Clover blog

Gardening can be enjoyed by the whole family including children. Especially plants like pumpkins watermelons and sunflowers. The children will just love it at Halloween when they get to carve out the pumpkin or help bake and salt the sunflower seeds. We will give you gardening advice and a great resource for all your gardening needs. Transform your garden into delightful place to spend a few hours a week and you will enjoy the rewards at the end of the season. Growing organic vegetables in your own garden is the best way of getting the most nutrients in them. Store bought vegetables can be grown in greenhouses where they are sprayed with many chemicals and pesticides to help them grow and last longer on the grocery shelf's. Remember, do not use any chemicals or fertilizers on your garden. Whatever is in your garden will end up in your vegetables. The more nutrients in the soil the more nutrients will be in your vegetables. And they will taste great.

Benefits of Gardening

Gardening is a tool to abate life's stress, enhance the environment, develop individuals, and build communities. An estimated 40% of Americans find that being around plants makes them feel relaxed and calm. Retreating to a garden can renew energy, create a sense of peace, and restore well-being. As you garden, you are cultivating an appreciation and sensitivity for the environment and the natural rhythm of life that plants and gardens impart. Working in the yard digging, planting, weeding, and raking is good exercise. There are various kinds of gardens and they are named according to their characteristic features like rock garden, water garden, wild garden, terrace garden, kitchen garden and formal garden. Kitchen gardens can be made both outdoors and indoors. Combinations can also be made, for example, a rock garden can be built in one corner, and the rest of the garden can be carpeted with a lawn, edged by flowerbeds.

The benefits of gardening are well-documented; formal programs in horticultural therapy use plants and plant-related activities to promote health and wellness for an individual or group. Horticultural therapy has been used to improve mobility, muscle coordination and strength, balance, endurance, socialization, and memory skills. Planting, weeding, and tending can divert thoughts about yourself and your situation.

The colors and aromas of flowers can ease depression and anxiety. There is also tremendous satisfaction in growing your own flowers to cut and use indoors, your own culinary herbs for making oils and vinegars, or your own vegetables for meals or sharing with friends. A garden should be designed carefully as it is nearly permanent, and it is not possible to change the design frequently. This combines aesthetics, artistry, knowledge of plants and their growth and how to maintain the garden during different seasons. Landscaping is essentially designing and laying out of a garden in all its elements, which include the lawn, rocks, shrubs, trees, pathways, seasonal plants, etc.

Question: "How do you deal with black fungus disease? It seems this nasty disease keeps on killing my tomatoes"

Answer:

My grandfather grew tomatoes in Poland, where black fungus was
just as much of a problem as it is for you. Often, farmers could lose
entire crops to the disease if they made a mistake.

The way he dealt with this problem was by applying some pretty
serious measures to keep everything sterile the whole time. Some of
which I talk about.

(Keep in mind, these measures help protect your tomatoes from many
diseases, not just black fungus… if you practice this you'll have healthier plants)

1. They used to STEAM the earth before using it. This was
done by pumping scolding hot steam into the green-house and into the
earth through pipes to kill all bacterial life.

2. Then, the earth would sit for 2-3 weeks so that new life could
begin to grow in it, hopefully, with any disease killed off by this
time.

3. Then they would apply the fertilizer and let it sit with the
earth for a week to let it de-acidify and allow even more micro life
to form in the earth for the tomatoes.

4. Only then, did they plant the tomato seedlings into the earth.

Now, that's just the first part of the process - afterwards,
everything was kept as sterile as possible. For instance, no
children, animals were allowed in the greenhouse, no shoes were worn
in the green-house. There was constant ventillation of the greenhouse
to keep the air from being stale.

(Okay, I agree, you should allow children in a greenhouse, just
don't let them run around licking and touching all the plants, hehe)

Also, instead of growing the tomatoes on wooden sticks or poles, he
used sterilized string or fishing string. Wood tends to absorb
moisture, rot, and can quickly create the environment for disease.

You would be amazed just how these variables change the probability
of your tomatoes catching disease :)

5. Keep in mind, the most important part here is tomato pruning, I
disagree with your friends who say it would take 10 years for it to go
away, you can still grow tomatoes without the disease.

The biggest reason your tomatos catch the "plegue" is because they
are poorly ventillated, and/or grown outdoors. In these areas where
the plegue is rampant, its the best idea to grow them in a
green-house.

If the tomatoes are properly pruned, the tomatoes will breathe
1,000% more freely, and therefor, you reduce the risk of them getting
the disease dramatically.

If they are not pruned, old air getstrapped underneath and around the "bushy", plant, the air goes
"stale", and your tomatoes grow slowly… as the temperature drops at
night, this air turns to moisture around the tomato stem… and now
you have a big wet plant with stale musty air around it, the water and
air drips/moves down the stem to the very bottom, where now there is a
perfect environment for a disease to spread it's wings and thrive.
Moist, Wet, Warm(protected from the sun by the giant canopy of
un-pruned leaves during the day)

That's my two cents on it :) hope it helps! My grandfather grew
tomatoes year after year in a place where lots of people lost their
plants to the black fungus, but to date, he didn't lose a single
tomato to the disease in his green-houses.

Organic gardening has increasingly become an important part of the curriculum in schools around the world. Teachers at every grade level find themselves teaching it to students, and sometimes being called on to give a speech to a group of parents. As a career educator and principal, I know the difficulty of opening up time for speech preparation, and offer this organic gardening speech for your use. Feel free to edit it to fit your needs.

Organic Gardening Speech

How selfish are you? On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, how selfish would you rate yourself? If you are the least bit selfish, you might be interested in organic gardening.

An organic gardening speech might seem more appropriate coming from a Home Economics teacher, but I am just selfish enough that I love organic gardening. I want to share that love with you and with your children.

Imagine

I want you to come with me, in imagination, to a time and place before the Industrial Revolution. The year is 1707. It is late summer. We find ourselves walking the streets of a small town. Houses are spaced well apart for privacy. Land stretches out behind each house. As we look, we notice that much of that land is taken up by gardens. Here and there, we see both adults and children actively engaged in gardening. The plants are beautiful.

You call to one of the adults and ask what they use to make the garden so lush. A broad smile breaks, and through the smile come the words, "Feed the soil, and the soil will feed the plants."

You shake your head. Poor people. Too bad they don't know about that miracle combination of chemicals you saw advertised on TV last week. That's the easy way to grow spectacular plants!

Dinner

The organic gardener invites us to join them for the evening meal, and we accept. At dinner, we join in the prayer of thanks, and then watch in amazement as the children, one after another, begin eating fresh vegetables.

You yourself are not that fond of vegetables, but you politely take a small serving of each. You bite into a leaf of steamed cabbage, and your eyes open wide in amazement. It is sweet – twice as sweet as the cabbage you buy at your local market! You watch a small child fill his mouth with dark green kale, and shudder. There's a small spoonful of the nasty vegetable on your own plate, and you pick at it, putting a single small leaf in your mouth. Amazing! It, too, is twice as sweet as any kale you ever ate. The same seems true of every vegetable on the table. You decide that if your supermarket vegetables were this good, you would eat a lot more of them.

Our imaginary trip ends at that dinner table, and we return to the present.

Organic Gardening's Benefits

Organic gardening has many benefits. If you are completely selfish, you will want those benefits for yourself. If you are unselfish, you will want those benefits for your family. Let me give you just three of organic gardening's benefits.

1. Taste: Organic gardening has been proven to produce tastier fruits and vegetables. A Hong Kong study measured Brix levels, the percentage of sugar in plant juices, using produce from organic gardening and from non-organic gardening. The results showed that organic gardening produced produce that was 2 to 4 times as sweet as that produced by non-organic gardening. Sweeter fruits and vegetables are tastier, and easier to eat, whether you are a young person or an adult. Organic gardening helps us eat better by providing tastier fruits and vegetables.

2. Nutrition: Organic gardening has also been found to provide nutritionally superior produce. Virginia Worthington, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, compared the composition of vegetables grown simultaneously under different farming conditions. Her work included 41 studies with 1,240 comparisons of 35 vitamins and minerals. Worthington found that organic gardening produced vegetables and fruits that were higher in most minerals and vitamins than those from non-organic gardening. Not only that, organic gardening produce was lower in potentially harmful nitrates, which result from nitrogen fertilizers. Dr. Worthington concluded that produce from organic gardening is nutritionally superior. You and your family will enjoy better health with fruits and vegetables from organic gardening. (Effect of Agricultural Methods on Nutritional Quality: A Comparison of Organic with Conventional Crops, Virginia Worthington MS, ScD, CNS, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1998, Alternative Therapies, Volume 4, 1998, pages 58-69)

3. Exercise: Finally, organic gardening offers you and your children regular daily exercise in the outdoors. Organic gardening helps you build muscles, especially important core muscles. Organic gardening gets you into the sunlight where you can absorb essential vitamin D. Organic gardening is a great stress management tool. Organic gardening gives you an outlet for creativity. It provides satisfaction as you see your work produce useful fruits, herbs, and vegetables.

We could talk about the aesthetic pleasures of organic gardening – how beautiful that garden might become. We could talk about how you can save money with organic gardening – growing your produce instead of purchasing.

Finally, we could talk about how important it is for our children to learn about organic gardening, to embrace it as the way to better health, and to practice it with school, home, and community gardens.

An organic gardening speech could go on for hours, but I'm going to stop here, hoping that I have whetted your appetite enough that you will seek out more information on organic gardening.

Helpful Tip for Speech-givers

A few large bowls of beautiful organic produce can be set on the platform or around the room to help visual learners picture organic gardening.

Unless you plan to hire a professional landscaping company, you will need to have the right equipment in order to produce the results you desire. Whether you are a novice or a professional in the landscaping field, you are going to need to purchase landscaping equipment in order to get the jobs that you want done completed properly. So, just what kind of landscaping equipment do you need to succeed?

There are many different types of landscaping equipment offered, and so it is vital that you take time to learn about these tools in order to be fully satisfied in the end, so that you can get the best value and worth for your money. From the variety of different types of equipment on the marketplace, there are a few fundamental necessities you will have to get started with most landscaping tasks and projects around your house.

The equipment you'll need depends on the layout of your yard and which elements you have incorporated, or hope to incorporate, into your landscaping. If you have a moderately small lawn, a push mower may be suitable for your needs. But if you have a large lawn, you may need a rider lawn mower. In many case, lawn mower or push mower is almost a given, because even the smallest attempt at a beautiful lawn will require that the grass be cut neatly.

If you intend to add a lot of landscaping elements in your lawn, you may want to consider getting a trimmer for the grass around the elements because most mowers are unable to get close enough to keep the edges tidy. New gardeners often find that some of the most inexpensive and small hand tools are the most useful pieces of landscaping equipment. These hand tools include spades, hoes, clippers, trowels, and cultivators.

Besides the common purchases listed above, there are many other pieces of equipment that you will find useful as well. For instance, appropriate attire is required for landscaping. You may want to find yourself some coveralls and a good pair of gloves for working in the dirt. There are other tools such as long-handled shovels, leaf rakes, bypass pruners, etc. that will come in hand while you work on your landscape as well.

Where to find the landscaping equipment

There are many different locations available that offer landscaping equipment. All of the major home improvement stores offer wide selections of the various types of landscaping equipment. One of the most popular and more well-known options is A to Z Equipment Rentals & Sales. The company is an excellent choice for many reasons. You can lease a piece of landscaping equipment if you only need to use it for a short period of time, or you can buy it if you desire. Also, they are a very old company which has established an incredibly respected reputation over the years and their service is worthy of your business.

A to Z Equipment Rentals & Sales also offer the most complete collection of power landscaping equipment and they have three centrally located stores and a website as well, in order to make your shopping process as easy and convenient as possible. Some of the landscaping equipment that they offer includes that of the following: aerators, blowers, brush clippers, chain saws, earth augers, engines, hedge trimmers, ladders, lawn edgers, lawn tractors, lawn vacs, line trimmers, power rakes, reel motors, rotary mowers, riding mowers, sprayers, stump grinders, tillers, tractors, trenchers, and weed mowers.

Another option is Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse is a lesser known but still worthy company. Thecompany was established in 1914, and since that time continues to look to the future and yet has never forgotten its roots. Rittenhouse earnestly guarantee to continue to deliver that of the highest quality landscaping equipment, parts, and accessories coupled with superior customer service.

Your local hardware store may also be a good selection as well, depending on where you live. If you are an Internet shopper, you can also find many landscaping equipment websites that can ship different types of landscaping equipment right to your door. The choice is really up to.

Regardless of where you actually decide to shop for your landscaping equipment, you should keep in mind that the most important thing is that you should always have fun working on your landscape. Take the proper time and consideration so that you can have the best quality and worth in the end.

You're remodeling your home to give it a more modern look, and you know your landscaping needs updating as well. You'd do your own contemporary landscaping if you could, but are not familiar with what's required to create effective landscaping, so are leaning toward hiring a landscaping firm. But, if you had some contemporary landscaping ideas, you just might be able to do the job yourself.

There is no single style of landscaping to which the term contemporary landscaping can be applied. Many owners of modern homes, in fact, have complemented their houses with English gardens or other traditional landscaping looks, so if you like traditional in a landscape, use it for your contemporary landscaping and enjoy it.

Traditional Elements in Contemporary Landscaping

What exactly is the appeal of the English Garden for those using it in their contemporary landscaping?

It's all in the flowers. They are especially appealing to those who have large yards, with lots of space for the prototypical bloom of the English Cottage Garden, the rose. Rosebushes need room, and lots of it.

Classically beautiful roses will add charm, color, and fragrance to your contemporary landscaping like few other flowers can. Available in shades from the subtle and sedate to the outrageously gaudy, roses will give you your choice of color schemes. You can buy them as compact buses, or as climbing roses to grace your fences and trellises. But no matter which varieties of roses you choose to incorporate into your contemporary landscaping, they will all need consistent feeding and pruning.

Another touch borrowed from English gardens which will work well in contemporary landscaping is the herb garden. Herbs can be dried and used in wreaths, sachets, and potpourri; or they can be used fresh or dried to add a gourmet touch in your home-cooked recipes. Before planting a herb garden, however, familiarize yourself with the spreading habits of various herbs, because some of them, like mint, are notoriously invasive and can end up taking over your contemporary landscaping.

Otther Contemporaty Landscaping Ideas

Another contemporary landscaping look which many people find attractive is achieved with planting fauna of various colors and textures to form patterns. Fauna planted this way can created unique and exotic designs, but can be very difficult to establish and maintain. So this might be one contemporary landscaping technique best left to a professional!

For more contemporary landscaping ideas, pay a visit to your nearest garden center. They will have a wide selection of plants for your consideration, and customer service people to help you choose the ones best suited for your light and soil conditions.

And even more contemporary landscaping advice is only an Internet connection and search engine query away!

Few homes stir the typical notion of lush gardens that an English cottage house plan can invoke. English cottage house plans bring to mind storybook fantasies of roses covering a trellis and climbing on thatched roofs. However, thatched roofs aren't practical or allowed construction material in many places. But for those who think the best part of the home is the garden, an English cottage house could be a dream home.

Beautiful English cottage house plans cry out for well designed landscaping plans that match the cottage feel you are trying to attain. Custom gardens designed by a professional landscaper will complete the English cottage charm. Professional landscaping plans will assure you that the garden plants are well suited to the climate and housing style. However, cost may be a stumbling block as landscapers tend to be quite expensive.

Pre-designed garden plans can be adjusted for your property and this type of approach is more affordable. The downside is that pre-designed garden plans won't give you the customized look you are seeking. But, if gardening is a beloved hobby for you, then consider designing custom garden plans yourself to match your English cottage house plans. Designing your own custom garden plan would be a time consuming task, but no one else would have a garden like yours.

Begin with an aerial drawing the property. Use the house placement as your starting point. Gardening magazines and books can give you lots of ideas. Study garden themes such as rock gardens, herb gardens and shade gardens. You can also research design principles such as symmetry, color and height coordination.

When all is said and done, the choice is still up to you. Build your English garden to match your English cottage house plans the way you see it in your mind and the result will be perfect as long as you like what you see.

The key to starting a new vegetable garden is the actual garden location. You can change many things about a garden, even upgrading the soil with compost and other amendments, but the location is something that you will have to live with.

A successful garden will have several common elements:

Convenient to the house: If the garden is too far removed, you won't be inclined to run out there to pick something fresh whenever the mood strikes. Additionally, if you are tilling or hauling in waste for the compost pile, you don't want to go a long way with your equipment. The same goes for hauling bags of fertilizer, flats of plants, or bales of peat moss to the vegetable garden. Finally, if you have to irrigate with the garden hose, you don't want to be dragging long sections of hose from the house.

Screening: Depending on your individual gardening style, you may decide that it is better to shield the garden from view if you are not one that likes to keep it neat and tidy. If you plan to have an open compost pile near the garden that may be a concern as well.

Sunlight: Obviously, to have a successful vegetable garden, you will need an adequate amount of sunlight. You should get at least 6 hours a day. Often this means you need a southern exposure. But take a look around, are there trees that will be growing to a height in the near future that will reduce this sunlight.

Nearby trees and bushes: We worry a lot about weeds, but keep in mind the invasive root systems from trees and other large bushes. Spreading trees with shallow root systems like willows are to be avoided. We've had bushes like trumpet creepers and honeysuckle that can have very aggressive root systems as well.

Drainage: Take advantage of the natural lay of the land to optimize your garden watering. But be careful to avoid low spots that can lead to puddling and pooling, which are major problems for growing almost all vegetables.

Critters: Finally, depending on the local "pests", you may want to be able to shield the garden from attack. While birds can often get in almost anywhere, you may decide you want to fence the garden in to avoid visits from deer, raccoons, turtles, rabbits, or any other walking critters.

A garden can be a wonderful pastime, paying off not only in fresh produce for your kitchen table, but in the connection with nature. Careful selection of your garden location will help to ensure that it is as rewarding as possible.