Gardening Archives - Page 3 of 8 - Oh My Heartsie Girl

March 20, 2020September 1, 2020

Gardening for kids: 5 Links to get your child more involved outdoors

It would be fair to say that we are firmly in an era that is dominated by PlayStation’s, the internet and everything else that involves tech.

It means that gardening is often forgotten about. This is despite the fact that it has countless benefits associated with it, including:

First and foremost, it’s fun
It gives children responsibility
It provides them with information on nutrition (key in today’s world)
Allows them to develop cooperation skills
The list could go on!

Bearing this in mind, today’s article is a collection of links that we have stumbled across through the internet over the last few months. Hopefully, by the end of proceedings, you’ll have a much better understanding of how to get your child more involved in gardening, whilst keeping it fun at the same time.

House Beautiful – How to make gardening fun

For those of you who perhaps don’t quite know where to start with your child’s new hobby, let’s direct you to House Beautiful. They have collected just five points which provide an excellent starting base and show what you need to do to get your garden adventure started for your little ones.

Avas Flowers – Go bright and colorful

As we all know, kids love bright colors. This is where the Avas Flowers Pinterest page comes into the picture, so kids can see photos of colorful plants and flowers. Your little ones really will be enticed outside if your garden is decorated with such plants, so take a look at the Avas Flowers website to read more about what you should be turning to.

Life Hacker – The easiest vegetables to grow for beginner gardeners

Little else needs to be said about this next suggestion. Put simply, the article tells you some of the easiest vegetables to grow for beginners. Children obviously fall into this category and if they can see that the garden is producing something tangible (which they can taste!) it can make all of the difference.

Express – How to create a children-friendly garden

This next article comes courtesy of the Express, although it has been written with Alan Titchmarsh (a leading gardener in the UK, for those not aware).

It goes into all sorts of ways to make your garden child-friendly, which should be your main focus as you integrate this new hobby in your family life. It doesn’t just touch upon the obvious but also talks about some of the lesser-known safety factors such as avoiding poisonous plans etc.

BBC – How to set up a wormery

Granted, most parents are going to wince at this final suggestion. Unfortunately, like it or not, kids love worms. A wormery provides them the perfect reason to get out to the outdoors and get up close and personal with these fascinating bugs.

Over the weeks they’ll see all the little tunnels these creatures create and it really will provide the perfect excuse to get out more.
Resources:

[…]
Vegetable Gardening Tips for Beginners
Tips for Teaching Young Children Street Safety

March 9, 2020May 11, 2021

How to Keep the Plants in Your Garden Healthy

Gardening is an amazing hobby that helps you feel closer to nature while at the same time cultivating new life. A garden can also be a great way to add some beauty to your backyard and attract lovely wildlife like birds and butterflies.

If you have your own garden, there are lots of things you can do to make sure your plants thrive. Here are a few things you can do to keep your plants happy and healthy.

Keep Pests Away

Some of the plants in your garden might produce lovely flowers for you to enjoy while others might produce delicious fruits and vegetables for you to eat. Unfortunately, though, you aren’t the only one who likes to feast on the produce in your garden. Certain bugs and pests love to make their home in your yard and eat the plants that you have been cultivating.

Certain species of moths, aphids, and beetles will be attracted to your garden for multiple reasons. The shade of your plants provides a cool place for them to live while the leaves and flowers growing there are ideal foods for them and their larvae to eat.

If you detect any signs of a bug infestation in your garden, call in a St George pest control service as soon as you can so that experts can deal with the issue. If bugs are given too much time, then they will destroy any leaves growing on your plants. Without their leaves, plants will be unable to soak up the sunlight they need to perform photosynthesis.

Learn to Compost

Composting is a sustainable way of providing your plants with the healthiest, richest soil possible. It is also a way of feeding your plants without the use of synthetic store-bought fertilizers. Lastly, it is a way for you to repurpose any food waste that you would ordinarily have thrown in the garbage.

Learning to compost isn’t difficult at all. You can construct your own compost pile or you can purchase a container that will turn your food waste into compost material for you. Whichever method you choose will help you obtain some seriously nutrient-dense soil for your plants to grow in.

Keep an Eye Out for Weeds

Weeds are some of the peskiest things that can grow in your yard. They seem to come out of nowhere, and as they grow, they will steal the nutrients and water from the soil that your garden plants are trying to grow in. The best thing you can do is to keep a watchful eye on the ground in your garden to catch weeks as they sprout up.

There are some weeds that will require professional assistance to get rid of. Crabgrass and certain types of ivy can be incredibly difficult to banish. There are certain things you can do in order to make the soil in your garden less hospitable to weeds that damage your plants, but overall you should just be vigilant.
[…]
Garden Series: The Pros And Cons Of Chemical And Biological Pest Control In The Garden
Ways To Prevent Pests From Moving Into Your Home
How Home Owners Can Deal With Spiders

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January 22, 2020September 13, 2020

7 Tips For Protecting Your Garden From The Weather

For those of us lucky enough to live in a continent with all four seasons, getting outdoors in all weathers is of top concern. One of the best ways to make the most of your own backyard is through gardening. Setting up a garden for your family, or yourself means getting to know your outdoor environment and familiarizing yourself with DIY tools and tricks. With a wide variety of weather to worry about, new plants are at risk of being flooded out, while certain fruits and vegetables could dry out in hot summers if they don’t get enough shade.

Properly weatherproofing your garden takes the right tools and some planning. With these tips, you’ll be able to protect your garden, as it grows.

Know When To Prune

Pruning back trees and bushes helps you control how much shade there is in your yard. If you’ve got delicate flowers in your yard, planting them next to large, thick trees protect them from wind, rain, and frost. If you’ve got plants that need a lot of sunlight or space, pruning back the larger trees is a good way to make better use of sunlight. If you’ve got older trees with complicated root systems, they could be crowding out younger plants as well. You’ll want to use pruning shears on bushes and brush, but a chainsaw often works best for bigger bushes, or old trees. You can use the pieces you’ve pruned in a compost heat, or for firewood. Make sure you do your research into the best chainsaws for firewood, when you need to prune older trees without risking their health.

Add Wind Barriers

Even if your weather report doesn’t include snow, winter weather like high winds, and frost, can still cause soil erosion. If you can’t raise your beds, adding wind barriers can make the difference. Whether that means sandbags in your flower beds, a rock wall, or staking and tying down young trees or vines, or creating covered beds, your options for wind barriers depends on your space, budget, and weather conditions.

Create Raised Beds

Creating raised flower beds with a rock wall or wooden planks has a variety of benefits for weatherproofing your garden. Raised beds allow you to minimize access for garden pests, and protect against various types of extreme weather. They warm up faster in the spring, making it easier to resist frost. Raised beds are easier to irrigate, so they won’t be exposed to too much or too little water. You can also create beds that are much more portable, which makes it easier to move them when they are crowding out other plants, or if they’re more exposed to cold, wind, and rain.

Build Cold Frames, Or Green Houses

Young plants tend to be the most vulnerable to everything from erosion by excessive rain, to high winds. One solution is to build a cold frame structure, a temporary garden bed to give your tender young winter plants a chance to thrive. There are different ways to construct a cold frame, but ideally, you want a weather-resistant wood treated with copper naphthenate, a good ventilation system (you can get a kit at your local home and garden store) and a sash that slopes southward to maximize exposure to sunlight as the temperature drops. Warm beds, heated with copper wires are another option, and if you’re particularly handy, cold frames equipped with solar panels or a full greenhouse can also help keep your garden toasty in colder weathers, and keep plants healthy. It all depends on your space and budget.

Know Your Plants

If you’re going to garden, you need to know which plants do best in your area, at various times of the year. If you’re in a city, where sidewalk salt is in common use, you’ll want salt-resistant varieties like Russian sage and butterfly weed. If you’re living in an arid climate, choose drought-resistant cacti and succulents. Planting frost-sensitive varieties at the foot of the bigger, hardier plants can also help keep them protected from frost and wind.

Protect Young Trees From Wind And Frost

Planting and shaping smaller trees is a good way to protect your home from the elements, provide shade, and improve the air quality in and around your home. But slim, sapling trees are vulnerable to strong wind and frost, which can kill them before they’ve had a chance to grow the needed root structure. Using stakes and ties to protect young trees and shrubs can help, but a garden fleece can help keep the soil warm and allow the tree to grow.

Toughen Plants Up With Good Mulch

The best defense for hardier winter plants against both frost and the heavy downpour is good mulch. Before winter, take the time to clear away the dead or dying plants, and add them to your compost heap, putting down new, rich compost, and covering with a layer of mulch, woodchips and leaves can help keep hardy plants warm, as well as soaking up excess moisture from heavy rains. A good three-inch layer will protect your garden from anything the winter season could throw at it.

Gardening is a relaxing pastime that can help get you out in the great outdoors in all weathers. But not all plants are created equal, and some may struggle with the more extreme weather patterns, like downpour rains, extreme heat, and humidity, or high winds. With a little DIY know-how, you can learn the tricks and tools to keep your garden thriving all year round.
[…]
What Makes a Good Garden?
Practical Principles of Gardening You Should Learn

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if you make a purchase using a link at no extra cost to you.

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December 11, 2019September 16, 2020

Gas Hedge Trimmer VS Electric Hedge Trimmer

Gardening has always been one of the most productive hobbies one could ever have. Tending through all of these tender beings every day until it is time to harvest can be quite the chore. Most plants take a long time before they are even ready for harvesting. Trees, especially fruit-bearing ones, can sometimes take years before you can even see your yield. Some vegetables grow back after a harsh winter while others die off and you have to plant them again. It can be boring and repetitive, but this is how you develop patience and will continue this journey.

It is a well-known fact that pruning is one of the most important parts of being a gardener. Even if you had training or you are just starting, you can’t escape the cutting down of all the excess leaves. This is not even the heaviest duties that a gardener could ever have, and yet people don’t really like doing this particular chore. It can be because of all the tedious work that you need to grow them and yet you’re still going to cut some of it down. A good chunk of the stems and leaves, in fact, will be gone. Read more about this here: https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-prune-houseplants-1902692.

Why Cut The Leaves

However, one of the main reasons that this is done is because the act of pruning is actually good for them. Once they grow too large, some of the leaves are getting crushed and cannot receive enough sunlight. Additionally, the whole plant has to do a lot more work to make sure the entire being survives. If it has a lot of leaves, it will stretch out its resources which can result to a slow death of the plant. That or they will adapt, but they would need a lot more resources but still yielding the same thing. On that note, have you ever considered getting a hedge trimmer?

The reason why people don’t like doing it must be because of the tool that is being used. In the past, you would see these big scissors that look extremely dangerous to hold and use. However, it can also be quite tiring as it really feels like an entire workout while cutting the leaves. Also, those big scissors or trimers are really hard to control. There are times when you just wanted to cut down one stem, you’re already too late to realize that the whole plant was already cut down.

This is the reason why an automatic hedge trimmer is quite popular. You don’t need to do a lot of work since the machine would do it for you. All you need to do is guide it carefully and it would be a fine addition to any gardening or home cleaning sets. You can now deal with those excess leaves and even grass more easily. You can save time and effort doing the chore as well. And you know what that means, more energy to expend in much more important things and places. However, there are two main kinds of hedge trimmers, and both of them have merits on their own.

Gas Powered

As the name suggests, you need to have gasoline before you can even use these trimmers. They can cover a lot of areas and can deal with more plants than the glass ones. Gas-powered hedge trimmers can cut down even the hardy and sturdiest shrubs, herbs and even small trees. They are also quite bigger than your average hedge trimmer. However, there is one problem with these ones: they can be really loud depending on the product. The size also makes it harder to control where you want it to be. It doesn’t have to be charged though as you just need to repair some of

Electric Powered

On the other hand, this one can be plugged into a power source and then need it fully before using it. This takes up a lot of time to charge and these are quite smaller compared to the gas-powered ones. Electric powered hedge trimmers are usually sold as mini versions of the gas ones and can be used for other means as well. However, these are only for those plants that are easier to cut. You don’t have to worry about any kind of incident though, as long as you know what you are doing.
Gardening Tips
Practical Principles of Gardening You Should Learn
What Makes a Good Garden?

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which means I might receive a small commission if you make a purchase using a link at no extra cost to you.