Archive for the ‘garden tools’ Category

Healing Yourself With Herbal Gardening

Sunday, May 30th, 2010

Organic herbal gardening is a topic that had been gaining prominence, especially on the context of growing your own plant-based and natural medicines. A growing number of people are considering alternatives to a health system that is completely based on chemically derived pharmaceuticals.

Herbal remedies are plant-derived concoctions that have been prepared (either in the home, or professionally) to have a therapeutic effect. The practice of using herbs by professionals is sometimes called herbalism or herbal medicine. This tradition has a long history stretching back hundreds of years in Europe.

The viewpoint of herbal medicine is one of considering the whole organism and not just the symptoms. As a result two people who visit a practitioner and have similar symptoms, may be suggested to take quite different remedies.

Overall, while herbal remedies have their critics, they provide a valuable complement to modern medicine for many ailments and its emphasis on prevention and balancing is liked with many who are striving for a more harmonic way of life.

Whether you are an experienced organic gardener or just starting out with natural medicinal herbs, you will probably share the wish to control the origin of foodstuffs and other bodily intakes with people with the same interest.

Herbal And Organic Gardening: Useful Tips For Beginners

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Setting out to work on an organic veggie and herb garden is quite an enterprise, but can be one of the most satisfying ways to go green that there is. The definition of organic is grown without the use of pesticides or other chemicals, but naturally.

Organically grown vegetables and herbs are safer, healthier and also taste better than those grown with the help of chemical products, plus you can save get for free what would cost you at the grocer’s.

Te first thing that you should do, as it will take a little while for this to be ready, is to separate your kitchen waste from the rest and build a compost heap. This can also be done indoors. Compost will prove a great boon as it is the best natural fertilizer for an organic garden and its vegetables and herbs.

In fact compost will also help your garden to retain moisture, so you won’t have to water much compared to non-organic gardens. Most of your food waste can be composted as well as some animal waste, but for your first compost heap be sure not to add human or pet (cat or dog) manure to your compost as these need special treatment to eliminate some potentially nasty bacteria that you won’t want near your edible plants.

Have Your Own Successful Container Garden With Garden Pots

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

With some basic gardening skills, you can ensure a successful container garden. Starting with the containers themselves, make sure that any garden pots made from porous materials (such as terracotta or wood) are sealed on the inside with a quality water sealant. Otherwise, the pots will soak up much of the water meant for your plants.

Watering Your Plants

It is just as important not to over water as it is not to underwater. Most garden pots will have a saucer or bowl underneath to catch any extra water and keep it from rotting your patio or deck. The best way to water your container garden is by filling the saucers up with water. This helps you avoid over watering and the water from spilling over the top of the saucer. The water will seep up through the hole in the bottom of the pot feeding the roots of your plants.

Another method of watering is to water your plants at the surface. If you do, however, make sure you fill about a cup at a time and watch how much water ends up in the saucer. You want to avoid overfilling the saucer. Spraying your plants with water from a hand sprayer is always welcome by your houseplants. Try to avoid using hard water though so calcium won’t build up on the leaves.

Growing Herbs Organically For The First Time

Sunday, August 30th, 2009

It can seem daunting to begin with an organic vegetable or herbal garden for the first time, but there are few better ways to be good to the planet while also being good to yourself and enjoying yourself.

If you already eat some organic herbs and vegetables, you will surely appreciate the better taste, the health benefits and also the lack of harmful residual substances. Imagine how great it would be if you had an organic garden that would furnish you wit a plentiful supply!

When starting with organic vegetable and herbal gardening, you should prepare a composting box as soon as you can. Good compost is by far the best fertilizer for your garden and also acts as natural pest control. Contrarily to popular belief, your compost heap will neither smell nor look unseemly.

Your home-made compost will also fulfill a secondary purpose: it will help your organic garden to retain moisture, and as a result you will need to water your edible plants less often. Put all your kitchen waste and also any garden cuttings you may have onto the compost heap, but avoid great quantity of fish and meat remains.

Growing A Vegetable Garden Instead Of A Lawn

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

You may have heard about the new White House vegetable garden, or maybe you have already thought about organic vegetable gardening for a while. In any case, if you too want to get rid of some or all of your labor-intensive, environmentally unfriendly lawn, here’s how to do it.

Many people who would like to turn to organic vegetable gardening are put off by the idea that it must be a difficult and time-consuming endeavour, and that a lot of tilling and other back-breaking work is involved. In fact, if you follow some basic permaculture precepts and let nature do its work, it will be very easy work. Unless your lawn is contaminated by a lot of pesticides, you won’t even have to remove the grass.

First, delimit the lawn area for your organic vegetable garden with some thread, or with chalk. You can make it as big as the White House veggie garden patch, thirty by thirty feet, or smaller. Water this area generously, making sure that the ground is thoroughly soaked.

Organic Herbal Gardening Can Be Done Even Without A Backyard!

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Deciding to begin an organic herbal garden inside your house will not only have a dramatic and positive effect on your heath, but it will also make your abode more beautiful thanks to the beautiful plants that will grace your windowsills and balconies.

Organic herbal gardening indoors has the benefit of being year-round, giving a nonstop supply of fresh herbs. An indoor organic herb garden can be as minute as a few pots on a windowpane sill or as big as a conservatory full of containers of perfumed organic herbs.

Regarding the herbs that you can use, most of the varieties that you can grow outdoors are also good indoors. There are many themes around which to plan indoor organic herbal gardening, and of course you can combine these. Here is an example.

For instance, for a fragrant note you can grow angelica, bergamot, catmint, chamomile, thyme, lavender, lemon balm, and mint. This organic herb garden is also a great organic air freshener, ideal for indoor gardens in small flats.

Another thing you should focus on quickly is the kind of containers that you want to use for your plants. Not all plants grow equally well in small pots, so you should have an awareness of the minimum pot size for your chosen organic herbs.

How To Know Your Plant Zone

Sunday, January 6th, 2008

Before beginning your garden consult one of the maps that certain books, magazines, agricultural bulletins, and seed catalogs print, showing temperature belts, or one of the weather tables showing the date of the last probable frost in each state. Find out who the best gardeners are quite near you, preferably by watching whose gardens seem to do best, and then boldly ask their advice on when to plant, which things do best, which things need special attention, and what kind of attention. Whether you are a beginner or a newcomer to a community, most of them will be quick to help.

By now you may be wondering whether gardening is not a lot of work. I cannot answer that one, because the word “work” means different things to different people. If you mean by work something disagreeable that requires a lot of effort to do but that you do in order to get paid money, I can only answer that gardening in order to make money, or even to save money, is hard work.