I don’t actually drink coffee but others in my family do so I am lucky enough that I still have access to some coffee grounds. I have been adding coffee grounds to the compost for a while now but I have always wondered if there were other ways that they could be used in the garden. So I decided to do some reading and see if I could learn a bit more about how to use coffee grounds in the garden. I initially wondered if there would be any problems with just sprinkling them around the … [Read more...]
July Gardening Plus What’s Going on in My Garden!
Wow, where have the last six months gone? It seems like only yesterday that we were celebrating the New Year and now I am writing about my July gardening jobs! It is so hard to believe that we are almost into the middle of winter already. The best thing about July is the feeling that spring is not far away. During June the afternoons are so short because it is getting dark by 5pm. By July we are well past the shortest day and slowly but surely the days are getting longer. Another reason why I … [Read more...]
June Gardening Plus What’s Going on in My Garden!
Well June is here and the days are definitely getting shorter. I am really missing the longer days of summer! In the summer we could leave going out into the garden until 4 o’clock and still have hours of daylight to work. Now the sun goes down a little after 5 o’clock so we have to start much earlier! We might have to start scheduling our June gardening jobs for the morning so that we have more time to get everything done! It is amazing how the focus in the garden changes as we head into … [Read more...]
Testing Soil pH To Get The Most Out Of Your Garden
We all enjoy planting an array of plants in our garden so that we can have lots of colour and variety but we don’t always think about the various needs of the plants. One example is the soil pH requirement of a plant. Generally most plants do best in soils that have a pH close to neutral but there are some exceptions. This is why checking and adjusting the pH of your garden soil is one task that should be done to ensure that your garden plants are given optimum growing conditions so they can … [Read more...]
How To Use Compost To Make Your Own Potting Mix
A trip to the hardware or garden centre is not complete without picking up a couple of bags of potting mix. We go through heaps of it at my house because we have lots of plants in pots! We are often planting seeds, transplanting seedlings or simply transferring established plants to larger pots so it is not hard to use up quite a bit of potting mix. Buying all this potting mix ends up being quite expensive too. The cheaper brands don’t tend to have the quality required to produce … [Read more...]
Getting Started With Compost: Great Information And Links When Learning About How To Compost
If you are like me and love gardening then you will put out lots of mulch around your plants to combat weeds and conserve moisture and you will also go through lots of potting mix as you pot up new plants. This can prove to be quite expensive though when you have a large garden and lots of potted plants. One way that you can cut down on your reliance on purchasing these garden products is to make your own compost which can then be used directly as mulch or as an ingredient in potting … [Read more...]