Tag: gardening

Easy and Practical Herb Gardening Tips

One garden that is grown by many folks is the herb garden; it can thrive in most places. Herbs are used for a variety of reasons, ranging from adding flavor when cooking, aroma and its restorative powers; with hundreds of types to choose from. The variety of herbs you will raise will probably depend on how you wish to use them and the weather conditions you experience. After reading this article, you should be well armed with some facts that will help you create the ultimate herb garden.

If space is an issue, consider a container garden. They are easy to take care of and a good option. Container gardens have a lot of benefits. If you have your herbs on a deck or patio, for instance, and the weather turns nasty, it’s an easy matter to bring them indoors. Pest control isn’t a big chore if your plants are in containers. You can easily move your plants around and arrange them to suit you, or to keep them away from one another. Herbs aren’t really particular about the type of container you plant them in. You can use many interesting containers to make your herb garden unique, or you can use regular clay pots. The materials the pots, or containers, are made out of can be just about anything. Cottage cheese cartons, cut up milk cartons, pottery coffee mugs have all been used successfully. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that if you plan to move your containers around, it’s best not to choose a very heavy material. If you like to drink tea, you may want to start a tea herb garden. This will be made up of any herbs that can be used to make tea and there are so many of those. A lot of teas taste great and have medicinal properties and growing your own herbs for them isn’t just satisfying, it’s a great way to save some money. If you are a tea drinker it can cost you lots of money to buy lots of different types of tea in the store but if you grow them yourself the cost is much less. You can choose to grow anything from a fully fledged herb garden to just growing in a couple of containers that sit on your window sill. It all comes down to the amount of space you’ve got and how ambitious you are feeling. Do some research into which kids of herbal teas you want to have most and then plant some seeds.

When you begin by making a plan, you will have an easier time keeping your herb garden organized. As long as you really want a garden for some herbs, and you know why, then you need to know if you want them in pots or in the ground, and whether the sun will shine on them long enough, or if you even have enough space.

You have many choices of what your garden should look like, since you can even add flowers or vegetables. Most herbs require six hours of light as a minimum, even though different plants have different needs. You might need to find some of the herbs that do better in the shade, if your garden can’t fit this condition. Planning your herb garden considering some of these things, will help you do it right.

Your herb garden can be a family project, or it can be done by you without any help. Even gardeners who have many years of experience, can get satisfaction out of an herb garden, but it is the best way for a beginner to start. A tradition that anyone can enter into at anytime, is growing plants, of which herbs are some of the best liked.

Gardening Tools You Should Know About

There are lots of reasons to love gardening. You will be able to escape the confines of your home and breathe some clean air. You are cultivating living things. This can help you generate a great look around your home. You could choose to grow some of your own vegetables. You will find that the options for gardening are endless.

It is totally up to you as to how intense you want to pursue your gardening dreams. The proper tools for any job are key factors that will make or break your venture. We will cover some of the fundamental tools you may need.

Forks are excellent tools that every gardener will need. Using a fork is absolutely necessary when aerating your soil. It will help you turn your compost over so it can properly break down.. Although you should probably use a tiller, this can work just as well. They can also be used to help move bigger things from place to place. Do not grab the cheapest fork that you see, and there are many different sizes and prices to choose from. More than likely, you will break cheap forks. They are simply not designed to tackle soil that is difficult to turn. If you can, invest in a fork that is solid and sturdy. If you get one that is average or of a higher quality, you won’t have to worry about them breaking any time soon.

You may not consider “soil” a tool, but it is very important to your gardening success. Not every patch of dirt is automatically good for gardening. Every patch of soil will be different and have its own composition. Different plants have different soil nutrient requirements, and you will need to make sure your soil has what the type of plants you wish to grow need. If you are container gardening this isn’t a problem. You can buy a bag of soil specific to each type of plant you are growing. With ground gardening, though, you may have to do some work on the ground itself to turn yard dirt into rich gardening soil. So many gardeners overlook this part of the gardening process. Don’t sidestep this step like so many others.

One key tool is a spade. This is true no matter what kind of garden you have. With the cupped feature of the spade it is more capable of lifting and moving the soil in your garden. This tool is extremely versatile and can help you do things like planting, weeding or repotting; among many other duties. Small jobs that require minimal digging can be done adequately with the spade. There is not just one standard size and it is a good idea to have several different ones to choose from.

Your garden will have an advantage if you apply the use of a compost bin into your garden strategy. Composting may appear to be the recent rage in gardening, but it has actually been used by gardeners for years. When you compost, you will not only be saving on getting rid of waste, but will add valuable nutrients to your soil in the meantime. Meat is about the only unrefined thing that should not be thrown into your compost bin. After your composting matter has been sufficiently rotted, it will have reached its effective stage.

You would be wise to fill you garden shed with all of the tools you may need to fulfill your gardening dreams.

After reading this you should be well armed with the information you will need to equip yourself with good tools. You will have a better understanding of the tools you will need once you have put a little time and effort into the process.

Help The Environment By Planting A Tree

If we look at yearly figures, approximately three and six billion trees are being chopped down across the globe. The fact is that the goods that are created from trees are essential for our daily living. Such as wood to build homes, paper for writing on and even toilet paper for, well you know. It is possible to act to save our forests although we have to accept that most of the goods made from trees are essential.

Arbor Day was created with the aim that we must all be planting trees on that day although actually this has had little impact. This is because virtually all folks don’t go out and plant a tree. If each one of us could plant a tree, it would make an impact.

Would you believe that there are more or less 7 billion people right now? The actual figures essentially fluctuate and so this is a calculated guess. However, we could replace the trees that are lost each year if every one of those folks did actually plant a tree on Arbor day. Unfortunately, this is never going to occur.

Thus, the solution is for those of you who care about the Earth and want oxygen so you can live, plant a tree. And I don’t mean to only go out once each year and plant a tree. I am proposing that you plant a tree more or less once every month or even once every week. It is just a fact that many individuals will not give any thought to conservation or planting trees, so we need to make up for this ourselves.

Did you know that on Arbor Day, only approximately 8 and 15 million trees are planted? Thus every year, we are short by about 5 billion trees. This situation keeps on getting worse.

I actually have a solution to the problem entirely even though folks should nevertheless keep on planting trees whenever they can. What could truly solve this problem is if every log company or tree farmer, by law, had to plant two saplings for every tree they take, so our tree issue wouldn’t be an issue for long.

We are going to have to continue to face this problem ourselves until there is the political willpower to make these changes. In reality, restoring the number of trees required is perfectly achievable. The number of trees chopped down per year could be replaced if ten percent of the world’s population planted one tree on a monthly basis. On average, that would be just over 7 billion trees being planted annually. In effect, this gives us a surplus of one billion trees and will go a long way to restoring the levels that are truly needed.

Hence for anyone who wants to make a positive difference to our environment, go plant a tree. Again, it only takes 10% of the world population to begin making a difference. You decide if you want to be part of it.