Strawberries are a favorite of gardeners in many parts of the country. It’s hard to beat the flavor of a fresh strawberry, and these perennials are a favorite. But growing strawberries can pose a problem since they are perennial plants, and much of the typical vegetable garden is based on annual plants and a schedule of reworking the soil at least once a year with tilling, working in mulch, fertilizer and the like.
One solution is to use a hanging strawberry basket, but these are small in scale and hanging planters need some TLC to keep them adequately watered, and in the winter months the roots can freeze in colder climates unless you bring them in.
A greenhouse is the ultimate gardening gadget. But the cost of many greenhouse kits may leave you with some sticker shock. One popular approach to reducing the cost of a greenhouse is to use a lean to greenhouse kit. This is a kit that is built up against an existing structure like a garage of a shed, and has the obvious advantage of reducing costs by eliminating a wall so there is less to the kit. So this is a permanent structure as opposed to one of the portable greenhouses. Here are some other things to consider if you are thinking about a lean to kit.
A back porch compost tumbler is an attractive idea for many gardeners. One of the classic problems with a compost pile is that it is usually pretty far away from the house, and it becomes more work than seems necessary to collect all the kitchen scraps and store them until you are read to make the trek out to the garden. You can of course store those scraps in a compost crock for a few days, or even do the composting in the house with a kitchen composter, but it would really be handy to have the compost pile right on the back porch. Here is a look at one of the options for putting a composter on the back porch.
Growing tomatoes is one of the more rewarding crops for the home gardener. Tomatoes are relatively easy to grow, but one of the unique requirements for most types of tomatoes is the need for some type of support as the tomato plant grows taller and starts to bear fruit later in the growing season.
Some of the ungainly growth can be dealt with by simply pruning the tomatoes, but for larger tomatoes and in particular indeterminate varieties you will need to support the tomato plants. This has a number of benefits, such as keeping the fruit off the ground so it won’t rot or get eaten. Keeping the branches off the ground is a good practice, as they will root in the ground allowed to rest there for a while, and they are less susceptible to ground borne diseases if the water can’t splash as easily onto the leaves.
Stepping stones have always been a popular addition to the backyard, as they are an attractive way to create an inviting path to a special area of the yard, be it a pool, garden or simply a sitting area set aside in the yard. But they can be hard to follow at night, sometimes creating the need for additional lighting like solar powered garden lights. But another burst of creativity has given us the solar stepping stones, which are an alternative way to light a garden path.
The operation of a solar stepping stone is simple enough. They have a built in solar panel that takes in the sunlight during the day, and they also have a built in rechargable battery that stores that energy. At night the batteries power a built in LED lamp that can last up to 11 or 12 hours if the battery is fully charged.
Gardeners are always looking for a way to get an early start on the garden. One of the other real advantages of starter your own seeds is that the choice of flowers and vegetables is much greater if you are starting from seeds, as opposed to restricting yourself to the choices from the local nursury. This is especially true for some plants that can’t normally be directly seeded into the garden, such as tomatoes, brocolli or eggplant.
One of the most common purchases a new gardener makes when they start composting is to buy a compost starter to get their compost pile up and active. Do you need a compost starter, and if so what should your look for?
The goal of any gardener is get to get the compost pile working quickly, as compost is one of the most desirable soil amendments around, and compost seems to take forever to finish off. Compost starters offer the allure of just adding something to a pile, and it magically speeds things along.
Tomatoes are one of the most popular vegetables for the home gardener. In the right growing conditions they can be prolific, creating a bountiful harvest. But growing tomatoes is not without it’s problems, and watering tomatoes is one of those areas. One other key advantage to container growing tomatoes is that they can be grown on a balcony or patio, no need for garden space to grow them.
If you’ve been composting for any length of time you will have discovered that most of the time your compost pile has parts of it ripen faster than others. You may have a wide array of composted materials, since some of use throw most anything in the pile, and larger items like tree branches or even the main stalks of vegetable plants like broccoli or okra will break down much more slowly than shredded leaves or chipped wood.
Garden gnomes have been around for many years. They were originally produced in Germany in the middle of the 1800’s, and quickly spread through France and England, places where there were many gardeners. Today some estimate that there are more than 20 million gnomes in Germany alone. These early gnomes were fashioned from terra cotta, but over the years they have been made from a variety of materials like ceramics. Many of the modern gnomes are made from a resin material, which is relatively inexpensive, can be easily molded, and is fairly lightweight. Some other cheaper garden gnomes are made from plastic, which may not weather as well, but could last in an enclosed patio.
Anyone who spends a lot of time in the garden knows that many times we have to stop before we are ready because of all the time stooping and kneeling can be hard on the back or the knees. One handy garden tool to deal with this is a garden kneeler or garden seat. Here is a look at the different kneelers and seats on the market, and some features you might want to make sure you have.
Garden netting is one of those garden tools that we all wish we didn’t need, but is also one of the most effective means of garden pest control. There is a surprising number of products offered in the garden and bird netting area, and each has a slightly different target application ( pest if you will). Here are some buying tips if you are looking for garden netting, bird netting, or even deer netting for your garden.
As you spend more time gardening you will tend to accumulate more and more garden tools, and eventually you need to organize them when you aren’t using them. This can range from a simple holster or rack for storing a garden tool set, to a full size shed for housing your mini tiller or your chipper shredder. Here’s a look at some of your options for garden tool storage, with a look at garden tool storage racks, sheds organizers and more.
For anyone who is interested in composting, one of the tools that helps a great deal in speeding up the process of making compost is a chipper shredder. And every fall the homeowner with a tree faces the job of getting rid of the leaves without filling the landfills.There are a number of different options for chipping your yard and garden waste. Without a doubt the large gas powered chipper shredders will do the fastest job and handle the largest branches. But the gas powered shredders are often out of the price range of the average home gardener. But the electric chipper shredders are priced much less, and can pretty much handle the yard waste for the average gardener. Here is a look at a couple of electric chipper models, along with features you may want to make sure you have in the chipper you get for your yard.
Mini tillers are a great way to handle the tilling chores for either small gardens or those small jobs that crop up in the middle of the growing season, like renewing a small patch of your garden after the spring vegetables are done. There are a number of mini tiller choices available these days, so here is a look at some of the features you will want to consider when buying a small tiller. These can be a great choice for jobs that a large tiller don’t handle well, like preparing a raised garden bed.
What is the least expensive mini tiller? You can buy either an electric powered mini tiller or a gas one by using the tiller attachment on one of the string trimmers that has a replaceable tool head on the shaft. However, the power and balance that you get from a string trimmer based tiller with one of the $99 heads is not as good as you will get from dedicated mini tiller. But they are good for smaller jobs, and the cost is hard to beat. But doing anything more than preparing a small seed bed is tough on your back.
For the gardener that has a lot of inground planting to do, one of the backbreaking chores associated with the garden is planting the seeds in a long row. Especially for older gardeners who may have some problems with a lot of bending and stooping, a garden seeder can make the job of planting the seeds a lot less work. Here is a look at a couple of the more popular models of garden seeders, the Earthway and Precison models of garden seeders.
For any serious gardener you eventually may find that you spend a lot of time transplanting plants or preparing seedling for planting in the garden. A potting bench is a good way to get a gardening work surface out near the garden where you need it. Here is a look at some of the features you may want to consider in a potting bench.
Firewood racks are handy for storing the logs you’ll need for your fireplace or firepit. Log racks come in all sorts of sizes and shapes, from the large outdoor firewood rack that will store more than a cord of logs to the smaller indoor racks that will hold just a few logs right next to the fireplace. Here is a look at some of the different styles of firewood racks that the homeowner may consider.
First, do you want an indoor rack or an outdoor firewood rack? The indoor racks are really just a simple way to hold a few logs. If you only stoke up the fireplace a few times every winter, this may be all you need. Often these smaller racks come with handles so you can use it as a caddy as well. Some indoor racks are similar in size and shape to a small magazine rack.
