Plant Gardens 101

Grass family
Gramineae
Trit’i-kum. Wheat . About 30 species of annual or biennial grasses, allied to Secale (Rye) and Agropyron, which includes Quackgrass. The species below cultivated since antiquity. W. Asia. Next to Rice, the most important cereal grass in the world.

Description
Leaf blades flat and narrow. Flowers in relatively stout spikelike panicle, the spikelets crowded, awned in some varieties, but without awn in others. Fruit, the Wheat grain, grooved.

How to Grow   (more…)

Light reflector in your hydroponics grow.

It is very important to use a light reflector in your hydroponics garden if you would like to get the most out of your grow lamp. A light bulb will admit light in 360°. If you do not have a reflector above your bulb these light rays will be wasted because light will be beaming out in all directions around for your plants and not on your plants. What you really need is a way of focusing the light beams at 360° radius back onto your plants. That’s exactly what the light reflector does and why it’s important to have one. A light reflector will take all the light from the bulb and once installed around the top of the light reflector will bounce light down to your garden. This is called out of bounce light. This can make your lights much more effective because now a lot less of those light rays are to be wasted by going in directions not needed. You never want to run the lights without out a good reflector. (more…)

The terminal part of a stamen, containing pollen in one or more pollen sacs.

The same sugar solution that attracts Hummingbirds to your feeder, will also be attractive to ants, bees and wasps. Not only will they drink, they will also contaminate the nectar and sometimes even keep the Hummingbirds from using the feeder. Ants getting inside the feeder will drown and contaminate the nectar as their bodies decompose.

As for bees and wasps, I have seen bees and wasps at my feeder so thick that the Hummingbirds couldn’t feed at all. Thumping them with a rolled up newspaper seemed to help a little, but every time I thumped one, it wasn’t long before it was replaced by another. Besides being a little too risky, after a while it begins to take a toll on your feeder! So, let’s examine some alternative possibilities to controlling pests at your Hummingbird feeder. (more…)

Hobby gardeners love the challenges a greenhouse offers them. Just think about being able to trudge through the snow in the winter, open the door to your own little hothouse, and spend a wonderful afternoon tending to your plants, raising tomatoes and flowers, and doing all the gardening chores you enjoy and love to do – without having to wait for the warming rays of spring! It is not surprising that the gardening industry has jumped on the greenhouse bandwagon and has put together greenhouse kits for savvy hobbyists who do not mind putting up their own greenhouses.

What in the past proved to be a painstaking process of obtaining cut glass, measuring, bolting, and then re-bolting, has become an easily done process that may take less than an hour to accomplish one fine fall afternoon! Greenhouse kits come in a variety of sizes and shapes, and also price ranges. It does not matter if you are in the market for a big, top of the line greenhouse, or simply a small hobby greenhouse for the back of your yard. The selection is truly something to behold!    (more…)