Simple Winter Gardening Tips

While gardening is not for everyone, many people do enjoy maintaining a home garden or tending to a small space in the local community garden. Even though gardening is most popular during the summer months, if you choose to, you can have a garden year round with a variety of seasonal vegetables and herbs. There are two different ways to look at winter gardens: 1) gardening to have a winter vegetable crop during the winter months, 2) maintaing a garden through the winter for a spring vegetable crop. Since we are already into fall, we will be looking more at the latter.

Don’t worry if you didn’t plan out a winter garden ahead of time. There are many areas in the United States where you can still get those winter or spring vegetables planted during the fall season. If it’s already too chilly or there’s snow where you live, consider starting and keeping seedlings inside or in a greenhouse. You can learn more about your plant hardiness zone online through a site like the United States Department of Agriculture.

Here are eight winter gardening advantages and simple tips for gardening newbies:

Advantages to winter gardening. Compared to growing a summer garden.

1. Winter gardens can be less work. Your soil and garden beds should be partly ready to go from the summer garden and, to a degree, should still contain some good fertilizer. Remove finished summer plants to make room for cold weather plants and turn the soil to remix before use.

2. It usually rains during the winter months, so watering will be minimal unless it’s a dry winter.

3. Although there are still a few insects to deal with that attack winter plants, pests like aphids and cabbage loopers, there are far more insects to have to fight off of summer vegetables.

4. The best advantage to maintaining a winter garden is that you will have tasty veggies during the winter or when spring arrives!

Winter gardening tips for late fall planting. Transplanting seedling starts from indoor growing.

1. Now that we’ve had daylight saving time (fall back), watch to see what areas of your yard are being hit with sun and for how many hours per day, then check plant tabs to see if your winter vegetable needs sunlight. If the vegetable does need more sunlight than your garden bed has to offer, consider potting instead so it can be easily picked up and moved to sunnier areas.

2. It is important to pay attention to frost warnings. This is necessary if you already have plants in the ground or are planning to transplant seedlings. If the forecast shows frost or extreme cold, use mulch to protect and insulate in-ground plants and wait to transplant any seedlings.

3. Loosen the soil at least 18 to 24 inches down and work in new organic compost and fertilizer a few inches deep and all around the bed, if needed.

4. Make sure your greenhouse transplants are big and strong enough to handle the cold winter weather. Transplanting a vegetable plant outside in the cold that’s too weak could cause the plant to die or not produce. Check out Transplanting.  Expert advice on handling transplants from Organic Gardening for more transplanting advice.

5 Simple Gardening Tips

Gardening is a hobby for many people. Gardening is not as easy as it seems. Due to this reason, you have to 1st look into certain tips and guidelines which you can follow in order to maintain your garden.

You need to also look into the tools which you are using as well. We would be discussing about 5 simple tips which would help you in your gardening efforts.

1. Better water usage:

Normally, when you are planting in your garden, you would be planting in proper rows. If you dig small holes in between the rows, you can make sure that the water would be exactly going to the plant roots and therefore a small amount of water would be more than enough to water your plants.

2. Use coffee as a nutrient:

Most of the people do not know this but grounded coffee is pretty useful as a nutrient for the plants. You can mix grounded coffee with your soil in order to make your soil more fertilized in order to provide the nutrients to your plants.

3. Making your gardening tools work perfectly again:

If you are struggling with your gardening tools, you just need to use a lubricant and they would be perfectly fine again. You can even use car wax as a lubricant.

4. Raising your garden bed:

If you are just starting out with gardening, it would be a good idea to raise the height of your garden bed and make a boundary wall with wooden fence. This ensures that there is proper drainage and also it ensures that animals are not able to destroy your plants and garden as well.

5. Make use of kitchen scraps:

Whatever is left over in the kitchen instead of just throwing it away, you can store it and make compost of it. Such compost is pretty nutrient rich and would make your garden soil more fertile as well.

Most of the people do not look into the usage of this scrap and therefore they just throw them away. If you like gardening, it can come in pretty handy for your garden. These small tips which you can implement would result in your gardening success. 

On a daily basis, there is a lot of scrap from the kitchen in the form of vegetables as well as the fruits as well as the peelings of the fruits which you do not consume at all and when you use all of these to make compost, you would not need any artificial chemicals or fertilisers to enrich the soil for your garden. 

Thus, you would be heading towards organic farming and organic gardening and would be ensuring that the plants in your garden are pretty healthy as well. Also, this reduces the cost of gardening as well as you would not have to spend money on chemicals like fertilisers and pesticides.

So, if you follow these 5 tips, you can be sure that you would be able to make your garden more fertile and would be able to take care of the plants which you are planting in your garden as well.

Vegetables Growing Tips

Gardening knowledge is gained through experience and you will learn as you go. Here are tips for growing some basic garden veggies:

Tomatoes - Plant your tomatoes in an area with lots of sunlight and water deeply once a week. A best practice is to tie the plant to a stake for support when the tomatoes start growing. Most varieties are often susceptible to fungal diseases. To keep plants healthy, mulch to cut spread of disease and snip off any spotted or yellowing leaves.

Cucumbers - Cucumbers thrive in warm, humid weather and plenty of sunlight. Since cucumbers are a vine crop, they usually require a lot of space. If you have a smaller garden, train the plants to climb on a fence or trellis.

Lettuce - Lettuce is one of the more carefree crops, and can be started indoors for early transplant or sown directly in your garden.

Onions - Onions do well in most conditions. Onion transplants generally result in larger produce than sets, which are the tiny bulbs that were started from seed the year before.

Peppers - Many varieties of peppers need lots of sun and heat, so plant them in an area that receives full sun.

Green Beans - Beans are usually seeded directly  in the garden, but you can also transplant small bean plants. The most important point about growing green beans is not to plant them too early as they will rot in cool, damp soil.

Zucchini - Make sure your zucchini plants get plenty of water each week. Like cucumbers, they can take up space, so put up a trellis for vertical support.

Remember, not all plants grow well in every region. Check with your local garden center for specific instructions for your gardening zone. If you have difficulty growing a plant, keep trying new varieties and different methods until you find those that work for you.

Where To Plant Garden

The actual spot you choose for your garden is not half as important as what you do with it. Choosing an area in the fall saves you time and money in the spring; when you prepare your garden soil in the fall, you can add nutrients in less costly ways. For instance, in the fall you can add matured compost with animal elements — like fish and dried horse or cow manure — on top of your garden area. This gives them time to break down sufficiently before spring tilling. At the same time, you can mulch fall leaves into the garden to add carbon and trace minerals to balance all the nitrogen.

All you need is a place that is relatively flat. It can’t be constantly shaded or swampy for long periods of time. The flat and swampy problems can usually be fixed with hard work, but the area must have full sun for most, if not all, of the day. Planting in long, narrow, rectangular beds from east to west usually gives you the best sun exposure for the longest periods of the day. This shape also lets you tend your beds without stepping on the soil.

Grass, weeds and good soil drainage can be handled by enclosing your garden bed areas with untreated wood, or bricks and stones. Place cardboard or newspaper inside the garden area to kill the grass several weeks before you trench or fall till, and then put your dried manures and fall leaves over your prepared garden. This all breaks down by spring and can then be easily tilled or hoed for planting. 

For landscaping and practical concerns, if you put plastic down in between your bed areas (or around the outside of a single garden area) and cover it with straw or a large coarsely chopped mulch, grass will have less opportunity to interfere with your planting areas. This also will make it easier to walk around the area to weed after it rains, and it looks good, too.

Mistakes To Avoid When Buying Flowers To Plant

When it comes to gardening, many people are not born with green thumbs. It takes knowledge and perseverance to have a great looking garden. With some patience and know how you can have a garden that will make your neighbors envious. Here are some common mistakes to avoid when you are buying flowers for your garden.

Choosing Flowers in Full Bloom– People often make the mistake of buying flowers that are in full bloom. By doing so, these flowers will wither and die at the same time. Make sure that you choose flowers that are budding at various stages.

Not Purchasing Enough– If you have a lot of ground to cover, make sure that you purchase enough of the same variety. People usually plant the same flowers in patches or bunches. Having a nice assortment of the same variety will help to make your garden beautiful.

Purchasing Unhealthy Plants– Some people make the mistake of buying plants that are not the healthiest. Make sure you check the plant out for leaf spot and bugs. Another rule of thumb is to make sure that you see new growth.

Choose Flowers That Have a Good Root System– Choose plants that have a strong root system. This, of course, does not mean to choose plants that have their roots coming out of the bottom of the pots. Shallow roots usually mean a young plant. You can tell whether or not the plant has matured by the size of the stem, and by looking at the amount of foliage and new buds.

The above tips on how to avoid common mistakes that people make when purchasing plants will help you to make a wise decision. Choose a mixture of foliage and flowering plants as the foliage plants will still make your garden look pretty once the flowers have completed their blooming season.