Easy Water Gardening

If you’ve wanted to add water to your landscaping, a water feature is the perfect, easy way to get started. Water features are today’s hottest trend in landscaping. Water features or gardens create a great natural focal point in your gardens and the sight and sound of running water brings a magical, refreshing feel to the landscape.

If you’re not sure you want to tackle a pond or waterfall, or don’t have the space for one, a water tub garden would be the perfect solution.

Tub or container water gardens are easy to build, and can be placed almost anywhere you want to bring moving water. Put them by the front door, the back deck, or close to your favorite sitting area. The one requirement for running water is electricity, so locate the tub water garden near an electrical outlet. If you don’t have electricity you can still have a water garden, just without the running water.

The first step is to choose a container or reservoir which needs to hold water and there are many beautiful containers available without drainage holes which work great for water gardening. Ceramic and concrete are popular materials or you can also make them out of wood, metal, rock, or plastic. A container that is at least 8-12 inches deep, or deeper and twelve inches across or larger will work, but the average size of tub gardens seems to be around two feet across and one to three feet deep.

You will need to purchase a small fountain pump. Usually the pump is rated by how many inches up it will pump the water. You’ll need to keep in mind how high the water will need to be pumped to work in your water feature and purchase an appropriate size.

The fountainhead or water source is a key design element in every fountain. Using stacks of stones, or pottery pieces, and concealing the pump and hose creates a feature that seems to magically pour forth water.

Another popular fountainhead is a spout made from bamboo or copper pipe, or clay jars, old watering cans, and old iron pumps can also be used. You can find many fountainheads or spitters that are already created and sold for immediate use and are very simple to connect the pump to the fountain head with a piece of vinyl tubing that slips over the outlet of the pump while the other end goes to where you want the fountainhead to begin.

The finishing touch for your water feature is to add some plants and there are many water plants to choose from. Just choose from smaller varieties depending on the size of your water feature. Some possibilities are: miniature water lilies, water primrose creeper, small rush plants, dwarf papyrus, creeping jenny or cardinal flower, just to name a few.

Some floating plants such as water hyacinth or water lettuce are nice choices to fill in around the plants. The plants can be put right into the water in the pots they come in. A couple of small gold fish will do quite well in your water feature, if desired, and don’t need to be fed as they will feed off of microorganisms, algae cells and other matter which will help keep the water algae free..

The relative ease of setting up a water feature will have you enjoying the soothing sound of water in no time. The fun of growing plants in water and setting up water features will be quite rewarding and you may find yourself looking for more places to put these fun water features.

Best Nutrient Solutions for Summer Growing

Summer means heat. If you live in a warm place, excessive heat can affect your plants, especially those grown indoors. Some plants thrive in plenty of sunlight while others will require shade. Because of the summer heat, plants often do not get the water they require. This leads to stress, causing nutritional deficiency. Hence, the most important summer tip is to use water wisely and ensure that your plants receive adequate nutrition.

The quality of nutrient solutions that you use directly affects the growth and health of your plants. Improper plant nutrient can lead to poor yields, or worse, diseases. Hence, it is important to use tried-and-tested nutrient solutions that provide the necessary nutrients.

Here is a look at the important factors that are involved in choosing nutrient solutions for summer growing:

Indoor Gardening in Summer
Hydroponics enthusiasts avoid the summer heat by growing plants indoors. However, you will need to ensure that indoor plants absorb adequate amounts of light by using a nutrient solution such as Liquid Light, which improves light absorption.

Stages of Growth
Plants have different nutritional needs in the vegetative and flowering stages. Depending on the stage of growth and plant type, it is important to vary the nutrient solutions. Several hydroponics hobbyists use ESU Greenleaves Grow Juice for vegetative growth and Bloom Juice before fruiting and flowering. Similarly, pHAT Hydro offers products for the vegetative and blooming stages that are extremely popular with amateur as well as professional growers who use hydroponics.

Growing Mediums
Nutrition depends on the growing medium you use, as each growing medium has different amounts of trace nutrients and micronutrients. Inexperienced growers and professional growers can simply use ready-to-use nutrient solutions from Canna, which have been scientifically tested on specific growing mediums such as coco, soil, and rockwool.

pH Levels
Adding nutrients to the reservoir is bound to affect its pH level, which affects the uptake of nutrients and increases the chances of plant diseases. Technoflora provides a range of products such as B.C. Boost, B.C. Bloom, and B.C. Grow for different stages of plant growth. The balanced formula allows you to maintain pH levels of the nutrient reservoir, eliminating the need for frequent pH adjustment.

Chelation
A good nutrient solution should contain quality chelates, which aid the transfer of nutrients from fertilizers to plants. Nutrient solutions from Advanced Nutrients are known for their high chelate to micronutrient ratio, which ensures bio-availability for a longer duration.

Hydro-Organic Nutrients and Growth Supplements
Most nutrient solutions used in hydroponics are “hydro-organic” which means that they are organic materials that are readily soluble in water. One of the well-known brands in highly soluble nutrient solutions is General Hydroponics. General Hydroponics offers a range of growth supplements to enhance the development of both flowering and fruiting plants. Another trusted name, FoxFarm offers hydroponic nutrients that work by providing an extra boost of nitrogen and important trace minerals.

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Create A Shady Retreat

There was a time when gardeners thought having shade meant not having a garden. But shady areas in a yard offer an opportunity to grow an amazing palette of flowers and foliage. They also create great areas for entertaining and relaxing. A shady garden area can be developed into a cool, quiet, tranquil retreat. Adding garden seating like benches, table & chairs or a hammock makes a shady area a very relaxing and inviting place to hang out. A comfortable walking path invites and beckons you to come in and relax.

A key element in growing a successful shade garden is prior planning. Study your shaded area to get a sense of the density of the shade, plus how many hours a day and the time of day an area is shaded. You also need to know your soil type – especially whether it is moist or dry. Typically, shady areas under trees tend to be dry because of the competition for moisture from the tree roots. This type of area is more of a challenge, but with a little planning, you can still have a beautiful shade garden in a dry area. There are several types of shade loving plants which prefer dry soil. Another way to grow plants in dry shade is to place them in containers where they won’t have to compete with tree roots for moisture. An added benefit to this strategy is that it enables you to add a lot of interest with colorful and unique containers which also add height to your garden. Shady areas that are consistently moist are somewhat easier to plan and maintain.

There are many plants to choose from when planning your shade garden. When designing your shade garden, consider the many shades of green: bright yellow greens, cool-blue shades, red tinged emerald and degrees of forest and mint green. Look for plants with leaves that are polished, marbled, velvety, and lacy. Contrast is the key to making an interesting and appealing design. Even though a lot of the beauty and drama of a shade garden comes from a wonderful range of colors and leaf shapes, there are also a lot of flowering plants to choose from.

Just a few of the plants you can choose from for your shade garden are: hostas, ferns, pulmonarias, toad lily, lamiums, epimediums, pachysandra, columbine, foamflower, coral bells, bleeding hearts, native phlox, monkshood, primrose and astilbe. There are countless other plants that will tolerate shade. Your local garden center will be able to help you find plants that are particularly suited to your area.

Shade gardens are easy to care for, environmentally friendly and can’t be beat as a peaceful refuge after an exhausting day at work. There’s not question shade gardens have different requirements than their more exposed, sunny neighbors, but with a little planning and care, shade gardening can be just as beautiful and rewarding as any other kind of gardening.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Darlene_Anderson

Charcoal Carbon Filters

Hydroponics does away with the need for soil to grow plants in, thus allowing indoor cultivation of plants. An essential requirement for indoor green rooms and nurseries is an efficient air filtration system to ensure that the growing plants have access to adequate fresh air. Carbon filters are ideal for this purpose.

Odor management is an important issue associated with indoor vegetable production. Vegetables, especially certain varieties such as cabbage, have a distinctive pungent smell. This is especially a problem with green rooms or nurseries since the enclosed space does not allow free circulation of air. Besides, the hot and humid conditions inside the green house that are ideal for plant growth, also promote the vigorous growth of odor producing compounds like benzene. The result is an overpowering smell in and around the area of the green house or indoor nursery.

Charcoal carbon filters are the best air purifiers for use in hydroponic green houses. They have activated carbon, which has absorbent qualities that allow it to filter out even minute contaminants in air. Activated carbon resembles a sponge with holes of different diameters. When air is passed through it, the pores filter the air by trapping and absorbing molecules of contaminant compounds. Charcoal carbon filters are usually hung on walls or placed on the floor of the nursery.

These are some popular charcoal carbon filters used in hydroponics:

IGS Goblin Filter: This is a lightweight filter that weighs only about 10 pounds. It is especially suitable for use in the Hydrohut Original & Deluxe models. It uses 100% virgin coconut charcoal. This filter may need to be replaced every 6-8 months.

PHAT Hydro Filter: This is a popular little filter. It is ideal for small spaces where the filter needs to be directly attached to the exhaust fan. It uses virgin coconut charcoal.

Can 50 [420 CFM and 6" collar]: This activated charcoal filter has a capacity of 420 CFM. It comes with a 6-inch collar. It can purify large volumes of air and is ideal for use in hydroponics gardens.

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How To Create A Flower Garden For Beginner’s

The flower garden truly is a thing of beauty. Like many people I always wanted my very own. I didn’t know where to start, what to grow, or even how. But once I got the basics down I realized that it doesn’t have to be very hard. It can actually be very easy to grow your very first flower garden with the right knowledge.

Were going to take a quick tour of the basics of flower gardening. If you can master these things then you too can grow a stunning flower garden.

What Type Of Flower?

There are three different types of flowers. Annuals, Perennials, and Biennials. The main two were going to look at is Annuals and Perennials.

Annuals: These flowers are grown from seed each year and then they bloom. Once their season is over then it is over. You have to replant these each year from seed again.

Perennials: This type usually has some root or a dormant period where they can continue to survive until there next season. So these types of flowers don’t really die.

Both of these are suitable for the beginner gardener. Some do find perennials to be a little more work, but usually their not that much more work. Actually, Perennials do very well in environments where the weather is cold in the winter.

You should try to mix up your flower garden with both of these types. There are flowers of both types that are easy to grow for someone new to flower gardening.

You Need Some Fertilizer

Weather you like it or not your going to need some fertilizer or compost. Even a garden with good soil should still have fertilizer added to it.

There are allot of different types, but the best type of fertilizer is always manure. Yes it does smell, but… it is the most natural form of soil enhancement there is. You just can’t beet it.

Not any manure will do. Picking the right manure for the right plants can help the growth of your flowers a great deal. For example, cow manure doesn’t heat the same way other types do. This makes cow manure good for flowers that don’t like the hot manures. It helps to find out what your plants like better.

You are not just limited to manure. You can get more commercial types of fertilizer if you wish. These fertilizers can be used in conjunction with manure. Just realize that these fertilizers are not really a good substitute for manure.

Watering Your Flower Garden

All of your plants will require different amounts of water. You need to be aware of the plants that need to be watered regularly. For example, most types of roses will need to have plenty of water. At the same time some flowers will not require that much water. In fact you may even harm some flowers by over watering them.

Your location will matter too. If you have a well made flower bed out in the open your flowers may get enough water from the rain. If you live in a dry climate they wont get enough, and if they are in a sheltered area they wont get very much rain water either.

The soil can make a difference in how often you must water. Sandy soil will need to be water frequently because it dries out fast.

A final tip you should know watering your plants deeply is ideal. Simply sprinkling water over them will not always be good enough to get to the roots.

Grow It The Right Way

Each flower you choose to grow will have it’s own ideal growing conditions. The idea is to put it into those ideal conditions the best you can.

Some flowers will grow better in certain soil, under certain weather conditions, require different amounts of water, need more space apart, and so forth. Learn about the flowers that you would like to grow so that you can give them their best chance of survival.

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Helpful Herbs

Many things can be done with the herbs such as herbal teas, herbal crafts and herbal seasonings. It gives immense pleasure to many people in herbal garden planting. Noticing how the herbs blend together and enjoying their delicate scent are the advantages of herbal planting.

Planning an herb garden should be so effective that you can get rid of any frustration which may arise from planting an herb in the wrong area. If you plant an aromatic plant in a shady area it will not grow as well as if it were planted in a sunny or a warm area. Hence your garden herbal planting will give you more pleasure if you plan which herbs you want to use.

The location is the first and the important thing to be thought about before planning for your herb garden. According to experts, most herbs will grow in partial shades but the place which is to be avoided is full shades because the herbs will not do well in full shades.

After deciding on the location for planting herbs, the next step is to figure out what type of herbs you’d like to grow for which you will have to ask yourself the question that- why you want to produce herbs? Is it for teas, cooking, fragrance, or a combination of all of these?  You can grow herbs of your interest and also those which caught your interest in the past. If you don’t know the use of the herbs then you can do some research as to which herb is the best. You can search for information on internet or visit a library and choose various books on that subject or ask your friends who are interested in herbal planting.

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The Easy Vegetable Garden Method

The first step to starting a new vegetable garden is to map out your garden. Simply draw up an approximate plan of where you’d like everything to go, keeping as close to scale as possible. Make sure you take into account paths and such.

Next, you need to decide which vegetables you wish to grow. Make a list of everything you’d like to grow, and then narrow the list down to those that you can easily get locally. For example, exotic lettuces may be expensive and hard to find, and tomatoes from grocery stores usually taste terrible.

Don’t go to the trouble of drawing a plan and then ignoring it – follow it! Once you’ve roughed out your beds, it’s time to work out where your various plants go so that you keep any problems to a minimum as your crop matures. This is the reason a map is so important.

Put a lot of thought into your vegetable plants requirements. You need to know you’re planting your chosen vegetables in the best position for maximum growth. For example, learn which ones tolerate shade and which ones require full sun.

If space is a problem, here’s one simple way to fully utilize the area you’re able to use. This method is widely used in France. As an example, if you have carrots and spinach on your list you simply mix together a packet of each.

Then you’d make a 1/2 inch deep furrow in a row and sow the mixture of the two seeds into that furrow and cover. The spinach will grow quickly and open up the soil so the carrot seeds can germinate better.

In about four weeks, you can start to harvest some spinach to thin it, making room for the slower growing carrots. By the time the carrots start to reach maturity, the spinach will be completely used up, and the carrots will have plenty of room to grow.

This method can successfully be used for many different types of vegetables. Radishes can be planted well with lettuce or parsley, for example. The French will often sow early radish varieties with lettuce and turnips all at the same time.

The radishes are harvested first and are finished by the time your lettuce are ready. In a similar manner, the turnips will only be starting to mature as the last of the lettuce are harvested. All your taller growing vegetables should be planted on the north side of your vegetable garden if your rows are in a east-west direction.You do this so that your shorter plants aren’t in the shade from the shadows of the taller ones.

In the average home vegetable garden, the tallest plant is usually corn. Make sure you plant this so that it doesn’t overshadow your shorter plants and cause them to lack sufficient sunshine.

Of course the reverse of this can be useful if you’re wanting to grow vegetables that prefer dappled sunlight or shade. You can be imaginative and make use of larger plants to shade these smaller ones. A case in point would be to grow a tall row of peas or beans to provide shade for a cool climate vegetable like spinach.

This could help you grow shade-loving vegetables in your garden, even if you don’t have any shady spots available. By being creative with placement, you might be able to grow vegetables you never thought you’d be able to grow in your location!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tom_B_Johnson

What Is Vertical Gardening?

Have you ever dreamed of harvesting your own fruit and vegetables, fresh from the garden? Have you ever baulked at rising produce prices, and spent an arm and a leg on fresh produce only to take it home and find it bland? Have you ever wished you had a spacious backyard to grow your own corn and strawberries, but gave up your dreams because you work in the city and live in an apartment?

What if I told you that you can harvest as much fresh fruit and vegetables as you’d like from your very own garden with only the space on your balcony or windowsills.

You might think it is a crazy idea right?

With today’s vertical gardening techniques, you can grow your own produce as long as you have somewhere sunny, be it a balcony, porch, or alleyway along a fence. With vertical gardening, you train your veggies to grow up, not out.

So what exactly is vertical gardening and why can it give you season after season of satisfaction and impressive crops of fruits and vegetables?

Vertical gardening relies on the fact that plants will grow where ever there is light, nutrients, and support. This means that even if your cucumber vine is growing from a pot straight up a wall, it will still produce!

Long ago, it was commonly thought that only with expansive amounts of land can one grow produce. The problem was that before the advent of pots, irrigation, and soil conditioners, each plant relied strictly on what was in the soil beneath it to survive.

This meant that a given plant would consume a large amount of soil in order to produce a given amount of fruit.

Today, we can engineer optimum conditions for a given plant in a milk jug, and watch it produce many pounds of vegetables. This is possible through the application of science and careful planning of your garden well before planting the first seed.

Do not be discouraged, although the process may seem labor intensive and difficult, it truly isn’t. After only a few weeks you will understand most of the theory and after a single season you will become a seasoned professional at growing your own produce indoors or in small spaces. Imagine covering an entire wall with bean vines, cucumbers, and tomatoes.

Imagine the satisfaction you will get when you bite into your very own produce, which will taste many fold better than that which is available at the store. This and much more is possible with vertical gardening!

So, if you have decided that vertical gardening may be something you would like more information about, scour the Internet for more info. You will be surprised at the resources available, and I am sure if you set your mind to it you could be harvesting your own fruit and veggies this year. Vertical gardening may be bringing fresh produce to a balcony near you soon.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Janet_Combs

Aquaponics at Home

WHAT IS AQUAPONICS?
Aquaponics is a combination of Aquaculture & Hydroponics. Aquaponics uses the water from the fish tank to circulate through a grow bed where the plants are grown.

Nitrifying bacteria convert fish wastes into plant-available nutrients. The plants use these nutrients as their main nutrient supply.

The fish benefit from this process also, as the water is filtered by the plants, giving the fish clean water to live in. With Aquaponics, both the fish and the plants not only grow well, they flourish.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF AQUAPONICS?

Reduced water use

. No chemical and Pesticide Free (organic grown)

. Reduces erosion by eliminating the need to plough the soil

. Reduced running costs compared to a conventional horticultural farm

. Stops backbreaking work of digging the soil and weeding for the home gardener

Can produce fish and plants for the family / grower all year round, especially when grown in a greenhouse.

Compared to conventional Hydroponic growers, Aquaponics does not need to use chemical nutrients for the plants, as the fish waste provides these nutrients to the plants.This eliminates the pollution of waterways.

Compared to conventional Aquaculture growers, an Aquaponics system does not have a build-up of wastes in the system that causes the water to become toxic due to the nitrites. Aquaponics utilises this waste, with the bacteria in the grow beds converting the nitrites into nitrates, which the plants then consume.

What a wonderful way to save money – buy saving water( if you have a water tank as I have water is free) and getting Fresh Fruit/Veggies daily. With no Chemicals and no Wastes and no Smell.

Aquaponics is a balanced, self-contained eco system that really works!!You can’t get better than that!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Linda_McNally