Gardening is a very interesting and rewarding activity. The fruits of your time and labors fail to stop yielding, regardless of the dividends are vibrant color outside your windows or fresh foods on your kitchen table. By assimilating what you learned about gardening into your routine, you can enjoy gardening and all it has to offer.

Build A Cheap Raised Garden Bed in Under an Hour

As we like to say here at Upcycle, getting the soil chemistry right is the bedrock of gardening success. If the plants can’t get the right nutrients, there’s no way you’re going to get a healthy result. The problem is that not all soil is created equal. Here in San Diego we have massive amounts of clay and decomposed granite that can be very difficult to grow in. Luckily any novice gardener can get around this soil problem by building a cheap raised garden bed with scrap wood in under an hour.

Where to Find Your Plans

Get familiar with the website Instructables. It is the crowd sourced repository for all sorts of do it yourself projects, including, cheap and easy raised garden beds. I’m using the term “plans” very loosely here as many of the products are built using scrap wood and materials laying around the house to keep the cost low. I particularly like this builder’s take on a family project building garden beds after tearing apart a pool deck:

raised garden bed photo
Photo by ABBones

My son helped me take the railing off of the deck. He liked whacking the spindles off. It appealed to his innate 9 year old destructiveness. In 100 degree weather I stripped half of the pool deck off.

Keep the costs down by using scraps. Low cost allows any gardener to focus on their plants, not their beds. In addition to creating a garden bed, you’re cleaning up the yard. With so many options, which ones must be exercised?

What Features to Focus On

There are some universal features each gardener is going to want in their cheap raised garden bed. First is to remember that you want it to be a sealed environment so that you grow what you mean to. Meaning you want to keep all the local critters out and keep them from eating your newly grown vegetables. Don’t just build a rectangle and plop down your soil. The cheap way to keep gophers and other subterranean vermin out of your bed is to use chicken wire. Lay that chicken wire across the bottom of the bed to create a barrier between your cheap raised garden bed and whatever it is sitting on.

chicken wire photo
Photo by Nanimo

Second, if you’re putting your raised garden bed on grass or over other raw yard soil, you need to keep a barrier there as well. This one is a little bit more complicated. Get some weed barrier fabric specifically made to keep grass and other weeds from growing up through your raised garden bed. Don’t let unwanted pests, flora or fauna, choke out your garden.

Cheap, Easy and Quick

There are a ton of cheap and easy raised garden beds you can employ. Look around your yard and take inventory of what you can use. Most of all this keeps the cost of gardening down.

Photo by Sarah and Jason

Guaranteed Tips For the Novice Gardener

A novice gardener needs to remember that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. Gather some ideas for planning your garden, whether it will be for home or back yard use. You can determine all the things that you need so that you don’t waste any money on equipment that isn’t needed, or the wrong seeds for your type of environment.

Choosing the Right Plants for the Right Spaces

A great tip for the novice gardener is to plan on covering mistakes.  Long plants that run up or around a fence or wall are often useful for masking ugliness. climbing vines photo These types of plants can climb anything, which makes them perfect for covering up a wall or fence that needs to be hidden. You may also be interested in training them over an arbor or trellis. You can also grow them among existing landscape trees and plants. There are those that have to be fixed to a support, but others will find a surface to cling to all on their own through twining stems or tendrils. Some climbers that have proven to be reliable are honeysuckle, jasmine, wisteria, clematis, and climbing roses.

Make sure your soil is healthy enough before you start planting anything. A novice gardener should pay a small fee to have your soil analyzed, and you’ll be glad that you did when you understand what nutrients your soil is lacking. There are numerous places to find this service, such as your local Cooperative Extension office. A product like Native Soil can help to balance out poor soil and get the right nutrients into the garden. The cost is well worth it to avoid a potentially ruined crop.

Plant to the Right Season Accordingly

Plant cool-weather edibles in the fall. Don’t thow out your jack-o-lanterns from this week. Try using a pumpkin as a natural plant pot. You can plant fall vegetables such as lettuce in an empty pumpkin shell. After cutting an opening and removing the meat and seeds from inside the pumpkin, use Wilt-Pruf, sprayed throughout the inside and cut edges, and prevent rot from occurring. Once this is done, you are ready to plant!An emptied pumpkin is a great pot for a novice gardener to look sophisticated

Give your vegetables at least six hours of direct sunlight. Many veggies require this amount to properly grow at a faster pace. Some flowers have the same requirement for growth.

Plant with the colors of autumn in mind. That doesn’t have to be it though. When it comes to vivid foliage, autumn offers the best opportunity to view it. Maple, beech, and dogwood display colors ranging from dark crimson to light yellow. When selecting shrubs that will be colorful during the fall, consider hydrangea, barberry, or cotoneaster.

Don’t Use too Much Water Novice Gardener

Efficiently water your garden. Soaker hoses save time by watering all of your plants at once, rather than individually with a standard hose or watering can. Keep the soaker’s water pressure at a low level, so that your tender plants will not be harmed. You can take care of other tasks or just relax while your plants are automatically watered for an hour or so.

An English garden mixes plants of various kinds and sizes close together, which helps to give it a more multi-dimensional feel. If you use plants that are all the same size your garden will look flat.

It just requires some effort and a bit of learning on your part, and of course, a whole lot of patience. The work will pay off, once you see how you can make something grow.

Photo by Fred Ortlip

Newbie Gardener Tips

A huge variety of wonderful gardening resources exist. You could spend an entire day online looking for the gardening information you need. This article will give you all of the advice you need in order to get started even if you’re a newbie gardener. Continue reading in order to get this advice.

Know thy Soil

Digging in clay soil with a shovel can be very difficult. The clay isn’t easy to work with and will adhere to the shovel, which only makes the problem worse. Coat the shovel with floor or car wax, and buff it with a clean rag to make the job a lot easier. The clay easily slides off the surface while keeping the end from getting rusty.

backyard garden photo
Photo by chrislee-cm

A garden needs the right type of soil to grow properly. Consider getting a soil analysis and working on enrichment techniques for giving your garden a vibrant and healthy environment. It can avoid ruined vegetables and flowers, so check with places, such as a cooperative extension department to see where you can obtain the analysis. Products like Native Soil help balance out bad soil chemistry and are a great starting tool for newbie gardeners.

CO2 is essential for growth. A major portion of plants grow their best in an environment with a saturated level of CO2. Growing plants in a greenhouse is the best way to contain CO2 for use by your plants. If you have a greenhouse, keep CO2 levels high.

Easy Garden Hacks

Turn the handles of your garden tools into measuring rulers. You can use larger tools, like rakes, as measuring sticks. Place the handles on the floor, then set a measuring tape alongside them. Label the distances on the handle with a marker pen that will not smear or fade away. Now when you go garden the next time, you’ll have a giant ruler at your command.

Don’t Let Your Hard Work Get Eaten

Using pesticides when natural solutions are available is the hallmark of a newbie gardener. Try to plan a variety of perennials that are slug-proof. Slugs and snails are voracious eaters that can destroy a plant literally overnight. These pests are especially attracted to tender sprouts and to delicate, soft leaves.newbie gardener mistake letting snails eat before they do Some perennials are not preferred meals for snails and slugs, especially if their foliage is hairy and tough, or tastes bad. These varieties include achillea, helleborus, heuchera, euphorbia, and campanula.

 

Use bulbs to ensure continuous flowers throughout the spring and summer. Most people have no trouble successfully growing bulbs, and their flowers will return each and every year. Different bulbs will bloom during different time periods. Therefore, if you select your bulbs correctly, you could have blooms in your garden for all of spring and summer.

Don’t make the newbie gardener mistake of planting too densely. Make sure air can circulate around your plants, and keep leaves moisture-free. Excess moisture creates an appealing environment for disease and parasites. A fungus is one of the most important and debilitating parasites for plants. Fungi can be controlled with fungicide sprays, but it is important to treat your area with the spray, before you see any problems.

Gardening is a popular hobby which many people find rewarding. As you learn more, you will become a better gardener. Always remember to listen to great advice. Start by applying the tips laid out here, and you will have the most beautiful garden you’ve ever seen.

Prime Your Soil Chemistry For Optimal Garden Growth

When I first got into gardening I thought it was as simple as put some seeds in some dirt, add some water and wait a few months for a salad. I had no idea that you need to make sure your soil chemistry is top notch to ensure top notch results. Here are some basic tips to get you started on your soil health journey.

Start with the Right Soil for the Right Occassion

Put sod down the right way. You want to prepare the soil before you lay down the sod. Pull all the weeds and loosen the soil so the new roots can take easily. When the soil is clean, pack it tightly and create a flat surface. Moisten the soil thoroughly. You should lay your sod staggered, and have the joints offset. You want the sod to end up as a flat and even surface. If there are any gaps in between the sod pieces, then you can fill these in with some soil. Sod has to be watered daily for two weeks, and then it can be rooted.
Clay is difficult to dig through with a shovel, as it is sticky and compact. Rubbing wax on the shovel prior to digging can kick this challenge to the curb. The clay will no longer stick to the shovel, and this also helps to prevent other problems like rusting.

Pests Play a Huge Part in Soil Chemistry

The first thing you can do to avoid pests is to start with healthy soil in your garden. Healthier plants are greater in strength and resistance to illness and insects. For healthy plants, start with healthy soil that is properly amended and free of chemicals in order to avoid salt accumulation. A product like Native Soil is great for balancing out poor soil.

Make sure to pre-soak seeds, preferably in a dark location. Place a small amount of seeds in a little container, while filling it to the brim with water. The seeds will get the hydration they need to start growing. This gives the seeds a better chance of flourishing.

Where’s the Sun?

Whenever you are planting a veggie garden, it is vital that you place them in a location where sun shines down on them for six or more hours per day. This allows the vegetables to grow quickly and healthily. Some flowers have the same requirement for growth.

onions can control slugs which helps soil chemistry
Onions are a natural slug deterrent.

Use natural pest control when possible. Onions and marigolds can help to deter slugs. Mulch around the bottom of trees and shrub seedlings with wood ash to reduce unwanted infestation of pests. By utilizing these methods, you will not have to apply chemical pesticides on your vegetation.

Healthy Gardeners Make Healthy Gardens

Protect yourself from sun overexposure while gardening by wearing the proper clothing. Pair sunglasses with wide-brimmed hats and a dab of sunblock. When you protect yourself against the sun’s rays, you are more likely to avoid both skin cancer and sunburn.

The warmth of the day can make vegetables soft, making them more prone to damage as you pick them. See to it that you cut their connection to the vine as opposed to twisting them, because twisting could hurt the plant.

Now you should be ready to get gardening with some basic healthy soil chemistry. You though you had mad skills before? Now you have insane skills! The tips in the article should have set you on the right path to having a great garden and growing like the professionals.

Photo by Internet Archive Book Images

Creative Ideas and Practical Gardening Advice

Gardening is an activity you can pursue if you want to have tasty fruits and veggies sprouting to maturity just outside your house. There’s nothing quite like going outside and grabbing some toppings for your salad, or better yet the whole salad. This article can give you practical gardening advice that can help you get more out of your garden.

Be Mindful of the Seasons

Your plants will respond better to gradual changes of environment. When I first started out I just wanted to grow what I wanted whenever I wanted. Big mistake. I burned up quite a few tomato plants in the summer in direct sunlight.

The first day you transfer your plants, you should only allow them to sit in direct sunlight for a few hours. Over the course of a week, slowly increase the amount of time that you leave them outside. After a few more days, your plants will be more resistant and ready to stay outside all the time.

Plant annuals and biennials to make your flower beds brighter. Biennials and annuals that grow quickly can add color to a flower bed, plus they permit you to modify the way the flower bed looks each season and each year. In an area that is sunny, they make good plants to place in the gaps found between shrubs and perennials. Notable collections include sunflower, marigold, hollyhock, rudbeckia, cosmos, and petunia.

Keep your plants dry and aerated daily. Plant moisture is a big attraction to both parasites and plant diseases. One parasite you have to watch out for in particular is fungi. It is possible to get rid of fungi after it appears with anti-fungal sprays, but it’s better to spray at-risk areas before fungi appear.

A Little Visual Flair Never Hurt Anyone

When deciding on which plants to include in your landscaping projects, consider evergreens which produce colorful berries. They will provide a splash of color in the drab and dreary winter months when a lot of other plants have lost their colors. Other plants that boast of winter berries include: Holly, Snowberry and Winterberry.

strawberries photo
Photo by bravediggs

Consider planting strawberries, especially ones that are everbearing, for your garden if you have small children. Kids delight in the idea of growing things and seeing how things change over time. Explain every step to your child and he or she will hang on to your every word.

Get Creative with Protection for Practical Gardening Advice

Aspirin water has disease-prevention properties that can protect plants. To add the aspirin to the plant, dissolve about one tablet and a half into approximately two gallons of fresh water. Next, coat the plant with the aspirin mixture by spraying it on the leaves. Use this method every three weeks.

Another piece of practical gardening advice is to ensure your soil chemistry is up to snuff by balancing your home soil with products like Native Soil and the like. They restore old soil’s chemistry to make it heartier and give plants more nutritional value to extract.

Keep your garden tools close at hand to make the most of your gardening time. You can make use of a bucket, or wear pants that have plenty of pockets. Have gloves, shears, a trowel and anything else you need handy for quick use.

garden trowel photo
Photo by Benson Kua

As mentioned earlier, the art of gardening means that your dining table can have fresh and tasty vegetables and fruits, that you grow in your own garden. Being able to make a meal from homegrown ingredients will leave you with a sense of satisfaction. Follow these tips to garden efficiently and enjoy it.

Join us on Facebook or Twitter to share what you’re doing with your home garden creations!

 

Four Tips for Preparing your Garden for Winter

Do you feel that chill in the air? Finally? When you analyze all of the individual components of gardening, it can be somewhat complex. If you want to try your hand at backyard gardening, then be prepared to learn about concepts like pH balance. However, growing healthful food can be difficult for those who have not done it before. Use the tips below to grow like a pro and make sure you’re preparing your garden for winter the easy way.

Keep an Eye on Your Soil Chemistry

winter garden photoSometimes the soil you want to use for your garden has a high alkaline or salt content. Outside of using Native Soil, combine coffee grounds with the soil to reduce this. Basically, the grounds resupply the soil with acid. This is one of the most inexpensive ways to achieve this result. When you can eliminate excess alkaline from the soil, it makes what you are growing much healthier. This means your veggies will taste better, and your flowers will be more vibrant than ever.

If you would love to have access to fresh and healthy mint leaves from your own back yard, but dread the way the plant spreads so quickly, worry not. Try to keep your mint in a container in your garden to stop their rampage. You can plant the container into the soil if you want to, but the container will restrict the roots, and make sure that the plant doesn’t run rampant in your garden.

New Pests, No Problems

Natural materials or some other plants can be used in your garden for keeping away pests. A border of onions or marigolds around a vegetable garden can repel slug. You can also mulch around trees and shrubs with wood ash, which drives away insects. These methods prevent use of harsh chemicals.

Read instructions on new gardening chemicals and tools before you use them. Some of the chemicals in these products can cause skin irritation, or worse, if you fail to take this simple precaution. Protect your plants and yourself by knowing how to correctly use all of your gardening implements.

Be Sure to Watch Your Health

Put money into a quality wheelbarrow and kneeling stool if you plan to do garden work often. Using a large portion of your time near or on the ground working on your garden puts a huge strain on your knees; therefore, having a portable, lightweight garden stool will greatly assist you in making gardening easier on them. It is also normal to move heavy objects and dirt around the garden, so a wheelbarrow is something you should have. Especially when the soil is getting harder and the air colder, it is important to make sure you ready yourself and your garden for winter.

Get Creative in the Kitchen

Keep your garden for winter ready
Photo by libraryrachel

An easy, inexpensive way to give them nutrients is to pour the leftover water from your steamed vegetables into the soil. Some plants, such as gardenias, azaleas and rhododendrons need acidic soil for proper growth. Increase the acidity of your soil by adding coffee grounds and unused tea bags. Chamomile tea is a good remedy against fungus.

Now, you shouldn’t get your hopes up and believe that a few tips are going to turn you into an instant professional gardener. However, these tips are a great starting point if you do plan to grow organically. As you implement these tips and hone your skills, you’ll be a professional green-thumb-holder in no time.