As the Garden Grows

What's blooming today?


You are here: Home / Archives for weeding

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!






Planning a garden?

by

Are you planning to beginning gardening this spring? Perhaps you are already a gardener but you plan on adding a new garden bed this season.

Do you know everything you need to know about preparing for a new garden bed? I’ve found some tips that will help you make your garden grow.

Anyone planning to begin a garden or set up a new garden bed should:

1. Plan your garden on paper before you begin. I did this back in the winter of 2002. I had measured my yards dimensions that fall, and I even took some pictures so I could easily remember what plants were already in the garden and how it was set up at the time. Then I began planning on paper using my measurements to map out the garden beds, and patio area.

2. Be sure that your new garden site is –

  • a. In full sun for at least eight hours each day, unless you have a shady yard of course.
  • b. Relatively level, but not in a low spot where cold air settles.
  • c. Well-drained, be sure to notice if the area stays wet for a period of time in the Spring as well even if it’s dry the rest of the season as this can affect your success with plants.
  • d. Close to a water source
  • e. Not near trees. Tree roots can interfere with plant growth and often trees steal the available water from the plants you’re trying to grow.

3. Know your current soil conditions. The soil in my area is a mix of both sand and clay! I amended our soil with triple mix (a mix of manure, peat and top soil). I also decided to create raised beds so that my plants would grow in a foot of my newly amended soil. The plants would also have good drainage and the soil would warm up earlier in the spring due to the raised beds.

Your own soil might need to be amended with lime or peat moss, manure or compost in order to improve it’s texture, and PH. Consider having your soil tested so that you can be sure that it’s PH levels are appropriate for the type of plants you’d like to grow.

4. When you begin your garden don’t go overboard. Plan a garden that you can maintain easily. If you over do the garden by making it too large or by attempting to grow plants with high levels of difficulty you might end up very disappointed. Keep in mind how much time you have for watering, weeding and maintaining the garden when you choose your plants.

5. If you are growing vegetables try to grow species that do well in your area. Tomatoes are a great plant to grow as they are fairly easy and produce an abundant amount of delicious tomatoes.

No longer Neglected

by

My poor garden, it hasn’t been getting the level of care that I normally give it this year. I’ve been so ill that I’ve been barely getting outside to work in the garden with the exception of watering it a couple of times a week. Thankfully it’s been raining often enough that I don’t have to be out there everyday watering.

Yesterday afternoon and evening I made an effort towards getting the garden under control again. All of the plants are growing beautifully with little help from me. The roses have been blooming their pretty little heads off, the Holyhocks are beginning to bloom and so on. However, without my assistance some of the plants were leaning on to others, crowding them out and making the garden look more than a little bit sloppy.

I spent several hours yesterday putting some stakes around floppy plants, tying them up with garden tape and just straightening them out. It looks amazing!

Today I plan to distribute the contents of my compost pile around all the plants and add some coffee grounds that we picked up from a local coffee shop to a new batch of compost. Then I’m going to put some red cedar mulch on all my flower beds. I’m a bit late in doing this but they say that if you have problems with slugs, and I do, you shouldn’t mulch until at least mid-June, and you should turn the soil a few times prior to that to keep kill the slug eggs. Better late than never. It looks so nice when the mulch is fresh. I’ll take some pictures.

My arms are, of course, a mess again after tangling with several rose bushes. Oh well, they’ve all been tamed now so they won’t get me as badly for the rest of the year.

Later, I’m going to make some alfalfa tea for my garden. No, the garden and I aren’t going to sit and relax over a hot cup of steaming herbal tea. Uh huh, this is a special organic fertilizer that I make several times each year, let it ferment, and then pour it on my garden when all the neighbors are asleep since it smells so god awful bad! Really, it smells so nasty but works so well. I put it on my garden at least 5 times last summer and I think that’s why I have giant roses, abundant blooms and a more than slightly over grown garden this year.

I’ll write up the alfalfa tea recipe later and make a post about it’s magical work.

In other news – As you know this site is still in it’s infancy. If you actually been reading this post I’d like some suggestions as to what you might like to see me write about.

I’m thinking about make a weekly or perhaps if I’m really ambitious a daily feature in which I write about a particular plant’s profile. The write ups would include photos of the plant, hardiness and care data, when it usually blooms if it blooms and planting advice.

Would you like to see plant profiles on this site? If you would, give me some suggestions as to what plants you want me to begin talking about. See my Whats Growing page for an idea of the kind of plants I’m familiar with.

Don’t forget that tomorrow is Green Thumb Sunday. If you’d like to participate by posting a garden, plant or nature photo on your site tomorrow let me know and I’ll send you the bl0groll code and add you to the roll.

Ok, got to get back to the garden. Hey isn’t that a song? LOL

Meta