As the Garden Grows

What's blooming today?


You are here: Home / Archives for Home and Lifestyle

Handcrafted picnic tables in a variety of quality woods

by

logo2.gif

If you’re shopping for new patio furniture or possible a wooden picnic table that compliments your existing outdoor furniture you should visit allpicnictables.com.

allpicnictables7_01.jpg They have a wide selection of high quality picnic tables in a variety of woods such as cedar, pine, select pine, cherry, oak and teak.

If you’re like me, when you think of a picnic table you probably think of the traditional style like the red cedar one off to the right, but you can also browse through All Picnic Tables selection of round, square, rectangular, oval and hexagon shaped picnic tables. Plus, if you’d like a more modern look you can find vinyl, coated metal, aluminum, polywood and galvanized steel tables too.

Each of their wooden tables are hand crafted using quality woods.

They are made to withstand years of outdoor use. Allpicnictables.com is a division of CedarStore.com which was first established in 1992 in the western PA area. Due to their products high quality and craftsmanship it’s not surprising that their tables and other products are being ordered from all areas of the continental USA. If you like their tables, but you aren’t in the USA don’t worry.

You can arrange for international shipping.

Chris and I already have a very nice patio set, but I noticed that Allpicnictables.com also sells table benches, patio chairs, furniture covers, patio umbrellas and even garden benches. I decided to take a look at the garden benches and discovered this beautiful three person Wicker Sofa. Isn’t it beautiful?

sofas_3896.jpg I’d love to have an outdoor sofa in my beautiful garden and I wouldn’t mind having that specific sofa. You can even select from a variety of fabrics for the sofa cushions so you’ll be sure to get something that suits your tastes and perhaps goes with your other outdoor furniture pieces. There are other wicker furniture pieces to choose from as well.

Overall I’m quite pleased by the selection of quality outdoor furniture and handcrafted picnic tables at allpicnictables.com. The prices are reasonable too. Visit the site and see how beautiful their outdoor furniture is with your own eyes.






Do you put mulch on your garden beds?

by

If you’ve been reading my garden stories you know I was a very very bad gardener this year. I didn’t complete my summer gardening tasks until last week! Those tasks included adding a three inch or so layer of shredded red cedar mulch to my garden beds.

Time and time again I’m amazed at what a difference mulching the garden came make. If you use an attractive mulch it makes your garden beds look nicer. I find it also makes your garden look tidier.

Other benefits of mulching include:

  1. It cuts down on weeds and the task of weeding since weed seeds can’t penetrate the thick mulch easily.
  2. Mulching helps hold the moisture in the soil so you don’t have to water as often.
  3. Mulch helps keep your plants roots cool.
  4. I find fewer animals digging in my garden beds when they have a good layer of mulch.
  5. Plants look healthier.
  6. It’s been said that red mulch placed around Tomato plants reflect certain light rays back at the plant and actually help make tomatoes grow better.
  7. The mulch eventually breaks down in the soil and adds nutrients for your plants.

Since putting mulch down we’ve only watered the garden twice and the plants look great. I did rain on Sunday though so you could say the gardens had three waterings. Prior to adding the mulch the plants were wilting in the hot summer heat within two days. The soil was just drying out too fast.

Now my plants were fairly healthy despite the lack of care I’ve given them this summer, but still, I can see an improvement in how they are withstanding the summer heat in the short time that the mulch has been down on the garden beds.

I’m not new to mulch. Ever since I put my garden beds in six years ago I’ve been putting mulch down on the garden beds by the end of each June. This is the first year that I did it so late and I won’t ever be late again. It really helps!

Create lists of plants you’ve grown or garden to do lists on Meosphere

by

I just joined an interesting site called Meosphere. The site is a collection of lists, and links that site members have created. Each member can create their own Meosphere.

As the sites about page says we all have our Meosphere. You could even say this blog has it’s own meosphere, a gardening meosphere perhaps.

The best way to explain this site to you is to show you.

I went looking for gardening related items and I found a Meosphere list had had already been started. It’s called “Flowers You’ve grown”. I went through the list and ticked off all the flowers on the list that I’ve grown at some point in my life or that are currently growing in my garden. Then I saved a list of the flowers I’ve grown as my own list. I can’t find an embed list link for my own list though so I’ll just paste the first list here to show you:

Now we all know that even more flowers could be added to that list but that’s the beauty of the meosphere lists. You can place a check mark beside all the flowers on this list that you grow and save your own copy of the list. Then you can add even more flowers to it if you’d like. You can even edit your saved list to add descriptions and photos of each item.

Can you see the possibilities?

I think I may spend a bit of time on Meosphere later today. I might create some gardening to do lists. You know, specific spring, summer, and autumn gardening tasks for Zone 5b gardeners. Others on the site can find my lists and make their own copies adding tasks specific to their own gardening zones. You could also make lists of your gardening books, favorite garden tools, and so on. I love it.

You could make lists of just about anything in this manner and since we’re bloggers it could be yet another way to interact with our readers.

Please do feel free to check off the flowers that you grow on this list and make your own list out of it. I’d love to visit your meospheres to see what you’ve created and see lists of what you’ve been growing.

Meta