Hi from Caz
For me this is the time I love most in the garden. It's the time when you water and tend your flowers and veg making them stong and healthy. But like everything out in the garden it's hard work and takes loads of time.
There are a number of ways to weed the garden, and not all of them are back breaking, but they can be murder on your knees! A gardening mat can help this or a simple pair of knee pads from B&Q work well, although they aren't very attractive! I like to use a long handled cultivator to rake in between the flowers and veg to pull the weeds out. Once I have been around the whole garden, I can go around again with a bucket and collect up the weeds. It's one of those LITTLE jobs you have to do often or else it could turn into a BIG job.
Once the sun goes behind the trees in the evenings I get the hose out and enjoy an hour or so watering and inspecting the flowers. I love to see how they change and grow in a day!
Oh by the way we had fresh radish straight from the garden in our salad the other night. A complete home grown salad is still a little way off ;)
xx
Hi Lemon here.
Watering your plants is essential even on a dull and windy day as the soil will still dry out.
Never water your plants when it is sunny as the leaves will scorch. Always water at night as this gives the plants time to soak the water up
I always water my pots every day even though they have water retention gel in them.
If you have your tomatoes outside then sitting the pots in a tray will benefit them as they require lots of water. I use seed trays covered in the plastic from empty compost bags.
If you are going on holiday then do the above if you haven’t got a kind neighbour who will water them for you. Another good idea is to fill an empty plastic bottle with water and make holes in the bottle top and then sink it into the pot and it will release the water slowly.
See you next time
Lemon xx
Jakey here!
We all want our gardens to look thier best and be productive, whether we're growing flowers, fruit or veg. With this in mind I ’ve been looking into Plant Feeding.
Why is it so important to feed our plants?
In order to maintain healthy growth, plants absorb approximately 30 different nutrients through their roots.
*chemical symbols in brackets*. There are also several minor elements, and 20 or more trace elements that they need in minute amounts. All are important the plant, however. So, if we want our garden or allotment plants to be strong and healthy, we need to ensure they’re not undernourished. This is where fertilisers come in – by helping to keep the soil full of nutrients we can make it easy for our plants to grow as we hope they will.
Fertilisers can be basically divided into two groups:
Organic: Natural sources like plants, animals or naturally occurring rock.
Inorganic: Manufactured chemical feeds.
Now, strictly speaking, it doesn’t actually matter to your garden where the nutrients come from - provided the plants get enough - but from a green gardeners’ point of view, organic fertilisers are best because they encourage soil bacteria, which help keep soil healthy over time.
According to the BBC Home gardening Page:
“By law, the amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium a fertiliser contains must be stated on the packaging. So if a packet is labelled 6:4:4, it means that in every 100 grams of fertiliser, there is 6 grams of nitrogen (N) and four grams each of phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). Note that the order is always the same, ie NPK.
This N:P:K ratio also helps you choose the right fertiliser. If the ratios are about the same, it is a general-purpose fertiliser and will aid all round growth. If the fertiliser has a higher ratio of:
Nitrogen - it will encourage leafy growth
Phosphorus - it will encourage root development
Potassium - it will encourage fruit and flower production”
So remember, it pays to read the packaging to ensure you are buying the best fertiliser for your particular need!
Further info on feeding plants can be found from any of the websites below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/soil_feedingplants1.shtml
http://www.applegategardens.co.uk/acatalog/plants_fertilisers.html
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/fred.moor/soil/fertilis/f0101.htm
http://netgardeners.co.uk/plantsinfo/plant_feeding.html
Hope you find all this useful J
Jake x
Thanks for visiting!!
Caz
xx
PS. Typepad has had an upgrade and we are trying to get to grips with the new compose page. You may notice some of the posts a bit lopsided while we do this :D We'll get there in the end ;)
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