Plant Gardens 101

Building a portable greenhouse can be a good activity for the whole family. Decide on a weekend for building the structure. To prepare for this activity, you need to buy your building materials beforehand.

What You Need

There are a number of things that you need to build a good portable greenhouse. First, you will need a design or a plan. You cannot build your greenhouse without any idea of what goes where. Aside from the design, you will need materials. You need some metal, PVC or wood materials for your frame, door and vent. Read some pros and cons of each type of greenhouse framing. Find light-weight materials for your frames.

Remember that your greenhouse is meant to be portable not stationery so you need strong but light materials. Aside from framing material, you will also need UV resistant greenhouse plastic covering material. Research your greenhouse covering options to make sure you pick a covering that is best for your plants. Check the warranty on your portable greenhouse covers as well to make sure you select a covering that will last. (more…)

Bonsai trees are diminutive and exquisite examples of larger trees. To keep them small, they spend their lives in shallow containers. Just about any type of tree can be a bonsai. Nurseries and some stores carry beginner bonsai trees, which are just waiting for you to train them into a lovely design. Prior to training a bonsai, it is essential that you understand what is about to take place.

Pointers on Beginner Bonsai Trees

To further develop beginner bonsai trees, some parts of the plants will need to be removed in order to create fine-looking presentations. Beginner bonsai trees have no planned shape when you first get them. Therefore, their future motifs will be entirely up to the whims of their new owners. (more…)

Cucumber family
Cucurbitaceae
Luf’fa. A small genus of tropical Old World gourds, grown chiefly for their ornamental fruits.

Description
Tendril-bearing, quick-growing, herbaceous vines. Leaves alternate, 5- to 7-lobed. Flowers yellowish or whitish, male flowers in racemes, the female solitary. Petals 5. Fruit with a dry or papery rind, the interior fibrous. The dried, fibrous, cucumber- or club-shaped skeletons of the fruit are sold in tropical markets to be used as sponges.

How to Grow   (more…)

Blossom end rot occurs because the soil in your home vegetable garden is deficient in calcium. It also occurs when the weather in your area has been considerably wet followed by an immediate dry period.

Blossom end rot most notably affects peppers, squash, tomatoes and watermelon. As you can see in the picture, it looks like a dark circle and spreads to the end fruit as the vegetable will then look like it is rotting.
If not taken care of it could spread to the remaining of the unaffected portion of your garden and also lead to additional or secondary rotting.

Here are steps you can take to control blossom end rot in your home vegetable garden.

Prior to planting any vegetables, always obtain a pH level reading on your soil conditions. You can obtain good testing kits at your local garden center that will give you the amount of calcium you have in your soil. (more…)

A heated greenhouse.