Plant Gardens 101

Our contemporary lifestyle, crammed schedules and crushing workloads tend to make gardening a threatened pastime. Especially if you have a long commute to and from work, you’ll start whining if your precious time is consumed by running around trying to maintain your garden. Pruning land mowers, pulling out weeds, tilling and fertilizing, trimming grass and sweating away can really sound nightmarish, if you don’t have a proper gardening plan. Done right, gardening isn’t really such a strenuous work and the results you get are worth the efforts. A few restful hours soaking in the beauty of a lovely garden can really lift your spirits and rejuvenate you when you’re stressed out. Not mentioning the joy you get when folks compliment you on its possession. So how do you get about creating your corner of sanctuary in a low maintenance manner? Here are some tips to get you going:

Analysis: The first thing you should do is to logically analyze your existing property. Which area catches your fancy and also requires less care? Which area has a higher weeding problem? Which area is more difficult to mow? You don’t want to run out of breath mowing uphill! Is there any area that requires too much care already? You may need to compromise a bit if your favorite areas require more maintenance than expected. So take notes on your examination and write down the garden activities that you prefer the least, and the ones you enjoy doing the most. We all have our own choices. (more…)

I think of lettuce as one of those “staple” vegetables. In other words it can be used in a variety of recipes, from salads, to sandwiches.

Because lettuce thrives in cooler temperatures, it is best to grow it in early spring or fall.

Here are some steps you can take to improve the conditions where your lettuce will grow to optimize and increase your harvest.

As stated earlier lettuce is a cooler temperature vegetable. The seeds will germinate best when the temperature of the soil is between 40 to 60 degrees F (4 to 16 C). Once the seeds have germinated they thrive best when the soil temperature is 55 to 65 F (13 to 18 C). (more…)

Shrubby; resembling a shrub.

THE GENESIS OF SOIL.
Soil primarily had its beginning from rock together with animal and vegetable decay, if you can imagine long stretches or periods of time when great rock masses were crumbling and breaking up. Heat, water action, and friction were largely responsible for this. By friction here is meant the rubbing and grinding of rock mass against rock mass. Think of the huge rocks, a perfect chaos of them, bumping, scraping, settling against one another. What would be the result? Well, I am sure you all could work that out. This is what happened: bits of rock were worn off, a great deal of heat was produced, pieces of rock were pressed together to form new rock masses, some portions becoming dissolved in water. Why, I myself, almost feel the stress and strain of it all. Can you?

Then, too, there were great changes in temperature. First everything was heated to a high temperature, then gradually became cool. Just think of the cracking, the crumbling, the upheavals, that such changes must have caused! You know some of the effects in winter of sudden freezes and thaws. But the little examples of bursting water pipes and broken pitchers are as nothing to what was happening in the world during those days. The water and the gases in the atmosphere helped along this crumbling work.

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A traveller saw two fields of tea bushes at the side of the road. In one field, the farmer was happily picking the fresh green young leaves, however in the other, the farmer was spraying his plants to destroy the insects that were ruining his crop. So how come the two crops, situated so close together, were so different? The answer is that the first farmer was using organic methods.

Sadly, many growers see nature as something to be tamed, but the sensible ones work with her. That is the essence or organic farming. An organic culture creates a balanced and self-sustaining system that requires no artificial fertilisers or pesticides.

Much of the sickness of crops are created because they are forced to grow too fast, too large or out of season. In the same way that an athlete is more prone to disease or illness during periods of intense training, plants are most prone to problems when they are forced to their natural limits or even beyond. (more…)