5 Easy Steps to Help in Choosing and Caring For Your Plant

1. Choosing the right plant: You won’t have to spend as much time caring for your palnts if you choose plants that are suited to your environmental conditions and gardening style. Browse our collection of Gifts that Grow™, and get the perfect plant shipped to your door. 2. Watering: Test the soil in your containers every day with your finger. If it’s dry an inch below the surface – water. If you can’t water your plants on a regular basis, consider self-watering containers. If you’ve got hard-to-reach plants, we’d recommend a watering wand, which has saved us from lots of stepstool time. 3. Fertilizer: Fertilizer is important. Mix a dry, time-release fertilizer into the soil when planting, and use small amounts of liquid fertilizer for regular feeding every few weeks. 4. Fighting Pests: Inspect plants regularly for fungus, insects, bugs, etc. Remove any diseased or dying leaves. Spray insects with water or other natural repellants to get rid of them. 5. Pruning: Don’t be afraid to cut or trim plants to keep their shape and encourage growth – just leave at least 2/3 of the original plant intact so it’ll have enough surface area to absorb sunlight. Pinch deadhead faded flowers regularly to encourage more blooms on annual plants. A good set of tools can make all the difference. Keep in mind that every plant is different. Take some time to read up on your plants and learn as much as you can about their individual needs. A little time spent reading and planning now can save you a lot of time and disappointment later.

Your Garden Journal: The Best Book Ever

There are numerous gardening books available…in your home, at the library, in your local independent bookstore, and online. The contain very helpful information and encouragement.  In the you can learn things about what to plant, when to plant, how to germinate seeds, how to make your own compost, how make your own insecticide, etc. The are most helpful if you remember to read all the words and plan your garden using the information available….but they are not the most helpful gardening book available. Those books are written with excellent general information.  They are not specific to your yard or garden plot.

The books in the stores have good information and much inspiration for your organic garden.  They tell you about soil pH, air temperature, gardening climate zones, plant mixing, interplanting, new ideas; however, the most helpful garden book is not available in bookstores or online.  You have to write the best organic gardening book.  Only you will actually garden in your yard or plot. If you take good notes and create a thorough gardening journal, you will have the best gardening book ever written.  It will be customized just for you.

In order to have the most successful organic vegetable garden possible for you and your location, what should you record in your journal?

Soil and air temperature at different times of day including the daily minimums and maximums will give you information that helps in choosing plants for your garden in the future.  More immediately, that information will assist in determining whether you need to shade plants or soil for optimum garden production. If you use row covers, record the temperatures under the row covers and/or your plastic mulch.
Record unusual weather events [storms, droughts, deluges, very hot and/or very cool weather].  Several years of regular “unusual” weather events become regular weather events.
Be sure to keep a watering record.
Keep track of the dates your seeds germinate.  Then track and record your planting and transplanting dates for each crop.
Make sure to keep information on cover crops and times that you leave an area fallow.
Journal your composting piles [the dates started, when you water, material added, and the finishing date for the pile].
Track your pests and diseases making sure to note the number, duration, severity, what you treated it with, and the outcome.
Track your soil maintenance [crop rotation, compost addition, rock powders, leaf mold, other soil supplements.
And finally, track and record your harvest notes.
How much did you end up with? Several years of comparing what you did and what happened to the output will result in excellent information of maximizing your garden production.

If you are interested in the more existential aspects of gardening, journal how different events make you feel, your reaction to hardship, your reaction germination, harvest, pests, dogs, cats, moles, etc. Gardening is a process.  The journey is excellent and a lesson in patience and letting go.  You cannot control nature.  You can help it.  There is frequently no why as to the events in nature.  It’s okay not to understand.  You don’t have to understand here to be here.

Gardening can be a great help in understanding and getting in touch with now. A journal can track your past help improve the present. Make sure to review your journal regularly.  Most importantly, a garden journal assists with planning and is invaluable when the snows set in, the seed catalogs come in the mail, and your plan your spring, summer, and fall planting schedule. Go outside and garden. Save money with your own organic vegetable garden.

Save Money on Gardening : 10 Tips on the Cheap

1. Do it yourself:  Don’t pay someone else to dig, plant, cut and prune for you.  In addition to saving money, the exercise will make your feel better.  If working in the yard makes you grown – get over it.

2. Set your mower deck higher: set it at its highest setting (or at lease higher than you do now.  Don’t bag..leave the clippings where they fall.  You save on fertilizer and your lawn will look better.  Clippings don’t cause thatch, fertilizer does.

3. Make your own weed killer: vinegar, salt and dish soap, evidently boiling water kills weeds, and gin dish soap and vinegar.  Hit google…or this link: Hit Me! Evidently the vinegar kills the weed, salt keeps it from growing back, and soap sticks to the weed so the first two things can work. Amounts vary from recipe to recipe (or is it a formulation…again I digress) and do not appear to be very important. As the salt sticks around for a bit, you need to wait a little before replanting. [Didn't someone sale fields in the bible or something?]

4. Get your tools at yard sales and use hand tools. Never pay retail. Good tools last forever. Power tools use gas, stink, pollute your yard and the world at large, and leave you smelling like gasoline after you are done. Oh yeah, they are expensive too.

5. Compost. Make your own dirt. Don’t buy a bin, you don’t need one. Dig a hole. Make a pile. If you just pile up everything that was once once alive [and not an animal] that is left over from your kitchen, you will have compost in six to nine months. If you follow the rules and mix your compose and turn it, you can have some super dirt in two to three months.

6. Make your own mulch. Shred your leaves with you lawn mower. Contact a tree service and ask for chipped branches. You may get them for free since you will save the company the dumping fee. Be prepared though, it doesn’t look as nice as bought mulch but it works great on your garden and saves money. You may also consider stones or pebbles, the initial outlay is higher but they don’t have to be replaced. A truck load of local stone costs less than you think.

7. Divide plants, share seedlings, ask you neighbors. Talk to you neighbors and see if they have any plants that need dividing. Join a garden club or plant exchange. Look for sale by garden clubs and botanical gardens.

8. Watering. Get a rain barrel. You don’t need some expensive system. Contact your water department or look for recycled plastic barrels. Use soaker hoses in your beds and garden; you will use much less water. Water deeply once or twice per week. Daily, short watering make for shallow roots and unhealthy plants.

9. Grow Vegetables and Herbs. The saving will take to be realized but you can save a lot of money growing your own food. The savings will only increase over time. Especially if you follow the above tips. See my previous post for a calculator on gardening savings.

10. Cancel your cable and get outside in your yard.