Here Comes the Sun - How to Prepare Your Lawn for the Spring Season
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Compost Tea - a quick boost for the garden
Compost tea is a quick "pick me up" for the garden in much the same way a nice cup of hot tea is for most gardeners. It is simple to make, easy to use, and great for the garden. In the middle of the growing season the initial soil enhancements may be somewhat depleted by continuing plant growth, plus the plants themselves may need a bit of a boost .
Organic Compost - It is all in what you add.
Compost by definition is organic. It is the decayed remainder of flora and fauna and thus is processed organic material. That said, additives both known and unknown can add inorganic material to the mix. Some organic gardeners like to add certain mineral additives to their compost such as dolomitic limestone or greensand to lower pH and add calcium to the mix.
Compost Maker - you and your equipment
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.
Garden Gazing Balls
Gazing balls are a popular fixture in backyard gardens. These colorful spheres can be found in a wide range of sizes and colors. The most common size is 12 inches in diameter, but they can range in size anywhere from a tiny 2 inches to a whopping 22 inches across. Gazing balls are traditionally made of glass, but they can also be made with a variety of materials including stained glass, ceramic and stainless steel.
Keeping Your Vegetable Garden Going as the Weather Heats Up
A vegetable garden is a real pleasure when you get a good start to it, but sometimes the weather takes a turn you just aren't ready for. Things heat up fast and suddenly your perfect garden is wilting and dying. It's a painful thing to see, but don't accept defeat immediately. You may still be able to save quite a bit of your garden.
A Rocky Start, A Beautiful Finish
There are few features in the garden that provide such a variety of interests in so little space as a well-planned and carefully planted rock garden. The smallest plot may contain a rock garden which will house a representative and charming collection of alpine plants; but, on the other hand, there are few features in the ordinary garden that are so neglected and so ill-understood.
Understand Your Lawn
The word lawn comes from the Celtic word Launde or Lande, denoting an uncultivated or untilled and infertile area covered with ferns, broom or heath, certainly not the modern idea of what a lawn is or should be. Because this name conveyed the idea of an expanse of open space, the word gradually came to mean an open grassy glade in the forest.
Having a beautiful lawn doesn't have to be a lot of work, provided you are willing to get ready for it ahead of time. A lot of people don't even give their lawn a second thought until they're well into the spring season, by which point it's already growing and they have to struggle to keep up with it.
There are a number of things that you can do before spring begins in order to get your lawn ready for warmer weather, ensuring that you'll have a great lawn without nearly as much work as it would take to achieve later.
One of the first things that you can do is to take advantage of retailers who put out their lawn care supplies early. Shop around for a good grass seed and lawn fertilizer, choosing a fertilizer that has slightly less nitrogen because you're going to want to be encouraging root growth instead of top growth at first. High nitrogen content will encourage your grass to grow tall quickly, but it will be at the expense of a solid root system which can lead to problems with durability and your grass being able to get the water and nutrients that it needs as spring turns to summer.
A time-release fertilizer can work well in the spring, since it will make sure that your grass gets needed nutrients each time that it rains. Choose a grass seed that has qualities and color that you want, and if possible pick one that is resilient against crabgrass and other weeds so that it won't be choked out if they start to grow. Some grass seeds even come with a coating on the seeds themselves which helps to kill off unwanted plants while not harming the grass itself.
Next, take the time to get out early and start cleaning up your lawn. Remove any dead limbs that might be lying around since a winter snowstorm and get rid of any other debris that you might have let stay too long. Clean up any leftover leaf piles or anything else that might impede the growth of your grass in certain places. If you're planning on gardening or maintaining flower beds you should use this opportunity to clean them up as well so that you don't have to do your entire cleanup when you get ready to start gardening or planting flowers.
It's also important that you spend a little bit of time doing needed maintenance to your lawn care equipment in advance of when you're actually going to need it. Change the oil and sharpen the blades of your lawnmower, running it through a thorough maintenance check to ensure that everything is going to work like it should.
Clean up and check any weed trimmers or other equipment that you might have as well, making sure that they're in top working condition and that any vital fluids are full. Most people wait until they're about to start cutting their grass to check out their equipment, but waiting can mean that you won't be as thorough with your checks and you can end up with uneven cuts or unnecessary wear and tear on your lawnmower and other equipment.
If you have a late snow, make sure that there aren't any patches of your yard which remain under a drift of snow after everything else has melted. Not only can it stunt growing grass or cause yellowed patches in your yard but the extra moisture could set you up for mold or other problems as your lawn tries to get started growing. Try to break up any larger mounds of snow as they melt to keep this from happening.
Once you've got all of your equipment ready and you have the seed and fertilizer that you need to reseed your lawn, make sure that you choose the right time to plant your grass seed. While some people claim that the fall is the best time to reseed your lawn, you can have wonderful results from grass seed that's planted in the early spring. Make sure that you scatter your seed evenly, doing so after the risk of snowfall or extreme low temperatures have passed.
Late March to mid-April can be an ideal time to seed your lawn in the spring if you live in the northern hemisphere, being late enough in the year to avoid most freezing dangers yet still giving ample time for the grass to begin growing before the summer. Try not to over-water your lawn early on, as letting the soil dry out between rain and watering can result in deeper roots and a healthier lawn.
About the Author
Brian Jenkins is a freelance writer who writes about large businesses for home owners such as Scott's, Lawn Doctor and TruGreen
Source: Gardening Articles on ArticlesTree.com
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