Posted on September 17th, 2008 by admin
Insecticide runoff is an increasing problem that is having an unwelcome effect on our birds and wildlife that live in and around our waterways. Something that everyone who has a lawn or garden should be aware of is that every time you spray a commercial insecticide on your lawn or garden, a percentage of that insecticide ends up in our drains, which carries it to our precious waterways.
Already some cities are banning commercial insecticides, and over time more and more cities will only allow the home owner to use natural insecticides.
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Maintaining Lawns And Gardens With Natural Greener Insecticides
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Posted on September 6th, 2008 by admin
Trees can contribute to the overall appearance of your front yard perhaps more than almost any other part of your landscaping design. Unfortunately, many new homes that are now being built come with almost no trees on the property at all, or at least very few. This leaves it up to the homeowner to come up with a winning front yard landscaping idea, and choose the right trees for its design.
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How To Choose The Right Trees For Your Front Yard Landscaping Ideas
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Posted on March 22nd, 2008 by admin
Compost piles are a feast for millions of microorganisms. Once the proper mix of food, moisture and air are available, the parties come to the feast and do their work. However, most of those who compost want it as fast as possible and some suppliers of garden materials tell us we need an accelerator or starter for the pile to make it work faster. They are only half right when it comes to an accelerator for the compost pile.
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Compost Accelerators - Use The Ones At Hand
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Posted on March 19th, 2008 by admin
Compost piles may be contained in bins or other enclosures or simply piled on the ground. Whichever you choose there are some simple things to consider before the pile is established.
1.Make if close to the main garden. A lot of compost material will come from pulled weeds and spent plants so you may as well carry them as short a distance as possible. Likewise the majority of the finished material will be going directly on the garden.
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Posted on March 17th, 2008 by admin
Compost piles are a feast for millions of microorganisms. Once the proper mix of food, moisture and air are available, the parties come to the feast and do their work. However, most of those who compost want it as fast as possible and some suppliers of garden materials tell us we need an accelerator or starter for the pile to make it work faster. They are only half right when it comes to an accelerator for the compost pile.
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Compost Accelerators - Use The Ones At Hand
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Posted on March 11th, 2008 by admin
Compost is the great addition for all those organic gardeners who have moved to raised beds instead of the traditional row garden. Raised beds allow for a greater concentration of plants per square foot which in turn allows for a greater harvest whether of blossoms or vegetables. However this places a greater demand on the soil to be a healthy growing environment and a great source of nutrition. Compost rises to the challenge.
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Compost - Great Addition For Raised Bed Gardens
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Posted on March 9th, 2008 by admin
There never seems to be enough compost for a busy gardener. That being so, there are two things for a gardener to do, either make more compost piles or have the present ones work faster. With space being at a premium in many yards, the former is generally the better solution.
Composters have become ingenious in developing small ways of speeding up composting, however, hot composting is really the solution most have found effective. A regular compost pile may take two to four years to produce finished compost while a hot pile may need only two to four weeks.
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Posted on February 27th, 2008 by admin
Compost makers are where you find them. They may be either the people who make the compost or the equipment they use.
On a municipal or commercial level, compost makers will usually be large machinery. They may be something as simple as the bucket on a farm tractor that is used to pick up compost material and slowly slip it over the edge so as to mix and pile it or they could be as specialized as compost rotators that are essentially open ended tubes. The tube is set at about 5° off horizontal and material is dropped in the top. The tube slowly rotates and the the material is continually aerated and beaten smaller. Moisture content is closely monitored and the compost may be finished in as little as five days.
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Posted on February 24th, 2008 by admin
Compost can be too much of good thing when the pile is ready when all the garden beds are full. A little can be used for compost tea but what is one to do with the black gold when all the flowers are blooming and the veggies are growing to beat the band? If you do not want to dig up the soil, why not leave it and have your compost too?
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Posted on February 2nd, 2008 by admin
Compost piles generate a fair amount of heat. Some composters record temperatures in excess of 160°F in a fast compost pile. However, the cold days of winter can force the heat to drop and the composting action to stop. How then, might one keep a pile active over winter?
Generally we think of compost piles needing food, air and moisture but they also require heat. If the temperature drops too much the bodily functions of the microorganisms that accomplish the composting work simply stop. Some of the creatures grow dormant and others freeze, but they all stop. Keeping a pile going in winter means keeping up the heat.
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