Your Plants and Your Wallet will Love Rainwater

Your Plants and Your Wallet will Love Rainwater

by: ARA

(ARA) - Avid gardeners spend a good part of the winter planning what they will plant in the spring. Even casual gardeners invest plenty of time and money in their plants. Regular watering is one key to a successful garden. So what’s a gardener to do when faced with lack of rainfall combined with water restrictions in the middle of a hot summer? More and more gardeners are turning to rain barrels to keep their gardens happy and healthy. Saving rainwater to use during dry periods is an ancient practice that is once again becoming popular. This low-tech but ingenious solution is simple and inexpensive, and provides chemical-free water that plants thrive on. The plastic rain barrels come in a range of sizes, with 50 to 60 gallons being most common. Simply place the barrel under a downspout in an unobtrusive part of your yard and wait for rain. Instead of letting rainwater flow down your driveway and into a storm drain, it will collect in the barrel for later use. You can harvest a surprisingly large amount of rainwater from your gutters. Just a small amount of rain -- less than half an inch -- can easily fill a 50 gallon rain barrel, so you can quickly start to collect enough to keep your flower beds, garden or houseplants well watered. “It won’t be enough o water your lawn, but it will be plenty for vegetable gardens, flowers and shrubbery,” says Lars Hundley, owner of Dallas-based CleanAirGardening.com, an online company that specializes in environmentally friendly lawn and garden supplies. To collect more water, you can connect several barrels with a pip or hose, or you can put barrels under more than one gutter downspout. Once your rain barrel is full, you can hook a hose up to the rain barrel to water your garden (rain barrels are perfect to use with soaker hoses), or you can simply dip a watering can into the barrel. Rainwater is naturally soft and free of minerals, chlorine, fluoride and other chemicals. “Trees and plants rely on fungus, bacteria and nematodes to help them absorb the minerals and nutrients they need,” explains Hundley. “Plants have an efficient immune system that allows them to fend off diseases and other invaders as long as they have a healthy soil environment and aren’t stressed by other factors,” he adds. Chemical fertilizers, fungicides, pesticides and drought disrupt the balance and harmony of the soil, weakening trees and plants and allowing disease to take over. “The chemicals and hard water from many municipal water systems also add to the imbalance of the soil. Watering with softer, natural rainwater is a nice treat for your plants,” says Hundley. In addition to being good for your plants, rain barrels can also save you money. Some experts estimate that lawn and garden watering make up almost 40 percent of total household water use during the summer; by utilizing collected rainwater, you can substantially reduce this amount. As an added benefit, collecting rainwater also helps control moisture levels around the foundation of your house. Here are some tips to consider when shopping for a rain barrel: * Make sure your barrel is child-proof. A safety grid at the top prevents children and animals from entering. * All systems should use covered barrels that keep the water from accumulating leaves and other debris. They should also have some kind of filter to keep out silt and leaves; these can range from a funnel with mesh in the bottom that is covered by gravel to a rainwater washing apparatus that you can purchase. * Keep mosquitoes from breeding in your barrel by keeping it tightly covered and using debris screens to filter water before it enters the barrel. Cleaning your gutters and downspouts frequently and using collected rainwater within a few days will also help control mosquito problems. You can place a nontoxic mosquito “dunk,” in the barrel for additional protection. Some cities have started programs to give residents easy access to affordable rain barrel systems. You may be able to find a limited selection of rain barrels at your local garden supply store; for more options, visit www.cleanairgardening.com or call (888) 439-9101 for a catalog.

Winterizing Tips for your Lawn and Garden

Winterizing Tips for your Lawn and Garden

by: Cheryl Summer

Your outdoor plants have worked hard for you all summer, making your yard a place you’re proud to call home. Properly winterizing your lawn and garden is an important step toward healthy soil, lush grass, and happy plants next year. Remember to take care of your outdoor accessories, including your lawn equipment, gardening tools, and all of your lawn and garden decor. A little time spent this autumn will make your gardening and landscaping efforts easier and more enjoyable next spring! Let’s start with the easy jobs - First remember to store all of your lawn and garden decor including fragile planters, gazing balls, and your deck furniture. Unglazed terra cotta planters left filled with soil outside will often break in the freezing temperatures so it is best to clean them and place them in a storage area where they are protected from the elements. Autumn is the time to find your birdfeeders and to start stocking your winter feeding pantry. Soon your many feathered friends will be flocking to your feeders for that nutritious morsel. Remember to keep your feeders full through the winter as the birds need reliable food sources through the winter months. Now that you’ve done the easy tasks, let’s move on to the more mundane winterizing chores. Start by simply cleaning up the vegetable garden. After the first hard frost, remove the year’s annual plants and the dead vegetation. You can add this material to your compost pile, but make sure you’re not adding material from diseased or pest-infested plants. You’ll want to pull perennial weeds before you mulch your garden down for the winter. The best part of fall landscape chores is planting the spring-blooming bulbs. Crocus, tulips, and daffodils are a beautiful addition to the early spring landscape. In the yard there’s the major job of raking leaves. These are great either in the compost pile or as direct mulch on the garden. Perennial flowers may be smothered by a heavy layer of mulch, however. Also, wait to prune your trees until later in the winter. After the ground freezes you can mulch your perennial flowers and newly planted trees. Certain shrubs will need to be wrapped in burlap to protect them from wind damage, sun scald, and other winter injury. Moving on to the mechanical tasks of winterizing your lawn and garden - While you might try to procrastinate on these jobs until spring, you’ll be well rewarded for the maintenance you perform this fall. Drain the gas from your lawnmower and string trimmer. Actually it’s best to let your mowers and trimmers simply run out of fuel. If you don’t want to ‘waste’ that little bit of fuel, add a gas conditioner before the long winter. Be sure to follow directions. Also, take the same care with your gardening equipment such as your rotary tiller. Clean all of your landscaping equipment before you store it away for the long, cold winter. Wash with soap and water, clean the air filter, and change the oil. You’ll find that first lawn mowing job in the spring a little bit easier if you take time to sharpen the blades now. You can protect that freshly sharpened blade by applying a little spray oil to the blades. You can also apply light spray oil to other moving parts such as cables and the throttle controls. Lastly, drain all of the water from the garden hoses and turn off the taps. Be sure to store your insecticides, herbicides, and fertilizers in a safe storage area that will not freeze. Make sure these materials are kept away from children and pets!

What is the Right Plant and Where Do I Put It?

What is the Right Plant and Where Do I Put It?

by: james ellison

Know if your plants are disease-susceptible. Your choice of plants used in your garden is as important as the soil that you put those plants in. Select plants that are disease resistant and they will be much more easy to maintain and will give you the look you are wanting. Food for thought is use plants that are native to your area. The experience you get will tell you which are the troublesome plants. Obtain your plants from reliable sources and ask those people for their suggestions. They should be happy to help you because of return sales. The local cooperative extension service should provide much needed info for you. Some catalogs will list disease resistance plants. Experience will eventually tell you which plant diseases are most troublesome in your region. Your local nursery and cooperative extension service are also good sources for information on local diseases and disease-resistant plants. Seed and nursery catalogs often list disease resistance in plant descriptions. There are resistant varieties that exist for such diseases as apple scab, armillaria root rot, bean mosaic virus, blueberry mummyberry, cherry viruses, juniper tips and twig blights, lilac bacterial blight, powdery mildew, pea enation mosaic virus, potato scab, black spot, rust, tomato fusarium and root-knot nematode, fireblight, verticillium wilt, and other diseases. What does the wrong exposure do to your plants? Take a long look at the conditions you have in your garden and choose your plants accordingly. Plants are usually clearly marked whether they prefer sun, partial shade or complete shade. Shade plants grown in sun turn yellowish and grow poorly. They will get a sunburn which will develope dead spots on their leaves. Avoid south or west exposure. The sun lovers are often stunted and spindly when grown in the shade. If they grow at all, they are usually weak looking and have few leaves. Reduced flowering on many plants may result from shade placement. Use water conservation landscaping whenever you can. Most gardeners in drought climates have come to realize the importance of water conservation.But in areas where water is plentiful, however, waste in the garden is way too common. We take our water supply for granted by wasting more than we ever need and in many areas, more groundwater is pumped than nature can replace through precipitation and runoff. Why not use drought-tolerant plants. These plants grow well with little water once they are established. Mulch every plant you have. Some grass species need less water than others, but lawns generally need a large amount of water to stay green and growing. If you replace the grass with drought-tolerant ground covers or flowers you'll save a large amount of water and even - money. If you can click here to read a funny story that hits the nail on head for what I am saying here. Probably your favorite plants will have high water requirements. By grouping and mulching these plants allows you to irrigate them together, thus reducing water waste. What about fruit-pollination requirements! Many beginning gardeners are confused when their fruit trees fail to bear fruit. Could be a pollination problem. Certain types of trees produce bigger and more abundant fruit with cross-pollination between different cultivars. The others, cross-pollinating is mandatory to get any fruit at all. Learn a fruit's pollination requirements before planting. If your space is limited, pick a self-pollinating fruit, such as European-type plums or almost any of the peach cultivars. Pollination will not happen without insects, butterflies or hummingbirds. When chemical pesticides are routinely used by a neighbor or yourself, the honeybees and other pollinating insects can be reduced so that fruit production suffers. Go organic.

What is Compost Tea?

What is Compost Tea?

by: james ellison

Organic gardeners all know compost is fantastic stuff. But now, there's something even better and that's compost tea. If you start with a good compost you'll have a versatile elixir for all your garden needs. Compost tea helps prevent foliage diseases and at the same time increase the nutrients to the plant and shutdown the toxins hurting the plants. It will improve the taste/flavor of your vegetables. So why not give this tea a try either by buying it or brewing it yourself. You won't believe the results! Four ways that good bacteria work: Help compete for the nutrients Dine on the bad varmits Help produce antibiotics to use against the varmits. They shove the bad varmits out. Compost tea that is correctly brewed has a wealth of microorganisms that will benefit your plants' growth and health as well as the soil that they live in. Compost tea can be considered yogurt for the soil. The microorganisms living there are both good and bad. What the tea does is make sure the good guys win by introducing helpful bacteria, fungi, protozoa and beneficial nematodes. Harmful bacteria lives best in soil that does not have good air circulation. Good bacteria lives best and will thrive in soil that is well ventilated with oxygen. This is where a good compost tea, made the right way, comes in. When you have well oxygenated compost you automatically get rid of 3/4 of the bad varmits. Also by using harmful insecticides or chemical fertilizers we reduce the number of beneficial microorganisms in the soil. Plants produce their own energy and food and half of that goes to the roots and some of that goes into the surrounding soil and guess who gets that? Correct, the good guys, and then it turns into a beneficial cycle. The following is taken from the internet and shows compost tea is becoming a force in gardening. National Organic Standards Board Compost Tea Task Force Report April 6, 2004 Introduction In 2003, the National Organic Standards Board convened a Compost Tea Task Force to review the relevant scientific data and report their recommendations on ‘What constitutes a reasonable use of compost tea?’ The Task Force was composed of 13 individuals with knowledge and expertise in organic farming practices, organic certification, EPA pathogen regulations, compost, compost tea production and analysis, plant pathology, food safety and environmental microbiology. Throughout their discussions, members consistently acknowledged the growing interest among certified organic and conventional growers to use compost teas, and the need to develop effective biologically-based tools to manage plant fertility, pests, and diseases. A primary reason for producing compost tea is to transfer microbial biomass, fine particulate organic matter, and soluble chemical components of compost into an aqueous phase that can be applied to plant surfaces and soils in ways not possible or economically feasible with solid compost.

Weed Dangerous to Hummingbirds

Weed Dangerous to Hummingbirds

by: Marilyn Pokorney

REQUIREMENTS FOR REPRINT: You have permission to publish this article free of charge in your e-zine, newsletter, ebook, print publication or on your website ONLY if it remains unchanged and you include the copyright and author information (Resource Box) at the end. You may not use this article in any unsolicited commercial email (spam). Please leave the resource box intact with an active link, and send a courtesy copy of the publication in which the article appears to: marilynp@nctc.net ----------------------------------- If you love hummingbirds, keep your garden, yard, and property clear of weeds. Especially burdock. The prickly seedheads of common burdock can trap and kill hummingbirds. During September, 1998, three hummingbirds were caught and died in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. A fourth hummingbird was rescued by bird watchers. According to National Park Service biologists, the burrs act like Velcro. The barbed points on the burrs cling steadfastly to fur, clothing, skin, feathers--almost anything that comes near. As the tiny birds thrash around trying to free themselves they become even more entrapped. While not much has been written about the subject, a consulting ornithologist in Burnaby British Columbia reports that the weed does occasionally claim the lives of small birds and even brown bats. Burdock, also known as Cockle Burr, is a biennial plant which can grow to nine feet in height. Other names include Fox's Clote, Thorny Burr, Beggar's Buttons, Cockle Buttons, Love Leaves, Burr Seed, Clothburr, Turkey Burrseed and many others. Burdock was imported from Europe and is now widely distributed in waste areas, abandoned farms, or any uncultivated area in North America. It can also appear in gardens and lawns. The plant produces a rosette of large leaves, produces 15 to 40 or more pink or lavender flowers, and has a taproot of up to 40 inches in length. The plant must be eliminated before the flowers ripen and form the brown prickly burrs which spread the seeds. Selective or spot herbicide treatment isn't always effective because of it's deep taproot. Pulling up or digging the plant is the most effective but the entire taproot must be removed. The sooner this is done the easier it is to do. Smaller plants can be dug up using a standard garden fork or dandelion digger, and larger ones using a long-handled bulb planter.

Weed Control Facts - Winning the Battle of the Weeds

Weed Control Facts - Winning the Battle of the Weeds

by: Michael McGroarty

You are welcome to use this article on your website or in your newsletter as long as you reprint it as is, including the contact information at the end. Website URLs must be active links. You are welcome to use this article with an affiliate link, WEED CONTROL FACTS: WINNING THE BATTLE OF THE WEEDS Keeping your landscape plantings, flower beds, and nursery crops free of weeds is a battle, but if you approach it with a strategic plan, you will prevail. In order to develop a plan, you first must understand how weeds work, and what kind of weeds you are dealing with. Basically weeds grow either from seed, or they reproduce from their roots. As the roots grow outward from the parent plant, new plants sprout up from the lateral roots, creating more parent plants and the process continues and the weeds thrive. Weeds that tend to reproduce from the root are usually more difficult to control. Weed control facts? Weeds are plants, and they function just like the desirable plants in your yard. They need water, sunlight, and nutrition to survive. Of these three key survival needs, the easiest one for a gardener to eliminate is sunlight. Through proper mulching you can eliminate the sunlight. But first, let’s look at the steps you should go through before you mulch, then we’ll discuss the best mulching techniques to use. In order for your weed control efforts to be truly effective, you should do everything in your power to make your gardens as weed free as possible before you plant or mulch. There are a couple of ways you can go about this, either organically or with chemicals. I don’t like using chemicals, but I do use them for weed control, and I use them for pest control when necessary. I’ll discuss organic control first. The first thing you should do is remove all unwanted vegetation from your planting area. Using a hoe, spade or other digging device, undercut the roots and remove the undesirable plants, roots and all. Then you should work the soil by rototilling or turning the soil by hand. Once worked, let the soil sit for four days or so, and work it again. Keep doing this over and over as long as time permits. This process serves two purposes. It brings the roots that were left in the soil close to the surface so they can be dried by the sun, which will make them non-viable, and it disturbs the weed seeds that have started to germinate, which makes them non-viable as well. The longer you continue this process the more weeds you are eliminating from your garden. Weed control facts? Depending on the time of the year, there are a few billion weed seeds drifting through the air at any given time, so to think that you can eventually rid a garden of weed seed is false thinking, but at least this process is effective for the remaining roots, which are the most difficult to control. With that process complete, go ahead and plant your garden. When you’re done planting you can either mulch the bed, or keep turning the soil on a weekly basis to keep it free of weeds. Most people opt to mulch. Not only does mulch help to control the weeds, but if you select a natural mulch it also adds organic matter to the soil which makes for better gardening results down the road. Before mulching you can spread newspaper (7-9 layers thick) over the soil and place the mulch over top of that. The newspaper will block the sunlight from reaching the surface of the soil and help to keep weed growth to a minimum. The newspaper will eventually decompose, and not permanently alter the make up of your garden. Paper grocery bags also work well, so the next time you hear, “Paper or Plastic?”, you’ll know how to answer. What about black plastic, or the weed barrier fabric sold at garden centers? I don’t like either and I’ll tell you why. For one, neither one of them ever go away, and the make up of your garden is forever altered until you physically remove them, which is a real pain in the butt. Weed control facts? Plastic is no good for the soil because soil needs to breathe. Plastic blocks the transfer of water and oxygen, and eventually your soil will suffer, as will your garden. It’s all right to use plastic in a vegetable garden as long as you remove it at the end of the season and give the soil a chance to breathe. Weed barrier fabrics allow the soil to breathe, but what happens is that when you mulch over top of the fabric, which you should because the fabric is ugly, the mulch decomposes and becomes topsoil. Weeds love topsoil, and they will grow like crazy in it. Only problem is, they are growing on top of the fabric, and you are stuck with a ton of problems, like a weedy garden, and a major job of trying to remove the fabric that is now firmly anchored in place because the weeds have rooted through it. Weed fabric is also porous enough that if an area becomes exposed to the sunlight, enough light will peek through and weeds below the fabric will grow, pushing their way through the fabric. I don’t like the stuff. I’ve removed miles of it from landscapes for other people because it did not work as they had expected. Weed control facts? Controlling weeds with chemicals is fairly easy, and very effective if done properly. I know that many people don’t approve of chemical weed controls, but millions of people use them, so I might as well tell you how to get the most effect using them. There are two types of chemical weed controls, post-emergent, and pre-emergent. In a nutshell, a post-emergent herbicide kills weeds that are actively growing. A pre-emergent prevents weed seeds from germinating. Of the post- emergent herbicides there are both selective and non-selective herbicides. A selective herbicide is like the herbicides that are in weed-and-feed type lawn fertilizers. The herbicide will kill broad leaf weeds in your lawn, but it doesn’t harm the grass. One of the most popular non-selective herbicides is Round-up®, it pretty much kills any plant it touches. Rule number one. Read the labels and follow the safety precautions!!! Round-up® is very effective if used properly, but first you must understand how it works. Round-up® must be sprayed on the foliage of the plant, where it is absorbed, then translocated to the root system where it then kills the plant. It takes about 72 hours for the translocation process to completely take place, so you don’t want to disturb the plant at all for at least 72 hours after it has been sprayed. After 72 hours you can dig, chop, rototill, and pretty much do as you please because the herbicide has been translocated throughout the plant. The manufacture claims that Round-up® does not have any residual effect, which means that you can safely plant in an area where Round-up® has been used. However, I would not use it in a vegetable garden without researching further. No residual effect also means that Round-up® has no effect whatsoever on weed seeds, so there is absolutely no benefit to spraying the soil. Only spray the foliage of the weeds you want to kill. Be careful of over spray drifting to your desirable plants. To prevent spray drift I adjust the nozzle of my sprayer so that the spray droplets are larger and heavier, and less likely to be carried by the wind. I also keep the pressure in the tank lower by only pumping the tank a minimum number of strokes. Just enough to deliver the spray. Buy a sprayer that you can use as a dedicated sprayer for Round-up® only. Never use a sprayer that you have used for herbicides for any other purpose. Once you have sprayed the weeds, waited 72 hours and then removed them, you can go ahead and plant. Mulching is recommended as described above. To keep weed seeds from germinating you can apply a pre-emergent herbicide. Depending on the brand, some of them are applied over top of the mulch, and some are applied to the soil before the mulch is applied. A pre-emergent herbicide creates a vapor barrier at the soil level that stops weed seed germination, and can be very effective at keeping your gardens weed free. They usually only last about 5 or 6 months and need to be re-applied. Visit a full service garden center and seek the advice of a qualified professional to select the pre-emergent herbicide that will best meet your needs. Never use a pre-emergent herbicide in your vegetable garden, and be careful around areas where you intend to sow grass seed. If you spill a little in an area where you intend to plant grass, the grass will not grow. They really do work. That’s what I know about weed control. Read this article several times. Your success depends on getting the sequence of events correct.

Want a garden, but don’t have enough dirt or space? Hydroponics gardening is the answer!

Want a garden, but don’t have enough dirt or space? Hydroponics gardening is the answer!

by: Mike Yeager

Hydroponics gardening is the perfect solution for anybody who wants a garden, but does not have enough space or dirt. Hydroponics gardening is, simply put, a method of growing plants using a nutrient solution instead of dirt. With hydroponics gardening, you are able to grow beautiful flowers and delicious vegetables virtually anywhere you want. In addition, hydroponics gardening requires much less maintenance than a normal garden would. In fact, you will usually spend less than five minutes a day maintaining your hydroponics garden. Every few weeks the nutrient solution will have to be replaced, but that too will only take a few minutes. While some heavy fruiting vegetables like tomatoes and peppers may not be able to thrive in the nutrient solution, almost all other types of flowers and vegetables will just fine in a hydroponics garden. Tips for the person new to Hydroponics Gardening. While hydroponics gardening might seem difficult to a person doing it for the first time, you will be able to quickly get the hang of it. Just like you need gardening supplies for a regular garden, you will need hydroponics gardening supplies for hydroponics gardening. The most common method of hydroponics gardening is the passive system. In the passive system, plants will sit directly in the nutrient solution. Because the solution might cause the plants to rot if not oxygenated, all passive systems come with an aquarium air bubbler, which will oxygenate the nutrient solution. If you find the hydroponics gardening method that is right for you, you will soon be enjoying all the gardening hydroponics vegetables, flowers and fruit that you could possible want.