I’ve been gardening for a while now so I have encountered quite a few garden pests. I’ve had to deal with aphids on the roses and cabbage white butterfly attacking my broccoli. Usually it is possible to have a close look at the plants to see what is doing the damage. That hasn’t been the case for our Dutch iris this year; they were being eaten by something that we couldn’t find! A similar thing happened last year that spoilt the flowers and it is very annoying! Last year we found that there … [Read more...]
How to Use Coffee Grounds in the Garden
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...]
DIY Gardeners Mobile Phone Holder
When I am outside in the garden and there is no one else at home I like to have my mobile phone with me just in case someone tries to contact me. If I am wearing jeans then it is not too difficult to keep my mobile with me because it fits easily into my pocket. The problem is when I am wearing clothes that don’t have pockets and I don’t like putting my phone down just in case I forget where I put it. It’s times like these where some type of mobile phone holder would really come in handy! The … [Read more...]
Recording Vegetable Garden Crop Placement
Our vegetable garden is a bit unusual in that we don’t have formal beds. The vegetable garden itself is around ten metres by five metres and each season we just set up plots within that space as we need them. We have a few main paths around the vegetable garden but other than that we tend to make our plots as big or as small as we need them. We find that this is quite handy because we can often squeeze more into the garden by leaving smaller pathways. It does however have its drawbacks, the … [Read more...]
Bonsai Fertilizer: When and How to Use it
I have been caring for three bonsai plants over the last couple years and I have really enjoyed watching them slowly grow and take shape. I have a trident maple, a ficus, and also a serissa foetida. I love the red/orange colour of the maple in the autumn and the serissa has tiny white flowers in spring. They haven’t grown dramatically since I have had them but that is probably because I have been very hesitant about using any bonsai fertilizer! I know that bonsai are really just a small … [Read more...]
November Gardening Plus What’s Going on in My Garden
Wow where has the year gone? Now that the days are getting longer and the weather is warming up it feels like Christmas and the end of the year are approaching fast! I can’t believe that October is behind us and it’s already time to get stuck into the November gardening jobs! While the daytime temperature here these last few weeks has definitely increased we have still had a few really cold nights. Just when we think that we have used our wood heater for the last time the overnight … [Read more...]
Tips for Growing Strawberry Plants
We had a couple of strawberry plants sitting on our veranda for a couple of years and in the autumn we planted them out in our vegetable garden. They have been fairly quite over the winter months but now that spring has arrived they have really taken off. Strawberry plants like quite a bit of sun but because we get some really hot days during summer we have planted ours in a position where they get some shade in the afternoon. When I was young my parents had a big strawberry patch and it got … [Read more...]
October Gardening Plus What’s Going on in My Garden
Now that we are well and truly into spring there is a lot happening in the garden. Plants that were dormant over winter seem to be able to sense that the weather has changed and they are coming to life. Our apple trees are blossoming now and the other fruit trees have all got their new leaves. With everything coming back to life it is great being out in the garden and I am looking forward to getting stuck into my October gardening jobs! We are hoping that most of the really cold weather is … [Read more...]
Hi, I'm Kaylene, and I'm a keen gardener,budding baker and wannabe DIYer!