Raised bed gardening what are the benifits

For this article I'm going to stray from my normal topic of Internet marketing and indulge myself with one my passions........gardening........,in particular raised bed gardening. So here we go! Where soil is of poor quality and drainage inadequate, raised bed gardening makes it simple to create patches of fertile, well-drained soil. This can, in turn save money as well as time to! It is considerably cheaper and less effort than installing a drainage system and then trucking in topsoil. Combined with good drainage control, you can grow all sorts of fussy plants. Raised bed gardening elevates plants to a more workable level, making them easier to tend to. Raised bed gardening is also great for vegetable or cutting gardens. For gardeners in wheelchairs or with back pain, raised bed gardening is a godsend. Just make sure the area between the beds is wide and firm enough for ease of movement. Raised bed gardening is extremely low maintenance too. Plants can be kept organized, and all the soil and debris can be kept within its borders. This means a serious reduction in your hard work! There are many reasons for the Raised beds revival. But probably the most important is more production per square foot of garden. Raised beds don't require the usual space between rows because you don't walk in the bed to cultivate or harvest. Greater production can be achieved with raised bed gardening because of the lack of soil compaction. In a normal garden you have to leave space between the plants in order to work them properly. This then leads to soil compaction which can reduce crop yields up to 50 percent. All a plants needs i. e water and air have trouble moving through compacted soil. When compaction isn't the only problem, then raised bed gardening can help there to. Homeowners may have areas unsuited for conventional gardens. Raised bed gardening will physically rise above these, with frames as its foundation. It allows you to recycle problem spots! Raised beds are also a boom with pest control to. If you get an invasion of furry little criters, simply line the bed with poultry wire or some hardware cloth. You can discourage rabbits by placing their favorite foods in a framed bed with a low fence. Well, i hope Ive done a decent job of highlighting some of the benefits of raised bed gardening. Thanks for reading Caiden “Green Fingers” Felix

Improve your yard and garden with an atv plow

Like many parents, I’ve always had trouble getting my adolescent son to do work around the house. I’m really big on my yard and all the outdoor work that comes with it. I do a lot of gardening, a lot of shoveling, and even more trimming and loading. For years, it was nearly impossible to get my son to help with any of this, and I finally stopped asking for any assistance at all. A couple years ago, the family up and moved to Colorado. And not just any part of Colorado … the Rocky Mountains. We found a nice house with a great yard in a small community called Evergreen, about 25 miles west of Denver in the foothills of the Rockies. To our surprise, the house came with a little bonus: A big wooden shed on the property containing an old ATV and a bunch of accessories to go along with it. After arriving in late November, we found ourselves settled right in time for the winter’s first big snowstorm. And boy, did it ever come down. After three days of constant blizzard conditions and over five total feet of snow, we found ourselves trapped behind 200 yards of snow-packed driveway. The thought of attempting to shovel that huge area was overwhelming, until I recalled seeing a snow plow fitting for the old ATV in the shed. Hoping this might do the trick, I tracked out to the shed to see if I could put it together. With a couple calls to the manufacturer of the ATV (Kawasaki), and the manufacturer of the snow plow (WARN), I was set up and ready to go. Curiously, I only made it to the edge of the garage before my teenage son was running at me with wide eyes and a never-before-seen look of interest in household chores. Amazingly, the kid begged me to shovel the driveway, a task he had always faked a cold to get out of. In just two hours, the ATV had plowed the entire 200 yards of driveway, and my son ran in as excited as if he had just spent the time on his snowboard. For the remainder of the winter season, his eyes lit up each and every time the snow fell, and we never spent more than a couple hours snowed in. During those great hours, my wife and I would simply warm up a pot of hot cocoa and watch the amazing transformation taking place from the warmth of the house. When spring came around and it was time to get started on my tree trimming and garden duties, I found a similar interest in these outdoor chores. I would trim the branches, and my son would load them into the ATV plow and transport them to the edge of the property. He then spent a week straight digging up dirt and proportioning areas of land for my grand gardening plans. In a fraction of the time it had taken in previous years, I had a great garden, thanks mostly to the help of my son and his new favorite toy. In the past two years, I haven’t shoveled a bit of snow in the winter. For the past two summers, I haven’t put a bit of work into my garden. Yet I still have the best looking yard and garden on the block, and my son did it all with an old ATV and utility plow. And anytime the neighbors come to ask me how I got my son to be so helpful around the yard, I simply point at that old ATV and say “Get one of those and you’ll see for yourself.”

Window box gardening tips and techniques

In this country, window box gardening offers apartment dwellers the enjoyment of container gardening from within or without. If you live in just one room or on a very small property, you, too, can have a window box garden filled in spring with pansies and primroses, in summer with petunias or fuchsias, and in fall with chrysanthemums. In winter, greens and berries, like bittersweet or California pepper berries with pine, give color. English Ivy will provide trailing green all winter if kept out of the wind. For the best results in a window box gardens, the box ought to be at least three to four feet long but not more than six feet. If larger, it is way too heavy to suspend and secure properly, and it cannot be lifted easily, even by two people. Boxes resting on broad window ledges and on firm porch railings might be eight feet long, but hardly more since moving them becomes too hazardous. Keep to a minimum depth of eight to nine inches, with a width of ten to twelve inches across the top. Of course, lengths must vary according to the window, or series of windows or railing to be decorated with window box gardening. The most common material for window box gardens is wood. California redwood becomes a neutral gray if not painted, and cypress will last for years. Cedar is recommended, as is a good grade of white pine. Other materials include metals, which are attractive and, for the most part, light in weight. However, they have the disadvantage of conducting heat, thus overheating the soil in your window box garden. Other suitable and durable lightweight materials are plastic, fiberglass, spun glass, and Gardenglas. If you are handy with tools, you can make your own window boxes of wood, following instructions in pamphlets from your nursery or garden center. Whatever plan you follow, get boards one to one and a quarter inches thick. (Thinner boards will warp and offer little insulation against summer heat.) To fasten, rely on brass screws rather than nails, which in a few years may push out and cause a box to fall apart. To make corners secure, reinforce with angle irons. Be sure to provide enough drainage holes in the bottom for water to pass through freely. Space half-inch holes six to eight inches apart when building your window box gardens. When boxes are completed, treat the insides with a preservative to prevent rotting. Cuprinol or some other non-toxic material is excellent, but avoid creosote which is poisonous to plants. After the preservative has dried, apply at least two coats of good paint or stain. Select a color which will not detract from the plants. Traditional dark green is satisfactory, though commonplace, unless you use a tint like apple green. Have in mind the colors of the flowers, especially of plants that trail over the sides. Dark flowers do not show up against dark paint. The same is true of white flowers against light surfaces, as white petunias against white or pale yellow boxes. To hold window box gardens securely, use bolts or lag screws and treat them beforehand to prevent rusting. Leave an inch or so of space between the window box garden and house for the movement of air. If the box garden is to rest on a terrace or other solid surface, raise them on cleats or set up on bricks or blocks of wood so drainage holes won't become clogged. Some space under boxes is also important for air circulation, which will dry up run-off water. When you plant a window box garden, put an inch layer of broken flower pots, crushed brick, small stones or pebbles over the bottom to enable water to escape freely through the openings. Above this, spread a piece of wet burlap or a layer of moist sphagnum moss, old leaves, hard coal clinkers or cinders to prevent soil from washing into the drainage area. All plants in window box gardening need rich soil for luxuriant growth. Space larger kinds—geraniums, coleus, and fuchsias-eight to ten inches apart; smaller kinds—lobelias, annual phlox, wax begonias, sweet alyssum, and browallia—six inches apart. An eight-inch-wide box accommodates two rows of plants, with the tall ones in back and the low ones along the front. Boxes, ten inches wide, take three rows of plants, tall, medium, and low for edging. After planting, spread an inch mulch of peat moss or other mulch over the soil to delay drying out and keep weeds in check. In a month, give a liquid fertilizer and follow up with feedings every seven to ten days. Foliage fertilizers can also be applied, but only as a supplement to root feeding. The choice of plants for window box gardens is limited only by size. Plants over a foot high do not look well unless boxes are exceptionally large. Otherwise, you can grow almost anything you want. For early spring, you might start with Dutch flower bulbs. In cold regions, these can be purchased already grown, or you can raise your own. Try hyacinths with pansies or early tulips or daffodils interplanted with grape hyacinths, or basket-of-gold and arabis with scillas, chionodoxas, or leucojum. Include some English daisies and sweet-smelling wall flowers, so common in window box gardening in Western Europe. Violas, blue phlox, aubretia, and forget-me-nots are other possibilities. The favorite plant in window box gardening is the geranium—red or pink for white, cream, or light or dark blue boxes; white for brown, blue, or red boxes. The familiar trailing variegated vinca is excellent with them. Thriving in sun or shade, the vinca needs constant pinching to prevent it from becoming too long. English and German ivies are other trailers for sun or shade. In the sun, low annuals, dwarf marigolds, lobelias and verbenas make nice edgings as does sweet alyssum, in white, purple or lavender. Petunias vie with geraniums in popularity, and any kind can be planted, though the balcony types have the advantage of trailing gracefully over the sides of the window box garden. In shade that is open to the sky, as on the north side of a house, coleus grows superbly, with white-and-green kinds a handsome contrast for those with red-and-pink leaves. Coleus luxuriates in a rich soil and requires plenty of moisture. Pinch to keep bushy, and to improve appearance remove the spiked blue flowers, unless you especially like them. The Trailing Queen coleus is one of the best. Other shade-tolerant trailing plants include English ivy and its varieties, creeping jenny, Kenilworth ivy, creeping fig, German ivy, variegated gill-over-the-ground, myrtle, wandering Jew, zebrina, achimenes, chlorophytum, star of Bethlehem or Italian bellflower, and strawberry begonia. These are just a few hints on planting your window box gardens. Be creative with colors and texture. Window box gardening, so much like container gardening, will become your next favorite hobby. Happy Window Box Gardening! Copyright © 2006 Mary Hanna All Rights Reserved. This article may be distributed freely on your website and in your ezines, as long as this entire article, copyright notice, links and the resource box are unchanged.