As the Garden Grows

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New Question and Answer Page

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I don’t know if you’ve noticed it yet, but across the top of the page under the header I have listed a number of what I feel are this sites important pages. Green Thumb Sunday, how to join the GTS list, A list of what I’m growing in my garden (just updated!), a contact form and now I’ve added the new Q&A page.

Every once in a while someone will decide to take a chance and they either leave a comment or contact me via email in order to ask me to help them identify some strange plant that’s growing in their yard or maybe they are writing to me to ask about a plant that’s not doing well in their garden or in their home.

I’m certainly not a master gardener, but I’ve been gardening since I was a young child and I’ve got a garden that’s chock full of a wide variety of plants, plus there’s a number of house plants in my home … certainly I can try to answer some questions.

As I suggested on the Q&A page – if you have a question for me about plant health, plant care or the identity of a mystery plant please feel free to leave a comment on that page and I’ll do some research and create a new post on this blog about the question.

If I can’t answer a question I’ll try to point the person towards resources that are sure to be helpful.

If you do have a question for me remember to try to give me a link to a picture of the plant in question. I may use the photo in a post (be aware). If you can’t point me towards a photo please do be as descriptive as possible as it will save me a bit of time researching the answer!

If you’re kind enough to send me your questions you’ll be helping me get more garden related content on this site. For the longest time I was doing pretty good about putting up new plant profiles and tips but that’s fallen off in the last few months. I’ll help you if you can help me. 🙂

Also, if you have a garden related event in your area and you’d like to get the word out feel free to tell me about it and if I feel it’s appropriate for this site I’d be happy to tell my readers all about it.

Send me your questions!






Do you put mulch on your garden beds?

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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!

Lightening, free nitrogen and plant growth

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All day yesterday I was expecting rain. The weather station said it was going to rain in the evening but it never did. You know when it finally did rain? 4 in the morning!

What a storm! Thunder, Lightning and torrents of rain … we need it. Our garden was pretty dry and I hadn’t watered for a week or so because we’d been expecting rain that never materialized.

Personally I don’t really like thunder and lightening storms. I don’t like the crash of thunder, nor the flash of lightening, but for my gardens sake, every time I hear that we are supposed to get rain I always hope for a few flashes of lightening in the area.

Why?

Well, lightening puts free nitrogen into the air. Have you ever wondered why your garden always looks so much better have a thunder shower than just a simple rain or even watering with the garden hose? It’s all those free nitrogen molecules in the air. our gardens get a heavy dose of the food that they need to green up and grow – that’s why the plants always look so much better the day after a storm and often seem to grow a few inches right afterwards too.

Humor me … the next time you’re expecting a storm in your area take a good look at your garden or your neighbors garden if you don’t have one of your own. Take note of how the plants are looking and perhaps even how tall they are. The day after the storm, and perhaps even the day after that take a look at the garden again and see if the plants don’t look healthier, stronger and perhaps even bigger.

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