Make gardening easy. Don’t expect a perfect garden. Allow your family to work at their own pace and within their attention spans and age range, especially children.

Dig it! Kids love to dig. This is a great way to teach the basics while letting them play and just have fun. 

Let them play an active role in planning. Take your children to the local nursery and let them pick seeds or transplants to start their garden. Take your time and let them browse and enjoy all of the beautiful plants.

Grow a theme garden. This is a great way to let your children use their imagination and express their creativity. The sky is the limit. Some great ideas are gardens that coincide with the holidays, alphabet gardens, a garden themed in their favorite colors, a sensory garden where you can experience different smells, tastes, textures and sights, or a “Freedom Garden”.

Give children their own “kid sized” tools. They don’t have to be expensive. You can go with an old spoon and a bucket that you have around the house or you can venture down to the garden center and purchase garden tools made for children’s hands.

Give them a space to call their own. It doesn’t have to be big. This will teach them ownership and responsibility, and your children will be able to take credit for their own little space.

Get crafty! Press or dry flowers to make a beautiful arrangement, make potpourri, or make a pomander ball. Children love making things and will be amazed at the crafts and gifts that they can make from the garden.

Grow a vegetable garden. Your children will be amazed that they can grow their own food. Be sure to use organic pesticides.

Use gardening to brush up your children’s math and science skills. Let them count the seeds they are planting, or teach them how plants are living things. Not only will you capture their attention, you will be polishing their skills as you go.

Have a contest. Kids love to be rewarded. Be sure to give each child a reward; the biggest tomato, the prettiest flower, or perhaps the best tasting herbs (a little Spray-N-Grow will help!)

Don’t try to do it all! Pick a few of these tips that you know are best for your family and have fun with them. After all, gardening is meant to be fun and easy. And with a little help, something the whole family can enjoy.

Original Article

Tags

yard-maintenance

Typically, when people start planting their garden, they start with flowers. On top of that they usually start by planting roses. Unfortunately for the new gardener they don’t appreciate that roses need more care and attention than a lot of other flowers. With such an enormous array of flowers to choose from, it is best for the beginner to start of with easy care plants and flowers.

Vegetable gardens have become very popular too. A vegetable garden gives you a lot of satisfaction, especially when the family sit down to a meal rich with fresh vegetables straight from your own garden. The list of vegetable plants is endless, therefore when planning your vegetable garden choose the right vegetable for your growing climate. For instance, cool weather crops would be green beans, zucchini, and cucumbers.

Many gardeners take on planting fruits as well.  In a warm climate, you could plant watermelons, and trees such as apricots and peaches. A berry garden is also fun, planting strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. These types of berry gardens are easy to care for and take less space than a traditional vegetable garden.

Herbs are another favorite for the home garden. If you have limited space, you can grow your herbs indoors in a sunny window. favourite herbs for cooking are basil, thyme, oregano, parsley, and cilantro. These herbs are easy to grow too.

There are lots of different forms of gardening, Landscaping being one of them. There are different types of grasses and shrubbery to decorate your yard. Decorative rocks, ponds, and statues are also included as a form of  landscape gardening. Landscaping your yard is not limited to plant life. As with a garden, your lawn and shrubbery need upkeep.

As stated at the beginning of this gardening article, the whole family can take part in this fun and educational pastime.The benefits of which can be seen on a daily basis, never forget though as with most things in life, gardening takes work. Plants need to be weeded and watered. Do not get downhearted if the flowers are not as brilliant as expected or the beans did not do so well.  gather information on the plant in question and then try again next planting season, over time and your loving care you will have a wonderful garden.

Tags

yard-maintenance

By growing organic herbs indoors, you will be able to enjoy out-of-season delicacies and not worry about a sudden spell of cold ruining your crop. Another great advantage is that you won’t need a huge amount of space; just a few pots will allow you to improve your cooking with fresh and free produce.

Regarding the herbs that you can use, most of the varieties that you can grow outdoors are also good indoors. There are many themes around which to plan indoor organic herbal gardening, and of course you can combine these. Here is an example.

For instance, for a fragrant note you can grow angelica, bergamot, catmint, chamomile, thyme, lavender, lemon balm, and mint. This organic herb garden is also a great organic air freshener, ideal for indoor gardens in small flats.

As for the pots, you need to make sure that the ones you get are right for the herbs you want. Not all herbs are suitable to all kinds of containers. Specifically, for some plants you need a pot with a minimum size.

Make sure that you don’t get any tiny pots meant for growing from seed, unless that is your original intention! In fact, better to get slightly bigger pots if you have the space in your growing area.

Also, don’t leave the plants for long in the pots you bought them in, or it will stunt their growth. It is important to re-pot any herbs that you buy, if you are not growing from seed. Don’t forget to water the plants well before repotting, to diminish the shock.

To garden organically, it is important to only use earth that is organically certified. The soil should not be too alkaline or too acid, a medium acidity is just about right. And any fertilizers you choose to use should be organic too.

In most cases, available natural lighting will be enough, although some growers may want to try out electric growing bulbs. But in normal circumstances, these won’t be needed. Check if your chosen plants prefer sun or shade, and then place the sun-lovers on a south-facing window. The others should go where there is plenty indirect sunlight.

Make it a habit to regularly tend your organic herbal garden, and you will find that your food will improve much at little expense, and also that you will have brought a piece of nature to your home.

Tags

yard-maintenance

I’d like to share with you another wonderful use of your garden veggies that is often overlooked. What do you do if you have a monster tomato plant and you have 30-40 tomatoes all ripen at the same time? How about having 8 giant cucumbers all perfectly ripe but you get sick at the thought of eating another cucumber salad? Or way too many bush bean plants all ready to harvest at once because you didn’t realize you should stagger the planting times? I have the solution … BUILD UP YOUR FOOD STORAGE!

Garden vegetables are some of the easiest things to bottle, freeze, dry, etc. Last year I bottled pickles, fresh salsa, and whole tomatoes. I froze peas and beans. My mom recently passed on her food dehydrator to me so I’m excited to learn how to use that method of preservation now as well. If you are working on building any type of long term food storage program, these home-grown items will be invaluable to you. The benefits of preserving homegrown vegetables are: they are organic, they retain nutrients better, they only use natural preservatives, and they are FREE! How can you beat that?

So if you have more vegetables than your family can eat this season, try out some of these preservation methods and add some veggies to your food storage. And maybe, just maybe, next year you will find yourself planting extras of certain items so that you can have enough to stock up your food storage shelves even more!

Tags

yard-maintenance

backyard composting

Many times people avoid doing backyard composting because they think that it is just too difficult or complex to do properly. But the reality is you only need to worry about providing some basic elements for a compost heap and then allow nature to take over and do the work. However, there are a few simple guidelines that you can follow to get the best results and to make the process go even more smoothly.

There are a number of different types of compost bins on the market that you can use to help manage and contain your compost. But, a special bin is not a requirement that is needed to accomplish successful composting, but more of a convenience. It is easy enough to build your own bin for your compost pile and simply cover it over with a sheet of polythene or chunk of cardboard.

However, if you prefer to have the compost heap looking neater and being easier to handle, then it is a good idea to look into compost bins. These bins are available at most garden centers, at online stores that feature organic gardening products and many local recycling departments will provide them for you free or at low cost.

Making a compost is as simple as adding your organic items that are compostable on a regular basis. Any waste product that was at one time a living thing will compost, or decompose, but some items are not recommended to be thrown into your compost pile. Meats, dairy foods and cooked foods will end up attracting pests and vermin so these should not be used in your home composting efforts.

Dead and decaying leaves, lawn clippings, manure, and kitchen waste such as rinds, peelings, coffee grounds and even eggshells can be added to the compost. Older, thicker and tougher plant materials are slower to decompose but they benefit the compost by providing more substance, or body, to the finished compost product. These heavier materials usually comprise most of a compost pile.

Wood items take a long time to decompose. Whenever possible it is best to shred, chip or chop wood materials to help accelerate the rotting process. However, as long as they are mixed in with other materials that decompose faster they will still provide some benefit to the process overall.

In general it is best to have fairly equal amounts of what is called brown material and green material in your compost. Brown materials are the manures, dead leaves, small twigs and cardboard and newspapers. Green materials include hedge and grass clippings, coffee grounds, fruit rinds and uncooked vegetables.

You can start your compost heap with as little as a foot of compostable materials. When you are ready to get your composting project underway, simply mow the yard, weed the garden, empty out your organic kitchen waste and throw in a little newspaper or straw so that you have about a foot of material in the bottom of your compost bin. Turn the pile occasionally and let nature takes its course and soon you will have some rich compost to add to your vegetable garden.

Tags

yard-maintenance

Houseplant Pests – How to Deal With Them

One of the most common problems that gardeners experience is dealing with pests on their houseplants. Take care not to do damage to the plants while you are taking action to kill the insects.

Therefore one of the best gardening tips has to do with how you can deal with pests on houseplants safely. The first step is to clean up to remove the insects. Cleaning is a good place to start because it is good way to keep good physical control, but it also allows you to monitor other controls.

Insecticidal soap is very effective for houseplant pests because it works by suffocating them. Insect contact with the product is essential and so you are going to need to make sure that you apply the soap frequently enough that all the pests will be taken care of.  These are important gardening tips to know.

Seed Starting

Gardening tips involving seed starting are very important as well. Timing is essential here, and more than anything you do not want to begin too early. With the exception of plants such as peppers and tomatoes, most seedlings do best when they are started in mid-March, so don’t get too anxious and start too early before this.

These are just some of the many gardening tips out there, but they can be very helpful. However, good gardening help may not be as easy to find. It is really beneficial for even a longtime gardener to learn as may tips as you can, so if you have a problem, you won’t be in the dark about what to do.

Gardening has so may benefits it is worth trying even if you have never considered it before.

Tags

yard-maintenance

Parsley – Parsley is a relatively hardy annual in zones 2-11. Both flat-leaf and curly varieties are easy to care for and grow very well without a lot of extra care. It can do well in full sun to light shade, and needs rich soil that is well-drained but moist. It doesn’t do particularly well in heat.

Cilantro – Another simple herb to grow is cilantro. This is an annual herb that grows well both in the shade and the sun. You’ll find that it is very easy to care for and it will do pretty well in just about any type of climate.

Chives – Chives are herbs that will grow in just about any conditions and almost any type of soil. In fact, they barely need any tending to grow. They prefer to have full sun on them, and rich soils make them do better. Chives have a wonderful flavor that is a bit like onions, and are excellent as a topping for baked potatoes. You can use them in a variety of different ways either dried or fresh.

Oregano – Oregano is a staple in most Italian cooking and is easy to grow. The leaves can be dried or they can be used fresh in any tomato dish. It is one of the easiest herbs to grow and can be grown in just about any area inside or outside. It should have soil that is well drained and also likes full sun, but it will even grow in soil that is rocky and poor.

Thyme – This is an herb that is perennial. It is very hardy and grows into a plant that is much like a shrub. It requires soil that is well drained but moist and prefers to be in the full sun. There is very little care to worry about when growing thyme.

Basil – Basil in a warm-weather annual herb. It is hardy in most zones, but it requires hot, dry conditions to reach peak flavor. It needs full sun, and very rich, moist soil. The only major issues with growing basil are slugs and cool conditions. As long as basil has enough light and heat, and its soil is allowed to dry out between waterings, it usually requires little additional care.

Bay – While this is actually a shrub, bay is a great herb to start out with in your herb garden. It is a very hardy herb and does well in many zones. It needs soil that is rich and not overly wet. However, it does fairly well in most conditions. The best flavor from this herb comes when the leaves have been dried. So, you’ll want to dry the leaves before you decide to use them.

Herbs are not difficult to grow, and they can be a great addition to your vegetable garden. Start with one or two easy herbs and gradually build up your herb garden. Make sure you pay attention to the climate they prefer. While they may be hardy and grow in a variety of places, they’ll do the best when you keep them in a suitable climate. Once you have tried fresh herbs in your food, you will wonder how you ever got along without them.

Tags

yard-maintenance