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As the weather begins to turn and the days get longer we can again turn our attention to our gardens. There are many areas that might need attention after the long winter, and the lawn would certainly be one of them. As well as giving your grass it first cuts, April is also a great time to give your lawn a bit of TLC. So get out the garden fork and get digging!
In most cases lawn care involves improving the soil condition in which your grass roots sit. To improve your lawn, you first need to improve your soil, providing the ideal conditions for continuous root growth. Work on lawns is best done in dry conditions, so always wait until the April rains have passed before starting any lawn maintenance. Excessive footfall on damp or waterlogged lawns can lead to unnecessary soil compaction which further impedes grass growth, leaving your lawn bare or mossy.
The process of lawn care begins with a cut, again only to be done when conditions are dry and grass has not grown too long. Try to insure that your lawn mower is kept in good condition and blades are sharpened twice over the growing season. Never cut your grass too short, a general rule of thumb for cutting grass is ‘the 1/3 rule’, only ever remove 1/3 of grass height in one cut. Any more than this will lead to excessive loss of water from the grass leading to stunted growth. Once you keep this in mind, just remember that grass is best cut every 10 -12 days during the growing season.
But really, grass cutting is only the beginning to lawn maintenance. Issues of moss and dandelions are something that requires further care. This all begins with the use of the simple Garden Fork!. Garden forks come in a range of shapes and sizes and I recommend that you buy the one that suits you the best you own strength. The strongest are made of aluminum and handle of Ash wood, these tools, if treated properly should last you a life time.
So, how does the garden fork, improve your lawn? Well the fork itself is used to aerate your soil, this add additional air to your compacted and water logged lawn, allowing not only for some space for roots to grow, but also more oxygen for grass root and soil insect and micro organisms to life and flourish.
The process of ‘soil Aeration’ involves using the fork to create holes throughout the lawns surface. Simply start at one end of your lawn and step the garden fork down into the soil. Press the fork into the soil to a depth of fork itself (approx 500mm). Once the fork is fully pressed in, give the fork a slight tilth, raising the soil in front. This reduces compaction in the soil and add much needed air and improved drainage to your lawn
Continue this process across the extent of your lawn area, placing fork in the soil at 300mm spacing across the lawn until you have covered the entire area.
Once done, reward your hard efforts, and take a break, and remember this is only the first in a number of steps that can be taken to improve the condition of your lawn. So, stay tuned for more useful tips on how to care for your lawn and garden in general.
As any gardener will tell you, a range of garden tools made for the job is vital. Many of us have so often made do with a couple of tools that do many jobs e.g., the good old reliable dutch hoe that can sometimes finds itself digging the planting holes when you are planting your spring bulbs or the secateurs straining to do the job of a bow saw.
Not only is it slow and tedious using the wrong garden tool for a particular task, it can be quite back-breaking, but it can also leave your garden tools damaged or broken and therefore costing you money in the long run.
Whether you are a beginner or you are gardening for decades the same rules apply, a basic stock of Garden Tools in your shed in good condition and fit for purpose will make your garden more productive and keep the back pain at bay. Buy tools that “ fit” you, if you are quite tall like me, then you need garden tools that have good long handles, this will make gardening much easier and less painful. When buying any garden tools form your garden centre or tool merchant, try them for size, how do the feel. It is important that your tools suit your needs and are comfortable to work with especially if you are investing a lot of money.
Some people might say that a specific tool for a specific task will leave your tool-shed bulging at the seams with an eclectic mix of implements and to some extent this is probably true. However using a made for purpose tool really pays dividends e.g.; I used the handle of an old shovel for years when planting spring bulbs until I finally gave in and bought a bulb planting tool for myself at my local garden centre……. I paid a few euros for it but it was one of the best investments I have ever made as far as garden tools are concerned.
Manual garden tools today are basically still the same as they were for pioneer gardeners and most of these will be found in a good gardener’s tool-shed. For me the basics should be; A digging spade, Fork, Hoe, Rake, Trowel, Secateurs, Shears and some edging tools where you have an area of lawn. These are basic tools to get you started if you have a large plot or a small one. For gardeners with bigger areas to tend, you might find that powered garden aids are the way to go; Lawnmower, rotovator, strimmer, chainsaw, leaf-blower and shredder are but a few, but for me there’s nothing like the sound of steel blade in contact with the earth as you go about your daily gardening chores.
However if you get bitten by the bug…..you will find yourself amassing an array of useful garden tools over the years which will before long become invaluable allies in keeping your garden looking its best all year round.
Posted in Gardening
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Tagged garden tools
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The humble plastic bag; it’s been around since time began providing endless packaging and storage services to all of mankind. To celebrate it I have decided to publish my praises for refuse bags and their years of tireless service.
We all know the plastic bag can be used to store and carry an endless range of garden waste and wanted materials, but what else has the refuse bag got to offer? Why should every gardener keep an ample supply of refuse bags to hand? What tricks of the trade and problem solving solutions has the plastic bag been at the heart of?
1. Keeping bees from off your apples. Commonly used in Brasil to prevent the insect damage to Caju, simply place a small refuse bag over your developing apple and allow your fruits to flourish in the secure and pest free environment!
2. Carrot Fly Barrier. Pest control solution No. 2. The carrot fly, the fly that merely hops, not flies, will make your carrots uneatable as their microscopic larva burrow their way into young roots. The Solution – don’t let the carrot fly lay its eggs near your carrots. One way this can be done is to build a 500mm high barrier around your crop (using a refuse bag and timber posts).
3. Homemade flower pots. Simple, cost effective and space saver! A plastic bag can easily be shaped and stapled together to act as a plant pot.
4. Covering bare root plants. Plastic bags are commonly used to cover the exposed roots of bare root plants to prevent the plant’s roots from drying out. Remember bare root hedging and trees are a real money safer, costing a fraction of the price of container grown plants.
5. Shield transplants from the sun. Just like bare root plants, ‘transplants’ need protection from drying out. It’s important to remember when transplanting shrubs that there is minimal disruption to the shrub’s roots. Having a black refuge bag at hand will provide the necessary protection until your shrub has been replanted in its new home.
6. Protect plants from weed killer spray. Using a Knapsack Pressure Sprayer and chemical weed killers can be a real time saver in the garden. Using any chemicals should however be treated with caution as they can be harmful to humans, animals and plants. Only spray when the weather is suitable, this being during the growing season, when there is little chance of rain and there is little or no wind. In windy conditions particles of chemical spray can be carried quite a distance, damaging nearby plants. The use of a refuse bag to cover and protect your shrubs when using weed killer is easy and highly recommended
7. Softwood cuttings. Small plastic bags are regularly used to cover freshly cut softwood cuttings such as hydrangea and lavender. These cuttings, having little or no roots, are under extreme water stress meaning water conversation is top priority. Placing a clear plastic bag over cuttings increases humidity inside the bag, and therefore reduces transpiration, or loss of water from the cuttings.
8. Scare crow. Birds are both friend and foe of the garden. They help reduce slug numbers, but they also eat cabbage (pigeon) and pull up young onion setts (mistaking them for worms). Scare crows can come in many forms, and one simple one that i suggest is a number of plastic bags attached to poles throughout the vegetable garden.
9. Water conserving hanging baskets. Ok, some ideas so far may not be the most practical but this is a contender for idea of the week. As we know, hanging baskets are prone to drying out and need watering everyday to maintain healthy growth and perfusion of flowers. Using a refuse bag as a liner for your baskets not only prevents water loss out the bottom, but also reduces evaporation keeping soil good and moist.
10. Keeping paint brush from drying out. Getting a little off the point here, but still a good idea and somewhat garden related. Painting can be a long and boring affair, so spreading it out over a number of days may ease the pain a little. Instead of washing your paint brush every evening, simply place the wet brush inside a plastic bag and seal it. The brush will be ready for use the next morning! Timesaver!
So there we are! I wasn’t sure I would get there but I did. 10 great uses for refuse bags, and I didn’t even mention using them as a bin!!
Crop rotation is important to reduce the build-up of pests and diseases. If one variety of, let’s say cabbage, is grown in the same location year after year a build up of cabbage eating pests and disease will occur in that area. It is therefore important to divide your plot into a number of areas and move your cabbages or brassicas crops each season.
Crops also use nutrients differently and nutrients can be depleted if planting is repeated in the same place year after year. One group of vegetables, the bean family, also known as legumes, and includes sugar snap peas, climbing runner beans, broad beans and French bean are a very beneficial plant in the vegetable garden, as they actually add nutrients to the soil. The bean family is therefore pivotal in the process of crop rotation
While the bean family is adding nutrients to the soil, the brassica seed family, which includes the cool climate crops such as cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and spinach are all heavy feeders and will consume a lot of soil nutrients. Again, it is important to not grow the same cabbage / brassica in the same pace year after year.
The process of Crop rotation involved a total of 4 crop groups, 2 mentioned before, the brassica family and the bean family and also the onion family, which includes onions, leeks, shallots and garlic and the root family, which includes beetroot, carrots, parsnips and potatoes.
Next divide your vegetable plot roughly into evenly sized sections, one section for each rotation group; Legumes, Onion family, Root crop family and Brassica family. In year one sow your crops in their allotted section and for year two, rotate or move each section across, therefore no crop will grow in the same place two years running. Continue this process over a 4 year cycle, after which the process will start over again.
Crop rotation should help keep certain pest numbers down such as carrot fly, cabbage root fly, and also control fungal disease level such as potato blight. It is however not effective against pests such a slugs and caterpillars who have no trouble in seeking out succulent green leaves of cabbages.
Crop rotation can play a role in controlling weed levels on your plot and more technical systems have been developed to control weeds in organic farming systems. These methods adopt ideas of alternating between broad leaf crops (cabbage) and narrow leaf crops (onion) to limited weed growth. Other techniques to control weeds through planting includes under sowing, which involves continuous sowing of crops by starting seedlings in rows before previous the crop has been harvested. Also the use of cover crops or green manures can also reduce persistent weed numbers by breaking the seeding cycle of weeds on the plot. I hope in time to explain this in more detail.
What is most important is to remember the basic lesson here, and that is not to grow the same crop in the same place two years running.
With the recent rain we have been experiencing any ideas of long dry summer days seems might appear hopeful. But early indications are that we are to get a warmer than average summer and this means that thirsty plants such as Bamboo, Ferns, Astilbes, Grasses and Willows may find times tough at the height of summer. Equally so any trees or shrubs that are in their first 2 years could also struggle in periods of drought and would benefit greatly from additional watering. This is where a porous soaker hose can save you a lot back breaking work as well as saving your plants.
Water and plants have, since plant life began on earth, been intractably linked. As is now understood, all life began in the deep oceans and over millions of years of evolution lead to the first land plants and then to the great forest of coniferous and broadleaf trees. All these plants have and always will be wholly dependent on water. Most plants parts consist for 75% to 80% water; this water is taken up by plant roots and flows through the plants internal system, carrying with it a variety of essential nutrients and plant hormones.
The amount of water soaked up by a plant is quite extraordinary, and to understand that it is first important to learn that 90% of water absorbed by a plant is eventually lost through plant leaves. Only 10% of the water absorbed by a plant is consumed in the process of photosynthesis. A fully grown tree can absorb 200 to 300L of water each day, so it is easy to see how a porous soaker hose can save on a lot of watering.
The soaker hose is a porous hose which allows water drip flow through its permeable membrane, soaking the ground around where it has been positioned. To use; connect the soaker hose to a standard garden hose using a hose adaptor. This will allow you to position the soaker hose right where you need it.
In my own case I have a very dry looking bamboo hedge which, due to exposure to wind, looses water from its leaves very quickly. The result is dry curled leaves and sparse foliage throughout the year. In this case I ran my porous soaker hose around the base of my bamboo and turned out the tap. Ideally you want enough water to soak down at least 1ft into the soil, this will encourage deep root growth and healthier plants. To determine how long it takes water to soak 1ft down into your soil; set up soaker, dig a small pit 1ft away and time how long it takes for water to soak down. This is the length of time that you should leave the tap on to fully water your plants in this location with the soaker hose.
Continue to assess your plants for signs of water stress; generally a period of one week without rain is considered a drought. This is when applying additional water to plants is essential to prevent wilting.
Lupins have been one of gardener’s favourite plants for centuries. Since the herbaceous border was invented, Lupins have been brightening borders all over the land. Their tall spires of colour, ranging from 40cm to 1.30cm and colours of purples, pinks, whites, yellows and reds bloom right through the summer months. The watering can is the Lupins best friend. During the summer months and directly after sowing/ transplanting remember to water them regularly.
When planting, position them in clumps and space plants 1 ½ ft apart. Lupins sit very well alongside other tall herbaceous perennials such as Rudbeckia, Echinacea, phlox, and Anemones. Theei palmate leaf and tall blooms makes them very architectural, contrasting well with Phormium, Buxus and large Gunnera and stand out from a ground of herbaceous plants.
In the garden prepare a deep bed for Lupins. The plants develop a deep root system, so ground preparation and use of your watering can early on can make a big difference. Like Astilbes, water your Lupins before sowing, directly after sowing and for the following two weeks. When watering, fill a 10 Litre watering can and apply water around the plant and allow to soak in without flowing away. Continue to apply and soak until entire 10 litres has been used up. It is best to water in the mornings.
In mid spring / early summer begin to apply a liquid fertilizer. This can be done for any flowering plant in your garden. When applying a liquid fertilizer, simply add it to your watering can and water in your plants as before. A phosphorous based fertilizer is best. Phosphorous encourages good root development and Lupins like good roots.
If you’re feeling confident, you can always attempt softwood cuttings of your Lupin plants. This rewarding exercise can provide you with several more plants from one and is easy to do. In late Spring or early Summer, take a cutting of a side shoot, cutting and removing from below soil level. Place the cutting in perlite and compost mix and keep moist. After 4 weeks rooting should have occurred and new plants can be transplanted.
Over the summer months, fading flowers can be removed as this may encourage a second flush of blooms. To remove fading flowers, take a secateurs and remove the entire flowering stem from base. If this is done soon after pruning it will prevent the plant from going to seed and encourage further flowering and bushiness of the plant. Garden secateurs should be cleaned after use and should always be sharp to allow for nice clean cutting.
Continue to monitor the weather conditions and water the plants when necessary. If we experience 1 week of dry weather, then it is time to get the watering can out again.
In autumn, when the blooms fade, it’s an ideal time to collect the seeds. Seeds can be collected and stored and an airy, dry place and sown the following spring. Autumn is also the best time to divide Lupins. Don’t leave it too late as an early frost can damage tender plants. Dividing should be done with great care and minimum disruption to plant roots.
Who said you can’t get anything for free? Well, for those of you with a green finger or two might very well find this article of use. One of the most rewarding tasks in the garden must be taking cuttings. Both softwood and hardwood cuttings can be done over the year and require just some basic know-how and skill. All you need is garden secateurs, a little time and you can soon turn one plant into many.
Cuttings are basically divided into two categories. Softwood and hardwood. Softwood cuttings, as the name suggests involves taking cuttings from plant’s soft, green, fresh growing stems. These cuttings must therefore be taken in the growing season, from late Spring until early Autumn. Hardwood cuttings are taken from mature, ‘hard’, woody stems and these cuttings are taken in the dormant season, generally during the months of September to November. So get your secateurs out and get pruning.
It’s important to first prepare a container or plant pot in which these new cuttings will sit. The most suitable soil mix is one with a suitable balance of compost and sand. Remember, cuttings are lacking roots and therefore will be under extreme water stress. It is therefore vital that the soil is kept moist at all times. Contrary to this, plant stems do not like to sit in soils as the damp soil can rot the stem. It is therefore important that even if the soil is moist, it still maintains a high level of air. Keeping this in mind, the best soil for cuttings would be 1 part peat compost, 1 part sharp sand or building sand.
The next step is all about how to make the cut. First make sure that your secateurs is sharp and clean. For hardwood cuttings choose stems approx 20cm long, straight and about the thickness of a pencil. When cutting, position the stem into the base of the secateurs blade and make a clean cut. Asses the stem, paying attention to the bud and branching along it. Choose a bud near the base of the stem and make an angled cut below it, keeping the bud on the stem. This bud will develop to become the plant’s new roots. Next remove 2/3 of the stems side shoot and leaves and finally with the secateurs, remove the apical or top bud from the stem.
Now your hardwood cutting is ready to be planted, as an option you can use a rooting powder to speed up the onset of rooting. Rooting powder is a hormone for increasing plant growth. Once the powder has been placed around the base of the stem, insert the stem down into your prepared soil mix. The stem should be pushed 1/3 down into soil. Press in soil to ensure the stem is secure in your plant pots and will not move.
Hardwood cuttings take approx one year before they are ready for transplanting. In that time the cuttings must be accessed regularly to ensure soil is moist but not too damp and to ensure the cuttings are secure and not ‘rocking’ around in the soil. Once a year has passed, a new set of roots should have developed which is supporting the plant. Just like that, a whole new plant has been created with no costs and only a garden secateurs.
At the start of every year, each Irish gardener looks forward to the coming year with hope more than expectation these days. Recent years have offered nothing but poor summer weather and in turn, poorer results than their gardening efforts warranted. 2011 was no exception unfortunately. Come the spring, we all read and heard of every weather forecast on TV and radio that we were going to have a glorious summer. As usual, predicting the weather, especially in Ireland, more than a day or two in advance proved to be erroneous and the summer of 2011 has proved to be a damp squib for Gardening in Ireland in every sense of the word.
For an awful lot of gardening enthusiasts, especially those fortunate enough to have poly tunnels or greenhouses, this was especially so. The lack of sunshine has meant very poor returns on the likes of cucumbers, tomatoes, strawberries and all type of fruit and vegetables that thrive on copious quantities of sunshine. The very fact that I only had to water my hanging baskets a handful of times over the entire summer should tell you everything you need to know about what the weather was like in Ireland this summer. Another piece of damning evidence was that when watering my plants, I rarely had to use tap water. Maybe eighty percent of the time, I was just able to fill my watering can from my water butts that collect water from the sloped roof of my greenhouse. I have never in recent times been able to do this.
While I suppose you could make the argument that it would have saved me on the incoming water charges that the government are bring in, it is an indication of precisely how wet it was. Some of my gardening efforts were rewarded though. Despite the lack of sunshine and all the rain, I did manage to have some success with some of what I sowed.
Some of the fruits and vegetables that I sowed thrived in the conditions and I did manage to get bumper crops from the likes of peas, beans, lettuce, carrots, onions and the likes. Good old traditional and trustworthy vegetables. Some fruit also prospered especially my apples and blueberries. It is though that the very harsh winter had something to do with though and heavy crops of the afore mentioned fruits were predicted after the coldest winter in living memory here in Ireland.
Although some of my work was rewarded, it’s very disheartening to put a lot of time and effort into your garden and produce poor results. It’s an occupational hazard of gardening in Ireland, I suppose it just comes with the territory. Nevertheless, it does put you off sowing things like tomatoes and cucumbers the next year. They take up a lot of room in your greenhouse and you want to try and maximize your return from them but you can only do so much. If mother nature doesn’t get her finger out and lend a helping hand, there is very little you can do.
I might be moaning on here about the weather and sound a bit disillusioned with my gardening this year, but I know myself once the turn of the year comes again, I’ll be out digging with the best of them, in the hopes of a sunshine filled summer and bumper crop of garden goodies.
As a keen vegetable grower I have come to realise that the greatest battle being fought in the garden is not the war against weeds, but in fact the war against the garden pest! Whether you are growing tomatoes or turnips achieving pest free crops is a challenge that requires continuous effort. Chemical pest control options are without question effective, fast acting and not labour intensive. They are however harmful to your garden’s beneficial insects. And killing your beneficial insects is just one step closer to losing the battle against the pest. Organic control options such as fine mesh netting over your pest venerable crop provides a permanent defence without harming the good guys.
When chemical control such as pyrethrum and derris is applied to crops the amount of chemical that hits its target is as low as 10%, this means that 90% of the chemicals applied to crops is either washed down into the soil, and eventually into water ways, streams and lakes, or is absorbed by the plant and ends up contaminating food, or else is consumed by our gardens beneficial insects such as the ladybird, ground beetle, lace wing or hoverfly. These insects are the good guys in the fight against pests such as aphids and slugs. So instead of spraying crops with chemicals why not cover them with the non intrusive mesh netting.
Carrot fly is one pest that can be organically kept at bay by the use of fine garden netting. This netting should be placed over your vegetable plot immediately after sowing seeds. Keep the netting elevated so as is does not touch the carrot crop or the ground. The carrot fly is a tiny white fly that lays it eggs in and around carrot plants. Once the eggs hatch microscopic larvae burrow their way inside the carrot and leave tiny black burrows throughout the root. The result is an inedible carrot rotting from the inside out.
There are many more controls against the pest, this includes choosing carrot fly resistant varieties such as ‘fly away’, another option is to erect a 500mm barrier around your crops meaning the carrot fly cannot land and will lay its eggs elsewhere. Simply maintaining a tidy work space and dispose of any carrot thinnings as the smell alone will attract even more pests to your vegetable plot.
Mesh netting don’t just control the carrot fly though, they are useful against butterflies also. Butterflies and more importantly their young offspring – the caterpillar, will quickly turn a beautiful head of cabbage into unsightly mess as they munch their way through the entire plant. Again, placing the fine mesh netting over your cabbage crop in early spring will keep the butterfly away.
But that’s not the end of uses for the fine mesh netting, it’s also good for controlling rabbits, pigeons, cabbage root fly, aphids and bees. It certainly is an investment worth making if you are serious about growing vegetable that you want to eat – before the insects do.
Ten uses for the most versatile material in the world should not prove that difficult. Bamboo as a plant is both wonderfully architectural and full of character. It is fast growing and can store high levels of carbon dioxide, protecting our Ozone from this harmful gas.
Even here in Ireland, 8,000 km away from the nearest Asian forests, bamboo, in one form or another can be found in gardens all over the land. So what great uses can this durable, strong but flexible material be put to? Below is of list of ideas for all those left over bamboo canes.
1. Bamboo Garden furniture. Already a popular feature in the garden, bamboo furniture will withstand frost and rain damage a lot better than other materials. As a weekend project, why not try fashion a few bamboo canes into simple table or garden feature.
2. Bamboo Bird table. Again this idea requires a little bit of DIY know how along with some bamboo canes and garden twine. A bird table will offer more than just birds to look at, it will also allow for greater protection of your vegetable plot as the addition of extra birds in your garden will help rid your vegetables of snails and slugs.
3. A Bamboo Wigwam. To be fair, this was the obvious one and given that I’ve mentioned it at number 3 on the list it does not bode well for the ideas yet to come. The Bamboo wigwam can act as a support for a range of climbers, both ornamental and vegetable and also makes an attractive feature in the garden. Investing in some bamboo frame connectors can make building a bamboo wigwam a lot easier too.
4. A bamboo screen. Building this yourself may prove to be fruitless work, firstly because it could take a number of days and secondly because bamboo screens are commonly on sale at local garden centres / DIY shops.
5. Support for your herbaceous perennials. Asters, Dahlias, Peonies all become so top heavy by the end of summer that they require timber supports. Cheap and cheerful bamboo canes are just the thing for the job.
6. Wind chimes. This is definitely one for the to-do list. A subtle bamboo wind chime dangling from one of my Birch trees would really provide another element to my garden. Again, all you’ll need is some bamboo canes, garden twine, a drill and maybe some rounded pebbles or sea shells. You could construct a wind chime of any shape or size.
7. Ladybird habitat. Take a bamboo cane, cut into 2ft long sections and position throughout your vegetable plot. The narrow space within provides a safe habitat for ladybirds, who in turn will patrol your plot eating pests such as aphids.
8. Bamboo water feature. A common element of the Japanese style garden. Any number of styles and designs could be conjured up, although for a project like this larger bamboo canes of 80mm diameter and greater would be required.
9. Homemade Cloches. Cloches or mini poly-tunnels provide protection against frost and increase temperatures between 3°C or 4 °C in spring. To make a homemade cloche you will need old garden hose, bamboo canes and clear polythene sheeting.
10. This is one I was trying to avoid but bamboo is regularly used to support young trees. The reason I wanted to omit this is because I spend a good percentage of my time removing bamboo supports from young trees. Remove bamboo from around trees if the tree’s bark is being impeded by the bamboo and rubber tree tie.
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