July 25, 2007

Picking the Ideal Location for your Garden

Once you have picked what garden you want, there are many other factors you need to decide before you actually get to work with your gardening tools. Mainly you need to choose its location. This is usually decided by several factors: How you will water it, how much shade it needs, etc. Some of these questions can be very important in deciding whether your garden lives or dies, so don’t take them lightly. You need to take each one into special consideration.

Choosing the garden’s location within your yard is one of the more important things to decide. You want to choose a location that will provide an ideal climate for the plants in your garden. I don’t know what type of garden you’re dealing with so I can’t give you specific advice, but if you do a Google search for the plant you’re dealing with then you’ll find a plethora of sites informing you about the perfect conditions for its growing. After this, it’s just a matter of finding the most shaded or most sunny spot in your yard.

Another deciding factor is how you plan on watering your garden. If you have a sprinkler system already installed for your grass, then it could be a good idea to put your garden in the middle of your yard. Then it will get watered at the same time, and require no extra work from your part. But if this doesn’t provide for a good location for your garden, then you
might end up watering it by hose or dragging a sprinkler out there. In this case, just make sure your garden is within the ideal distance for a hose to reach. While this might not seem like a good thing to base the entire location of your garden on, you’ll be surprised at how nice it is to plan out in advanced.

Getting the perfect amount of shade for your garden can be a difficult endeavor. Once you have a basic idea for where you want your garden, you might want to watch it and record how many hours it spends in sunlight and how many it spends in shade. Compare your findings to an online web site, and you should be able to determine whether the spot you chose is ideal or not for planting and starting your garden in. Of course the amount will change as the seasons change, but this should give you a good idea of what to basically expect for the rest of the year. If necessary, later you can put up some kind of shade to protect your garden from getting too much sun.

After you’ve determined the ideal place for your garden and whether it has the right amount of sunlight, and whether you will be able to conveniently water it, you’re one step closer to actually starting your garden. Of course there are other factors that I have overlooked here, but mostly you should be able to decide whether your location is good or not based on
common sense. Just think: If I were a plant, would I be able to flourish here? If you can honestly answer yes, then I think its time for you to head out to your local gardening store and buy the necessary soil and fertilizer to get started! Have fun!

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,

Permalink • Print • Comment

July 3, 2007

Getting Rid of Pests In Your Garden

Whether in Arizona or Hawaii, when discussing gardening, pest control is certainly to be one of the greatest challenges gardening enthusiasts share. Although organic methods have always been available and used for gardening, pest control in developed countries since World War II has predominantly used man made chemical pesticides to combat pests of all shapes and sizes. An increasing awareness of the dangers and drawbacks associated with chemical pesticides has recently led to a growing trend among gardeners to return to an organic strategy in dealing with pests.

Certainly with all types of gardening, pest control using an organic strategy can be highly effective as well as cost efficient. The Internet has made it increasingly easy to find countless tips that if used successfully will help in dealing with the most annoying pests that infiltrate and destroy gardens. Gathering information about the appearance, habits, enemies, and life cycles of pests helps provide gardeners the opportunity to rid their garden of the harmful insects while leaving the beneficial insects in the garden alone to do their job.

When it comes to gardening, pest control can be viewed as being divided into different yet strikingly similar methods. Frequently the most simple and obvious first line of attack in avoiding the destructive and annoying problems of bugs is in the selection of the actual vegetables and flowers. Using a mixture of science and nature, breeders of plants and flowers continue to improve the varieties available that are resistant to bugs and diseases. With so many disease and insect resistant varieties available, a bit of research and reading the back of seed packets will pay of handsomely.

Although the time honored and historical practice of crop rotation requires a good deal of planning and forethought in home gardening, pest control is greatly enhanced by this and other methods that require the gardener to be aware of the bug friendliness extended by their garden as the host and ‘culture’ for insects. Removing unhealthy plants, building up the soil, pruning, and staking plants off of the ground are all organic ‘cultural’ methods that assist in controlling pests as well as diseases.

Oftentimes in organic gardening, pest control is simply handled through the actual physical removal and termination of insects from the plants, flowers, and vegetables. Clearly, using fingers and shoes can be an effective and yet distasteful tactic to many squeamish gardeners with weak stomachs.

It is clear with organic gardening, pest control plans having special consideration for plants grown, location, and of course the insects involved will yield successful and bountiful gardens whether in Arizona or Hawaii.

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Permalink • Print • Comment
Made with WordPress and an easy to customize WordPress theme • Sky Gold skin by Denis de Bernardy