Deep root watering your plants in your garden

can save you time, water, and money. But most importantly, it promotes lush and vigorous growth

Deep Root Watering your plants can be easily done and should be practiced for many reasons:

1. Deep root watering promotes lush and vigorous growth, no matter what varieties of plants your grow.

2. Deep root watering saves water.

3. In depth watering encourages . . .

the development of strong, active root systems.

4. Watering deeply every so often encourages the roots to go deep, looking for food and water, which is exactly what we want them to do.

5. This method of deep watering your plants reduces maintenance. You irrigate less often, say once every 1 to 2 weeks; however, each time, you irrigate more and more deeply

Caution: Seedlings and fresh plantings (less than a month old), will always need more water until their root systems have started to expand and become established.

It’s best to wait until your seedlings and fresh plantings start to show new growth before you begin a deep root watering gardening program for them. Even then, slowly introduce them to this system.

Tip: Flower gardening plants in hot, sun-drenched areas of your garden, will generally need to be watered more often, but you can off-set this by choosing plants that are “drought tolerant.”

Cooler, shady areas will need much less water.

The Deep Root Watering Method Explained:

1. To allow the water to penetrate and not run off, till or loosen the top one-inch layer of soil in the flower gardening plant bed.

Be careful around newer plantings, as some of the roots will be nearer the surface and will be fragile.

2. For better results, use a good water nozzle, one that breaks the water flow into multiple, gentle streams.

3. If possible, add a good mulch on top of your garden bed, about 1 to 2 inches thick.

Mulch helps retain moisture, protect roots from temperature extremes, and keep weeds down to a minimum.

4. Start watering at a point in your yard that you can work your way back to. Slowly work your way around your garden.

5. Make sure to thoroughly water each individual plant and any open or unplanted area around them.

For a typical 10′ x 3′ bed, spend 5 minutes watering; then slowly work your way around the rest of your garden.

6. Now you’re done for about a week, depending upon the weather.

As you condition your plants to a deep watering system you will slowly stretch the length of time between waterings.

Your goal is to drive the water deep into the ground, and thoroughly saturate the soil to about 12 to 14 inches deep to create a reservoir of moisture below the roots.

As the upper part of the bed dries out, the roots will seek the water that’s stored below them. This encourages a deeper root system which is healthier and better able to tolerate low water conditions.

When you first start a deep watering program, you’ll want to monitor younger plants, and plants in hot areas of the garden.

For any plants starting to wilt, water them deeply again. Over time you will find that watering twice, or even once a month will be all an established plant needs, depending upon specific species or variety of plant.

Tip: Annuals need about 1 inch of water per week. Low-growing annuals like pansies will have naturally shallow root systems and although a deep watering program will encourage deeper roots, any plant with a shallow root system will require more regular waterings.

You can offset this tendency by planting annuals in cooler areas of your garden or using taller plants to shade surrounding areas (creating a gardening microclimate).

As with most gardening activities, you may need to adjust this process to suit your particular growing conditions.

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About the Author:
With over 20 years of gardening and landscaping experience, Bill Watson now shares his tips and advice on maintaining lush and healthy gardens. Visit his website at www.your-healthy-gardens.com. For webmasters, visit http://www.your-healthy-gardens.com/website.html

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Because these summer flowering bulbs are not winter hardy, they must be lifted in the fall and replanted in the spring, (thus are known as spring bulbs in nurseries). However, the results are well worth the effort of lifting and replanting these summer flowering bulbs every season.

Here are some summer flowering bulbs you may want to include in your garden:

Acidanthera Summer Flowering Bulb (A member of the gladioli family)

The Gladiolus Acidanthera, a member of the gladioli family, is a gem which exhibits magnificent white flowers arching on the end of 24 to 36 inch upright spikes from July to September.

These cream colored blossoms that have a purplish -black blotch give off a fragrance which is outstanding, especially at dusk when the air is still. Plant them in full sun for best results.

Caladium Summer Flowering Bulb

Caladiums are especially prized for their gorgeous pink, red, green, and/or white arrowhead shaped colorful foliage which brighten any dark corner of the garden. For best growth and color, caladiums need protection from full sun.

The flowers are insignificant and drain energy from the plant, so they are best removed when they appear. Often used in borders and beds, caladiums are also ideal for pots and hanging baskets on the porch or patio.

Crocosmia Summer Flowering Bulb

The crocosmia make a bold statement in any garden. The crocosmia (Montbretia) produces beautiful mixed colored flowers in yellow, orange or fire-engine reds while the crocosmia masonorum produces 12-30 brilliant orange-red florets per stem and multiply rapidly.

Crocosmia have gracefully arching stem and add a festive brightness to the mid to late summer garden. The flowers are very showy and make great cut flowers. The Montbretia has attractive foliage, and hummingbirds flock to their blooms.

Glory Lily Summer Flowering Bulb

The Glory Lily, (also called gloriosa lily and flame lily), a climber with an unusual crimson-red flower with a yellow base and edging, blooms in mid-summer with unique lily-like flowers that have wavy petals 4 to 5 inches across.

This fast growing plant can climb up to 8 feet on a fence or trellis. On the other hand they can be planted in pots and containers indoors or on the deck or balcony. They make excellent cut flowers.

Spider Lily Summer Flowering Bulb (Hymenocallis/Ismeme)

The Spider Lily, commonly called Basket Lily or Peruvian Daffodil, features a clump of narrow, strap-shaped, amaryllis-like leaves growing directly from the bulb.

In the summer, each 2 ft stem is topped by 2 to 5 fragrant, white, gorgeous blooms with spidery petals. The flowers, which can grow up to 5 inches across, are very sweetly scented and come in white and yellow varieties.

Spider lilies, which should be planted in full sun or partial shade in early June when the soil has warmed up, can be used in borders, open gardens, and containers.

Ornithogalum (Chincherinchee) Summer Flowering Bulb

The Chincherinchee, ‘Ornithogalum thyroides’, produce wonderful white blooms. When planted in drifts, the ornithoglalum clusters of white star-like flowers on spiky stalks make an impressive display in the garden when they bloom in July and August.

Ornithogalum are a floral designer’s favorite because they are extremely long-lasting cut flowers and will last in a vase for about three weeks; under certain circumstances, they can actually last for months. Their hardiness zones are 7 through 10.

Tigridia Summer Flowering Bulb (Tiger Flower, Mexican Shell Flowers)

Tigridia’s common name is derived from the spots on the red, yellow, orange, maroon, or pink flowers that look like tiger spots. They grow 1 1/2 to 2 ft tall stems with foliage that resembles that of the gladioli, and the blooms appear to float above the foliage.

Each plant produces several flowers per stalk, and each separate flower blooms for just one day. Tigridia prefer full sun and sandy loam and are very pretty when used in sunny borders or beds.

These are only seven of a long list of summer flowering bulbs which produce exotic flowers in July and August. Aren’t they gorgeous!!!

Happy Summer Flowering Bulb Gardening!

Marcie

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Last fall when I was cleaning up my balcony and mulching a few of my plants for the winter, I decided to transfer three of those 2 1/2 ft. long by 5 1/2 inches wide ( approx. 72 cm long by 14 cm wide) balcony window boxes into my living room. Two of the three window boxes each had one amaryllis bulb in it; the third window box I filled with soil only and would use it exclusively for vermi-composting.

I also brought in a 10-inch pot which contained three geranium plants which seemed to be slowly dying. I placed this flower pot on a table in front of my only window which got the sun - albeit only in the morning, but it was better than no sun at all. I just could not bring myself to throwing the geraniums in the outside compost.

As for the three window boxes, I placed them in one row on the floor behind my couch whose back was towards the patio door which faces north. The containers would thus be out of sight for anyone entering the apartment.

Once I had installed the three window boxes behind my couch, I went to the bait store, bought a dozen red worms, and put half of them in the container with soil only and the remaining worms I split up between the other two containers.

These reddish worms were not the small wigglers you find in composted manure, but they were the only worms available at the time. I could have used dew worms, but I don’t like handling those for they are much bigger, and I did not fancy having those in the “compost bin” behind my living room couch. (I live in an apartment).

I didn’t know then that worms love raw quaker oats that is used to make oatmeal, so I fed them chopped-up leftover lettuce, celery, carrot tops etc.. ( I felt it was important to break up the food in little pieces and bury most, if not all, in the soil. After all, no sense in attracting flies). Since the food was disappearing, I knew the worms were happy.

Two months went by. Once in a while I would dig into the soil to see what I would find. Soon I could see baby worms here and there, and that told me there was activity in that 3rd window box.

Meanwhile, all summer and fall the amaryllis bulbs had sprouted only green leaves, so after they had been inside for a few months they were neither growing nor dying, so I decided I would again try to use liquid fertilizer around the plant in the first window box and see if I would get results.

The next morning, to my dismay, I saw that the worms in that 1st window box had crawled out and were almost dead on my wooden floor. It then dawned on me that if the liquid fertilizer was too strong for the worms, how could it help the plant? That was my clue to quit using the liquid fertilizer.

I picked up the worms and threw them in the 3rd window box with the bulk of the worms so they could revive fully. Then I watered the bulbs in that 1st window box to try and leach out as much of the liquid fertilizer as I could.

Since by this time the worms in the 3rd window box had had a few months of being fed and leaving castings behind, I decided to experiment. Taking my little hand trowel, I dug out some of that soil that contained the worm castings (made sure I was not including the worms), spread it as top soil all around the bulb plant, and watered with tap water which was at room temperature.

Lo and behold, even though this amaryllis was in front of a north window and got little, if any, sun (don’t get much sun in the winter anyway), a new shoot started growing and growing. Soon I was admiring a beautiful amaryllis; four beautiful white trumpet-like flowers were peeking at me above the back of the couch. I was impressed!

I figured that would be the end of the flowering for a while, but soon after the first trumpet-like flowers had died down, another shoot started growing. The plant flowered three times in a row! Each time the stem was nice and strong and the flowers were healthy and beautiful! Wow!

Unfortunately up to this point I had continued using liquid fertilizer to feed the geraniums even though two of the three plants had died leaving me with only one geranium in that large 10-inch flower pot. So when the worms reacted so strongly to having fertilizer in their window box, I decided to switch my feeding habits.

I immediately stopped using liquid fertilizer to feed the geranium. Instead, with my little trowel I dug out some soil that contained the worm castings in it from the 3rd window box, and spread this compost as topsoil all around the one remaining dying geranium.

Before long, I saw a major shift. The geranium’s stem was getting stronger and one morning when I walked into the room, I suddenly realized it had sprouted a beautiful hot pink flower. As time went on, a second one came forth, then a third and up to six at a time with more beginning to grow.

Click on this picture and you will clearly see the
large empty space on the left hand side of the pot
where the other two geranium plants had once been.

Notice how vibrant and lush this surviving geranium
looks. I did put soil with worm castings a second time,
but thatwas all I did except for regular watering.

Here’s another proof that worm castings work. In the spring of 2006 I had planted a climbing rose called “Joseph’s coat of many colors” in a big container on my balcony, but it had not done very well. I had very few roses and it never looked that healthy. It did not survive the winter.

Although in the past I had grown these climbing roses for years in my flower garden, in the spring of 2007 when I saw my precious climbing rose had died, I figured I would not be able to grow one of these beautiful climbing roses again as long as I would be in an apartment. I thought that never again would I be able to enjoy those beautiful roses which keep changing color as they age nor be able to smell that superb heady fragrance on the night or early morning air.

Well, after experiencing success with the geranium and the amaryllis, I decided to buy a young “Joseph’s coat of many colors” a few weeks ago and mixed in some of my worm compost with the soil in the bottom of the hole where I inserted the plant. As well, I mixed the worm composted soil with the soil that was used as fill around the plant.

The rose was planted about two weeks ago (April 26, 2008), and even though the weather has remained quite cool, the plant has survived the transplanting procedure very nicely.

It now has seven strong healthy-looking stems about 12 to 15 inches long, and each stem ends with a small flower bud. Click on the picture for a better view. See how lush and healthy it looks.

I think this “Coat of Many Colors” will survive beautifully. Of course time will tell.

Yes, I am sold on using only this vermi-compost, these worm castings, to feed the plants in my balcony containers. Worm castings work fabulously well!

The nice part about it is that after taking out some or all of the composted soil, I simply add more soil into the window box container, add the food, and let the worms do the rest.

This summer, the only fertilizer I will use for all my balcony plants will be the soil which contains worm castings in it. I simply place this compost around the base of my plants and every time I water, my plants will be fed with the best plant nutrition possible.

Perhaps you should try vermi-composting too! Begin today by reading more about how you can set up for your vermi-composting: Part 1 (i.e. worm composting: Part 1) at: http://www.superorganicgardeningtips.com/worm-composting/bins-and-bedding-for-worm-composting

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What is Lasagna Gardening?

Lasagna Gardening (often referred to as sheet composting) is a rather neat way of preparing your garden for planting without digging, removing sod, or tilling, and at the same time preparing a feast for worms. (As you are probably aware, worm castings is a humus rich soil amendment, and the more worms play around in your garden, the better your plants will flourish.)

Sheet composting is called Lasagna Gardening because of the way ingredients are added layer upon layer like a lasagna. When the ingredients decompose, the gardener then has a garden full of rich crumbly, dark soil ready for planting.

So how is Lasagna Gardening or Sheet Composting done?

First you choose a site with lots of sun, hopefully protected from high winds, and mark off this area with stakes and a string. Let’s say you want to start small. so you stake out for your first lasagna garden an area roughly 4 ft by 8 ft which will give you enough room to grow several different crops.

Next if you don’t have that much homegrown mulch and compost, consider buying some of your sheet composting material. One great ingredient found in any gardening nursery is the sphagnum peat moss which can be bought in huge bags.

Other ingredients which will help the composting procedure are bonemeal (to add phosphorus which promotes root growth) and bloodmeal (a high nitrogen material that can substitute for manures or grass clippings).

If your soil test shows that your soil is acidic, adding powdered limestone to the pile will add calcium and raise the pH of the soil.

If on the other hand your soil is alkaline, adding powdered sulfur will help lower the pH of the alkaline soil.

A pH above 7 means your soil is alkaline. A pH below 7 means your soil is acidic. Most plants thrive in soil that has a pH somewhere between 6.5 and 7.2

If this is your first lasagna garden, you need something heavy as your first layer to smother the grass and weeds which may be in the area you picked. You can use wet flattened, overlapping cardboard boxes or thick layers of wet newspaper. Do not include the glossy flyers.

Now that you have gathered your ingredients, you can proceed to creating your “lasagna” gardening compost pile by adding your composting ingredients in layers.

Here’s an example of a “lasagna” compost pile

Layer 1: A heavy layer of wet cardboard or wet newspapers over the sod
You may want to cover these newspapers with a 6-inch layer of soil.
Layer 2: A 2 inch layer of peat moss
Layer 3: A 4 to 6 inch layer of barn litter
Layer 4: A 2 inch layer of peat moss
Layer 5: A 4 to 6 inch layer of compost
Layer 6: A 2 inch layer of peat moss
Layer 7: A 4 to 6 inch layer of grass clippings
Layer 8: A 2 inch layer of peat moss
Layer 9: A 4 to 6 inch layer of chopped leaves
Layer 10: Another 2 inch layer of peat moss

Sprinkle bonemeal, or wood ashes, lime or sulfur (depending on your soil’s pH) over the top layer of peat moss.

The ideal materials are chopped leaves, grass clippings, compost, manure, other organic materials, and even sand alternated with 2-inch layers of peat moss. You can also add 3 to 4 inches of wood chips where you might want a path throughout the garden.

Keep adding layers until your pile is 18 to 24 inches high. After decomposing has occurred, you will be left with about 5 to 6 inches of rich crumbly soil.

The good news is that as the worms work in your garden, they will also tunnel through the soil under the newspapers perhaps to a depth of 3 to 4 inches. This could give you a total of 8 to 10 inches of super soil to plant in.

When is the best season for creating your lasagna pile?

Fall is a great time time for doing this type of lasagna gardening, for you can use as many chopped up leaves as you want since it is readily available. Also, during the winter the pile will decompose and the end result should be dark and loose soil, much like deeply dug soil ready for you to set out your plants or sow seeds in the spring.

If you do this sheet composting in the spring, you might want to “cook” it by first making sure you put about 4 times more brown material as you do green (high-nitrogen) material as you are building your pile. Then cover the pile with a black plastic and weigh down the edges all around the pile with bricks.

The black plastic helps keep the materials moist and traps the sun’s warmth for fast heating. After about 6 weeks, most of the pile will have broken down into a dark, crumbly material. Remove the pieces which have not quite decomposed. Yes, you can change an unplantable area into an area full of rich crumbly soil not by digging, tilling, or removing sod but by sheet composting better known as Lasagna Gardening.

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What Is Crop Rotation and Why Do It?

Crop rotation, that is rotating the position of your crop “families” from year to year, is one of the simplest ways to control many insects, weeds, and diseases in the garden. Crop rotation does two things for the garden: It improves soil and controls diseases. Because crop rotation enhances soil fertility, you will find an increase in crop yields.

What Are the Vegetable Families?

When you do crop rotation, the first thing to do is learn to identify your vegetable “families”, that is, what plants have somewhat the same growing habits and features. Creating a rotation plan on paper each year makes crop rotation easier to track.

There are seven main vegetable families:

1. The Mustard Family which includes broccoli, radishes, brussels sprouts, cabbage, turnips, and kale. These are Heavy Feeders and grow best in soil with lots of organic matter. If possible, plant where members of the pea family had been planted.

2. The Gourd Family, which includes melons, cucumbers, pumpkins and squash, are also Heavy Feeders and require plenty of organic matter for proper growth. You might precede these with grass family and follow with pea family.

3. The Pea Family, which includes beans, peas, clovers, and vetch, actually add nitrogen to the soil, especially if turned under into the soil at the end of the growing season. These plants gather nitrogen from the air and “fix” it on root nodules. The Pea family can be rotated with any other plant family .

4. The Grass Family, which includes corn, wheats, oats, rye and alfalfa, improves soil especially if turned under at the end of the growing season. Plant before gourds or nightshades.

5. The Lily Family, which includes onions, garlic, leeks, and chives, cannot be planted in soil that has large quantities of organic matter (such as green manure) that have not yet decomposed. These can be rotated with the pea family.

6. The Nightshade Family, which includes tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, and peppers, are heavy feeders. They need soil with lots of organic matter. The nightshade family should be preceded with the Grass family followed with pea family.

7. The Carrot Family, which includes parsley, celery, carrots, dill, and coriander, are moderate feeders. Precede with any other plant family and follow with pea family plants.

Now that you know what plants make up each family, the second step when setting up crop rotation is to take a clean sheet of paper and draw your basic garden design. In order to make your plan and your crop rotation much easier, grow all the crops in the same family next to each other so they form large blocks. (You might consider companion planting as well. See post on companion planting to see which plants would work well together and which ones don’t.)

Here is an idea of how you can set up your garden groups. (Note: Again, onions and garlic from the lily family are great companion plants, so you could plant those on the edge all around the entire garden. Many gardeners include flowers in their vegetable gardens for pest control effects. Make sure whatever crops you pair are compatible.)

The idea is to rotate your groups from area to area each year. You might even consider choosing one of those areas each year just for growing alfalfa or another grass family crop and turning it under back into the soil to enrich the soil with nutrients. If you chose a different section of your garden every year, the soil in each section would have had the time to rest from heavy feeders and replenish itself)

( Thoughts for you: In the fall, I would gather leaves, break them up with my lawn mower and bury them in the garden. Then I would plant alfalfa before the weather got too cold, let it grow some in the spring, and turn it under before it came to seed to give it time to decompose before I planted my crop. The idea here is to get the worms interested in staying in your garden. The more worms in your garden the better it is for the crops. Worm droppings are among the top best fertilizers.)

Alternating plants that add nutrients to the soil with those that deplete soil helps to keep your garden fertile and will also reduce the need for chemical fertilizers. Crop rotation produces healthier plants and greater yields. You might want to give it a try!

Good luck!

Marcie

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How Certain Vegetables Match Up For Companion Planting

It has been known for centuries that some plants grow better when certain other plants are growing nearby. Science has gradually discovered the reasons why some combinations of plants are successful, but for other combinations which are also beneficial, no explanation have been found.

To help you identify which plants should be considered for companion planting, I have put together a brief companion vegetable planting guide. You will see that certain plants grow well with many plants while others grow well with only a few. I hope you will give this companion planting a try. For further information, check companion planting.

Please click on the thumbnail to get a full view.

Enjoy!

Marcie

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What Is Companion Planting?

Companion planting is the practice of growing certain plants near one another for their mutual benefit or specifically for pest control. One plant may assist another by repelling or attracting insects, providing shade, attracting pollinating bees, repelling pests such as deer or mice, occupying different root zones, or even by decomposing into nutrients needed and absorbed by the other plant. Plants can also be considered “companion plants” if they mature at different times when planted together..

Companion planting can mean matching up garden vegetables together so that each benefits from the other. For example, pea, beans, and other pod-type vegetables harbor bacteria in their roots that capture nitrogen from the air, making this important nutrient readily available to neighboring plants. As a result, these plants are good companions to most root vegetables, including carrots, turnips, radishes, and beets.

Companion planting can be matching herbs with vegetables. Pests and insects can be repelled by many aromatic herbs which can be grown between vegetable crops to the benefit of the entire garden.

Many gardeners plant a border of aromatic Marigolds around their vegetable garden to repel the Mexican bean beetles and nematodes.

Garlic is a good all purpose pest repellent. Grown in rich soil, it gives off sulfur compounds that kill aphids and onion flies.

Chives, garlic, onions and other members of the allium family are particularly beneficial companions to roses. Besides repelling rose chafers and aphids, and protecting roses from blackspot and mildew, alliums can cause roses to have a stronger scent.

There are exceptions, however. For example, sage has a weakening effect on Beans and Dill has that same effect on carrots.

Also please note that certain herbs such as mint which repels cabbage moths and ants and horseradish which repels bean beetles can quickly take over your garden if planted with the other vegetables. It is safer to plant these in large clay pots and set these pots among the appropriate plants.

Julie Williams has an excellent ebook called Companion Planting which you can get for a nominal fee. She includes 3 excellent bonuses: Seed Saving Tips, The Four Year Rotation Plan, Natural Pest & Disease Deterrent Report. In addition she gives you access to her blog where she shows you how companion planting is extremely efficient.

This lady studied horticulture at TAFE and was co-owner of an edible plants nursery for several years. As she says: “The combination of my love for growing (and eating) organic food, along with my experience with plants led me to create this e-book on Companion Planting.” Obviously, Julie knows what she is talking about. She is one of those who speak from experience, and since you will also have access to her blog, you can ask her any question.

In The Four Year Rotation Plan, she outlines how rotation is easily done, what can be done with a small garden in order to keep the plants healthy. Understandably, different vegetables need varying amounts of different nutrients from the soil. By rotating your planting each year, you give the soil the chance to rebuild. I personally subscribe to having a rotation plan.

In Natural Pest & Disease Deterrent Report, Julie explains many ways one can use organic pest and disease deterrents. However, one of the methods is somewhat new to me but most interesting. In this pdf, she gives 2 comprehensive lists of herbs and their beneficial effects on pests. This is a must-have for all gardeners.

Her main book, Companion Planting, is excellently laid out and very thoroughly explained. You can look for any fruit or vegetable to find out its best companion(s) and its worst companion(s). As you know, not all vegetables works well together, so the gardener must be aware of which ones work best together to get maximum results.

Finally have a look at one of her pictures showing her garden of mixed vegetables. The leaves are absolutley vibrant and there is very few if any pests on them.

Companion planting is the way to go if you want to get maximum growing results with minimum problems with insects or pests. Give it a try. To help the beginner understand what plants work best together, I have put together a brief outline, “Companion Vegetable Planting Guide” which you will find on my next post.

Again, get your copy of Julie William’s Companion Planting, her 3 excellent bonuses plus access to her blog for more hints and ideas. You’ll be glad you did.

Take care

Marcie

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Zones Map

1. Click on the thumbnail to enlarge the photo.
2. To identify your zone on the gardening zones map, locate the area where you live, and note what color/zone you live in
3. To further identify the temperature span in your zone, go to the post “Know Your Zone“

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How plants grow

Do you know how plants grow? How the different parts of a plant work together to make the plant grow? I can almost see your reaction!!! However, we sometimes forget that plants are composed of many parts and that if one of those parts is not healthy, the plant will not survive.

Plants, of course, are alive, and so have both general and specific needs depending upon the variety of plant in question. Like people or animals, the plants’ basic needs must be met to ensure a happy, healthy life.

Tips on How Plants Grow is a basic outline on plant structure, and how the various parts of a plant work together to promote healthy growth

In this article, you’ll discover how the different parts of plants – root, stem, leaf and flower – work together in the right soil to help plants grow.

This article will help you better understand what could be wrong if your plant is slowly wilting and which part of the plant needs the extra tender loving care. Whether a beginner or not, you will definitely want to understand how the various parts of a plant work together to promote healthy growth.

Click Tips On How Plants Grow for the full explanation.

Marcie

http://www.A1gardening-landscapingsupplies.com

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Determining soil drainage

The first step to a bountiful and beautiful garden is making sure that your soil is healthy and that it has the proper drainage for your plants. Today I will explain how to determine your soil drainage (how well your soil retains the proper amount of water)

Not every plant likes to have “wet feet” all the time while others love it, so the secret to “happy plants” is to match the plant to the soil or correct your soil drainage. Don’t just leave it to guesswork!

Before you start checking your soil drainage, you will need a clean garden spade, a ruler, a garden hose, pen and paper, and compost.

Step 1: On a sunny mild day, take your clean spade, go to the middle of your planting area, and dig a hole about 1 to 2 feet deep and wide.

Step 2: With your garden hose, fill the hole with water. With your ruler, measure the water depth in the hole and record this number.

Step 3: Every 15 minutes, measure the water depth and record each new number. If the water disappears after an hour, drainage is too quick. Correct the soil by adding a 3 inch layer of well rotted manure or compost and mixing well.

If on the other hand, you have clay soil and the soil drainage is next to nil, mixing compost and even peat moss with your soil will help.

Step 4: If level drops an inch an hour, you have proper soil drainage.

The biggest advantage of determining soil drainage is that you will know which type of plant will best fit your drainage situation, so less money will be wasted on trial and error.

To your gardening success!

Marcie

Get the best at super prices
http://www.A1Gardening-LandscapingSupplies.com/

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