Archive Category: 'Garden & Plants'

• Growing Potted Hydrangeas: {Tip Sheet}: Soil: Mixture of two parts loam to one each of sand, leaf mold, dried cow manure; add a teaspoon of bone meal to each pot. Water: Potted hydrangeas demand a lot of water; soak pots twice a day in growing season. To produce blue flowers, water occasionally with a solution of aluminum sulphate, 3 ounces to [...]
• Grow 100 lbs. Of Potatoes In 4 Square Feet: {How To}: Quite the clever gardening tip here folks! Today’s feature includes tips from three different sources for growing potatoes vertically (in layers) instead of spread out in rows across your garden. If you have limited garden space or want to try some nifty gardening magic, this could be a great option for you. First, there’s this article [...]
• How To Make Stone Planters: {DIY}: Today’s feature is from Martha Stewart with instructions for making these lovely Stone Planters: Make your own stunning planter using stones and cement. Making these is easy! Fill a large plastic bin with sand and make a hole inside, arrange the rocks along the sides of the hole, fill with cement, stick in a couple dowels for [...]
• 15 Potting Bench Plans: {Free DIY Projects & Tips}: Working with a potting bench during gardening season is pure luxury and you’ll find yourself looking forward to puttering away at your own little garden center. You can have everything organized in one location, including bags of potting soil, empty pots and containers, hanging garden tools, plant food and fertilizers (just make sure to store them [...]
• Easter Lily Care & Tips For Transplanting Outdoors: Easter lilies (Lilium longiflorum) are beautiful with their white trumpet flowers and are traditionally given as gifts or purchased for decoration during the Easter season. This year don’t toss the plant after the blooms are gone–try transplanting the lily in your garden and you could be rewarded with more blooms in the Fall (if you’re [...]
• Small-Space Raised Salad Box: {DIY}: Today’s feature is from Sunset with this nifty Small-Space Salad Box: Having fresh greens at your fingertips is one of the best parts of the growing season. And with a raised planter right outside the kitchen door, you can have a continual supply of salad greens nearly year-round. This 3½-foot-tall box, designed by Sunset senior Home [...]
• Getting Ready for Hummingbirds: Get ready, the hummingbirds are on their way! Why are hummingbirds popular? There’s something so charming about washing your dishes at the kitchen sink or sitting at a table and looking out the window to see a hummingbird a few inches away from you, hovering and feeding from a hanging flower basket or hummingbird feeder. [...]
• Growing Petunias: {Tip Sheet}: Petunias are an old-fashioned favorite that offer a lovely burst of color and work well in any garden, they flower in nearly every color you can think of. You can grow them in flower beds, hanging baskets (wave petunias are an especially good choice), patio containers (get creative!) and they also work well as edging [...]
• Selling Garden Vegetables For Profit: {How-To}: Today’s feature is this article from Knol Selling Your Garden Vegetables for Profit: Everyone is trying to eat healthy by adding fresh vegetables to your diet. Many restaurants are also adding locally grown and organic vegetables to their fare to attract health-conscious Americans. You can capitalize on this by growing herbs and vegetables that local restaurants will [...]
• Do You Grow Dishcloths? {Gardening Tip}: If you never have grown your dishcloths–try it! The dishcloth gourd, Luffa acutangula, is easily grown from seed, and produces a very satisfactory, sanitary dishcloth. Most seed catalogs list it. Plant the seed of the Luffa vine about the middle of May, or the time you plant your cucumbers should be right. In the fall the gourds [...]
• 10 Tips For Starting Seeds: {Gardening}: Today’s feature is from Fine Gardening with these 10 Seed-Starting Tips: How a practiced propagator gets seedlings off to a healthy start… Growing plants from seed is not always an easy task, and over the years I have developed and adopted the following techniques to ensure that seeds get a healthy start. The article is a great reference [...]
• Growing Geraniums: {Tip Sheet}: If you’re looking for a hardy plant that offers plenty of blooms in a large variety of colors, geraniums are a great choice. These old-fashioned favorites grow well in flower beds, hanging baskets, containers, window boxes and they’ll bloom beautiful clusters of flowers right through summer until frost. Here are some tips to grow them… Growing [...]
• Nifty Magnetic Garden Gloves: {DIY}: Today’s feature is from Martha Stewart with this nifty idea to keep track of your garden gloves–Magnetic Garden Organizer: Gardening gloves have a way of disappearing. Once dirty, they seem to blend into berry patches and stone walls — only to be found the next day, dew-soaked and useless until they dry. To keep gloves handy, sew [...]
• Peonies Question & Answer Sheet: {Gardening Tips}: I have some peonies that never bloom. What can be wrong with them? Several things might prevent them from blooming but the most likely is that they are planted too deeply. Two inches is the proper depth, and beyond that they frequently produce “blind” buds which will not open. What fertilizer is good for peonies? They [...]
• Gorgeous Framed Succulent Art: {DIY}: Hola, this is something! Today’s feature is from Sunset with Make Your Own Living Succulent Art: We’ve all gone wild for those dramatic “living walls” of succulents. Here, grower Robin Stockwell shows you how you can make your own. Instead of framing a picture, why not a whole garden? Here, cuttings of assorted succulents knit together to [...]
• Growing Strawberries: {Tip Sheet}: If you’d like to get your kiddos interested in gardening, growing strawberries is just the plant to do it! They bear juicy, red berries that everyone loves and are pretty easy to grow. If you don’t have space for a garden, no worries–strawberries can be planted on a balcony, in flower beds, and even hanging [...]
• Forcing Flowering Tree Branches Indoors: {How-To}: For Earlier Blooms Want to bring springtime in a little earlier this year? Visit your flowering shrubs or trees some warm day late this month (January), and take a few branches. With very little trouble you can force many of them to bloom indoors, long ahead of their outdoor blooming date. The cheerful blossoms are a [...]
• Growing Tomatoes: {Tip Sheet}: When To Plant: Plant seedlings in the Spring after all danger of frost has passed. You can either purchase seedlings at your local greenhouse or try growing your own by seed. Start the seeds indoors about 6 to 8 weeks before the last expected frost. The seeds will need plenty of light to prevent becoming [...]
• How To Build A $50 Greenhouse: {DIY}: Today’s feature is by the Door Garden with this diy tutorial How To Build My 50 Dollar Greenhouse: Now that I have a little bit of experience under my belt using my small greenhouse I see that this is a tool that I enjoy using and that can extend the productivity of my garden throughout the [...]
• Growing Garlic: {Tip Sheet}: Garlic (Allium sativum) is easy to grow in home gardens and since it’s used so much in cooking (and in home remedies), why not try growing some this year to have a stockpile or two to enjoy (and some to share with family and friends too)! Growing Garlic: Tips & Info When To Plant: If you live [...]
• Grow $700 of Food in 100 Square Feet!: Today’s feature is from Mother Earth News with Grow $700 of Food in 100 Square Feet! If more Americans grew a little food — instead of so much grass — our savings on grocery bills would be astounding. The total value of the fresh vegetables author Rosalind Creasy grew in her 100-square-foot garden in 2008 was $683.43! Small [...]
• How To Grow Basil: {Quick Tips}: Basil is a great choice to plant both indoors and outdoors since it’s easy to grow and is useful in so many ways. It can be used in salads, makes a great pesto and seasons dishes like soups, casseroles and sauces. It is also a key ingredient in many home remedies (such as treating wasp [...]
• How To Multiply & Extend Your Poinsettia: Thousands of homemakers received poinsettia plants this Christmas. These colorful plants, so fitting in holiday home decorations, sometimes become a problem after Christmas when blooming ends and many times they are thrown out. If you love filling your home with Poinsettias during the holiday season, here’s how you can get another blooming season from them. The poinsettia [...]
• Jade Plant Care & Growing Tips: The Jade plant (Crassula ovata) is a succulent and is one of the easiest to grow houseplants–it can live for decades with the proper care (or maybe neglect is a better word). A native of South Africa, it grows naturally in dry conditions and has developed thick fleshy leaves to hold the moisture which it [...]
• Spider Plant Care & Growing Tips: Spider plants (Chlorophytum comosum) have long been popular as an indoor plant because they’re so easy to grow (both indoors and outdoors). If you’re looking for a lush, fast growing houseplant that’s fuss-free, this one’s for you. Here are a few tips for growing one in your home… Spider Plant Care & Growing Tips Plant Appearance: Green [...]