10 Ways to Eliminate Garden Pests

Garden pests are not hard to get rid of with a few simple precautions. Some successful gardeners use covered frames, which are wooden boxes covered with glass, cloth, mosquito netting or mosquito wire. Glass and cloth coverings protect your plants from heat and cold. They also allow you to plant earlier than normal. Covered frames are used for vine veggies like cucumbers and melons.

You can protect other plants from pests like cut-worms by using a stiff collar. Collars are made of tin, cardboard or tar paper. Just place the collar around the stem of the plant for protection. It will dig into the soil about an inch or so to make it sturdy.

You can also spray your garden with poisons designed to kill pests. For this method, you'll need a sprayer. The best option is a compressed-air, hand-powered sprayer. You'll want to be sure it has a non-cloggable mist-making nozzle for easy cleanup.

For more extensive work, you'll want to get a barrel pump. Barrel pumps have wheels, making them easily mobile.

Be sure to get a brass sprayer or pump. Brass lasts longer and holds up better than cheaper metals. The cheaper ones tend to corrode easily from contact with chemicals.

High trees and vines are easy to spray with extension rods. You can buy these rods to fit almost any sprayer or pump.

If you don't have a sprayer, you can use a hand-syringe to apply the poison. Of course, a sprayer is a great investment. You can do more in less time, freeing you to enjoy other gardening work as well.

Tools for Harvesting

After the hard work of planting your garden, harvest day will arrive! Most small gardens can be harvested with a spade, hoe, or spading-fork. Larger gardens can be harvested with specialty tools that make your job a bit easier.

Use an onion harvester attachment with your double wheel hoe. This makes it easy to dig up veggies such as onions, beets, turnips and even spinach.

A hand plow helps loosen deep-growing vegetables like carrots and parsnips. Just run the hand-plow on either side of the row of veggies, and they'll come up easily.

Fruit trees can be harvested with a long handled, wire-fingered fruit picker.

Pruning Tools

In most cases, where pruning is done on a regular basis, a good jack-knife and a pair of pruning shears work nicely as pruning tools.

Plant Supports

Tidy up the look of your garden with stakes, trellises and wires. These supports are easy and convenient to use. With good storage, they'll last for several years.

Be sure to learn about the different gardening tools available. The right tools make gardening very enjoyable. Invest a little money up front, and your tools will last for several years. With each season, you can add another good tool and soon have a complete set to call your own. Remember, good tools make your gardening experience both profitable and fun!

Phil Allen has been writing for the internet for several years and enjoys his family and gardening. Find out more of his secrets at Backyard-Gardens.com and Yardbeauty.com

My Yard Is Too Small For A Real Garden

Is it now? As yards become smaller and smaller in many areas, not enough gardening space is becoming a more common complaint. Many plants need less soil space than you think to grow well. As long as the roots have plenty of room, and the plantings can be situated so the lighting that they require to thrive is available, plants are usually somewhat flexible about their homes. I have even seen some gardeners who just slit a bag of soil they bought at a gardening center, plant the seeds, and water through the opening in the bag after adding drain holes. These bags can be stacked and arranged to save space and can be moved easily if required. Simplicity at its best. Use your imagination and think of the many ways you might get a trailing type of plant to grow up instead of out. How might you stack and arrange the containers to conserve space and best complement your yard or patio?

By making a lattice framework to keep the plants from making direct contact you can mount plant pots all the way up a wall of a building and grow on several levels. How about making a human face with a few well-placed planting containers and vines along the sides for long hair? You can get whimsical or be serious with your designs. How about using plants for containers like dried gourds, etc? A natural container goes good with a rustic style wall. Arched trellises are good ways to save space. They can have hanging baskets, as well as plants trained to grow up over the top, filling every square inch with greenery. Two large sized landscaping posts with wire strung between them can make a wall of beauty with a small footprint quite inexpensively. I've seen sections of metal porch railing painted brightly so it sets off the colors of plants as it supports them. Some use the netting that protects fruit trees from birds for support of the lighter types of greenery. I can see the rubber truck bed netting being used for a rugged, techy look. You can really get artistic.

Many like to use various unique containers for their gardening plots. Retaining wall blocks that are made to hold plantings can make that space do double duty. Scraps from a tree trimming operation can make great wood components for your space. Natural seashells and even abandoned bird nests are popular and eye catching ways to make a customized statement from an otherwise dull area. Benefits of container gardens include their portability and flexibility. You can move spent plants out and change plantings around as the seasons change. Nearby buildings can shelter the dainty ones. Look around and see how many items you could use to nurture plants. The more unexpected the better. Some plumbing fixtures may not please the neighbors however.

Raised bed gardening and square foot gardening allows more plants in a given area due to the way the soil is contained and plantings are arranged. Wasted space like many wide paths through the greenery, and using only a single level of growing area is eliminated. The growing spaces are built upward, as well as outward. Kind of like a three dimensional vertical gardening technique. Many organic gardeners like these sorts of techniques because it gives them more control. Pests are more easily eliminated because of the more carefully contained soil areas. The building materials used to make the enclosures can be made from almost any substance strong enough to contain the weight of the soil and water that will be used. Look at your petite yard in a new way and think about how many plants you can fit into it now!

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If You Compost It, They Will Come

Here's a cheery little thought that you can meditate over: have you ever opened up your compost bin and find all sorts of little critters ambling about in there? I can tell you that I have, and from what experience and many composting teachers have taught me, most of the time that's normal and okay. Little roomies like fruit flies, fly larvae, and even worms will show up to feast upon the yummy organic matter you have stored in your compost bin. Even though you may not have sent out an official invitation, it's kind of funny to see these little critters going to town in your compost.

How does it happen? Well, most of the time you'll get visitors just by opening up the lid of the bin. Fruit flies will definitely show up if you've got fruit rinds and vegetable stalks in your compost. If you noticed them flying out of your bin when you opened it up, don't worry, the flies probably flew through the aerating holes of the bin. Most of the time the flies will lay eggs in your compost and they'll hatch, which may be another reason why you keep seeing them buzzing about. If you find that there seems to be an entire colony of flies and bugs hanging about your bin, again don't worry. This happens in the beginning stages of composting, especially if you have a slew of fruit rinds in the bin. Once everything starts to decompose, there will be less and less fruit flies hanging about.

If you keep an open bottom compost bin in the ground for easy compost tea evacuation, you may have noticed some worms wiggling about in your bin. This is absolutely fantastic since worms are a vital part in the composting process. As the worms are wiggling their way around you compost bin and back into the soil, it speeds up the process, which results in rich, black soil. For an added benefit, you should add a pound of red wiggler worms in your compost bin in the beginning just so the composting process is sped up. Once there's nothing left for the worms to munch on, they'll move out of your bin and burrow about in your soil.

Critters like bugs and worms aren't always a bad thing; for composting, they're essential! Think of it this way; as long as they're not bothering you and helping out with the composting process, everybody wins!

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Hydroponics Gardening

Have you ever dreamed of having a year-round, low-maintenance garden that you do not need to spend too much time on? Well, dream no more, because with hydroponics gardening, it is very much possible to have a blooming garden and have flourishing life outside it too!

One of the biggest challenges every gardener must face is never having sufficient time to take care of their garden. A garden being a living thing, there are always weeds to pluck out, garden pests to get rid of, and other steps to ensure your plants’ healthy survival. And then there’s the matter of watering the plants, which takes even more time on an almost daily basis.

So, if you badly want a garden, but are not very keen on investing too much time on it, hydroponics gardening is your best option. Hydroponics gardening has many time-saving advantages over conventional gardening practices. Because of this, it has become increasingly popular among gardening aficionados.

In hydroponics gardening, plants are reared in nutrient solutions instead of in the earth. In other words, it is gardening without the use of soil. In this new method, plants are cultivated in water in which necessary nutrients have been dissolved. It seems complicated at first, but it is, in fact, even simpler than conventional gardening.

Like conventional gardening, hydroponics gardening still requires water, light, nutrients and humidity, but with the right hydroponics gardening equipment, it can be done indoors. Plants prosper in the water and nutrient solution because the roots still absorb the nutrients, even without soil.

For hydroponics gardening, you will need, of course, an area or room for your garden. You will also need the following basic equipment: a hydroponics system; lighting system; growing medium, like rockwool and perlite, to support the roots; thermometer; pH control kit; nutrients (in concentrated liquid, pre-mixed, or powder form); extension sockets; timer and timer control.

The equipment can be costly at first, but once you’ve set your hydroponics garden up, you can start reaping the many benefits of using this method:

• You don’t have to do any weeding. Since plants are grown in nutrient solutions, you don’t have to worry about weeds. This saves you plenty of time—and a lot of backaches.

• You will have fewer problems with pests and diseases. Growing plants hydroponically, you have fewer pests to deal with.

• You don’t have to water your plants. Hydroponic gardens have an unlimited supply of water, and a system in place to gauge the amount.

• You don’t have to dig your garden anymore. In conventional gardening, prepping the soil involves loosening the soil to get oxygen in for plants to absorb. This is a time-consuming task you won’t have to do for your hydroponic garden because the roots get their oxygen from the nutrient solution. The most common equipment for this purpose is the aquarium bubbler, which helps put oxygen back into the solution.

• You won’t need too much water. You only need enough to deliver the nutrients.

• You won’t need too much space. You can grow plants very near each other, so you maximize space. With little parcels of land, you can get high yields.

• You can cultivate plants all throughout the year because you have more control over the environment.

• You don’t have to worry about diseases carried by the soil.

• You can produce plants of superior quality because you can manage the surroundings well.

As you can see, a hydroponics system may take some time and additional expenses to set up, but its benefits are well worth the effort.

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Creating Atmosphere In Your Yard

When most plan their garden or yard design, they inadvertently forget to include ornamental fixtures. They simply rely on plants for decoration. There are many ornaments and decorations that can not only add color to your yard, but will liven it up. Decorations for your yard may include something fun or even something to help create a more sophisticated mood.

In choosing decorative items for your yard, first decide upon what type of mood you are going for and then decide upon where the item would be best placed. Is the item for practicality, such as a garden bench or to add to the artistic qualities and sounds of your garden, such as a tuned windchimes? Once you’ve decided upon the look you are attempting to create, you’ll stand a better chance of picking out decorations to enhance the look and feel of your garden.

If you are attempting to create a more practical look to your yard, adding items such as garden benches, bird houses, wind chimes and lighting fixtures would help to fashion the look you desire.

If creating a more sophisticated atmosphere, there are several things you can do, including applying the technique of trompe l’oeil, French for “fool the eye”. This is almost a must if you have a smaller garden or yard to work with. With this technique, you create the illusion that the area is bigger than it really is. For example, you can place a mirror on the back of an arbor with a windchime hanging on the left side of the arbor, which will create the feel of another sectioned off garden area. You can also paint vines or other plants on a concrete wall to give you the less closed-in feel or another popular idea is to place the mirrors on a wall, which will create the sense of more depth.

Remember that whatever you choose for your garden or yard area, you want it to reflect your personality and create the atmosphere you desire. Don’t be afraid to be crazy and bold in choosing your ornamental decorations-create your own, unique environment and take the opportunity to express yourself with marble sculptures, wind chimes, lighting fixtures, and outdoor furniture.

Stephen Betzen is a loving husband/supporter/and friend to his wife Rachel Betzen. Rachel and Stephen are dedicated to socially and ethically responsible business practices. Lovers of gardening and simple living. Buy your windchimes online.