Summer time calls for lighter fare at lunch (and dinner for that matter). It’s often too hot during the middle of the day to do much cooking and to be honest none of us feel like a heavy meal that will just put us to sleep. Instead we snack on fruits and vegetables and have salads and fresh sandwiches with lots of veggies. Not only does it help us (and our home) stay cooler, it’s also a much healthier way to eat.

The perfect ingredient for this lighter summer fare is cucumbers. They are cool, have a mild flavour and on top of it they contain quite a bit of water making them a low calorie treat. Let me show you a few different ways that I incorporate cucumbers into our summer meals.

Cucumber Salads

You are probably familiar with cucumbers in salad. Any good mixed salad usually includes a few slices of this vegetable. But don’t just stop there. Grab a cucumber and a couple of tomatoes. Wash them and cut them into bite sized chunks. Top it with your favourite vinaigrette or light Italian dressing and you have a simple but oh so delicious salad that’s also good for you. Throw in a few olives and some cubed feta cheese, add a slice of whole wheat bread and you have a complete healthy meal.

I also really enjoy a nice bowl of ice cold cucumber vinegar salad during the summer months. I make it first thing in the morning so it has plenty of time to chill before lunch or dinner. It goes really with some simple meat or fish dishes, or even your favourite pasts.

Of course that’s not the only good cucumber salad recipe. If you prefer something a little more traditional, give this sour cream cucumber salad a try. It’s an old family recipe brought over from Germany. It’s very easy and fast to make and goes with just about any main dish.

Sandwiches

For something a little more filling, make sandwiches for lunch. You can create a classic cucumber sandwich by spreading some softened cream cheese on white bread. Add think slices of cucumber. Season with a bit of salt and top with another slice of white bread. Cut of the crust and then cut in four for fancy cucumber tea sandwiches.

While those are fun, you can also make more substantial sandwiches. One of my personal favourite is chiabata bread spread with hummus and then topped with veggies including roasted red peppers, sliced tomatoes and plenty of sliced cucumbers. Filling, healthy and yummy.

Add sliced cucumbers to any of your favourite sandwiches (except maybe PB&J) to make them more filling and healthier.

Snacks and Dips

Cucumbers also make for a nice light snack during the summer. Grab a container of hummus (or make your own by grinding chickpeas with a bit of olive oil and some seasonings), slice up a cucumber and snack away.  Kids also like dipping chunks, slices or long strips of cucumber into ranch dressing.

Last but not least I would like to share my recipe for greek cucumber sauce with you. Serve it with raw or roasted vegetables or your favorite grilled meat or fish. I also like to serve it with some pita chips as an appetizer.

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Just after day break this morning I took Honey, our son’s dog, outside to do her business and I’d say it was a bit chilly to be out there without my coat. Scotty on XL96 Moncton said it was -7C, and something like -12C with the windchill.

A nice clean layer of the white stuff cover up all the dead looking leaves and grass. Looks very nice from my office window and I guess it’s to be expected after all it’s the end of November now, summer seems long gone.

Once I brought Honey back in I grabbed a hot coffee from the kitchen and we headed straight for my office where it’s extra toasty.

Honey was lying down directly in front of the heater, not sure how she doesn’t burst into flames being that close to the heat source. I sat there sipping my coffee while staring out the window into our backyard thinking about next spring.

Of course thinking about next spring took me back a few years to when Jenny and I started gardening. We didn’t really know what we were doing but we loved the results and the feeling we had while gardening or even just looking at it.

That lead me to think about what I would tell others interested in giving gardening a try and so I wrote this gardening tips article for gardening wannabees.

1. Plan Ahead

As my parents used to say, “Don’t do what I do, do what I say“. So don’t start like I did instead take the time to plan your gardening success.

Now don’t get me completely wrong. We did start our gardening without any research at all. My wife started with flowers outdoors and I started with plants indoors.

My first attempt at out door gardening was to use a few containers and grow tomatoes. Then I moved on to starting a vegetable garden without any research.

We may have had much better success had we done some studying but we enjoyed gardening and wanted to do more.

I guess my point is that if we had learned a bit first we could have produced so much more with less effort. Things we learned in those first couple of years helped us to garden smarter and it’s now our number one hobby.

So Plan Ahead And Enjoy It Even More

This winter I am planning to grow our vegetables from seed and save money we can spend on more gardening tools. We may even grow some flowers from seed as well.

The amount of money we spend on flowers and vegetable plants could be saved and maybe spent on a garden wheelbarrow.

2. Don’t Give Up After Your First Attempt

My first few attempts using containers for gardening didn’t go so well. At one point I drowned my plants because of poor drainage and then I fixed it so well I had a hard time keeping them from drying out and dying.

I didn’t let it get me down. Instead I learned from it and now know how to make my containers drain properly and how to setup a drip system that will keep them from drying out too much.

So, don’t allow mistakes to stop your gardening efforts there’s just too much enjoyment waiting for you just down the road. The fact is we all make mistakes, the trick is to learn from your blunders and keep going.

Gardening is like anything else or at least most things in life. We don’t always get it right the first few times and we are never losers as long as we try again.

The winter months just happen to be the best time to learn more about gardening so that when spring arrives you’re ready to go. So checkout the following ebooks on gardening.

The Gardener’s Handbook

Organic Gardening For Beginners

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Crisologo_Ramasasa

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Growing an herb garden is a smart way to develop your gardening talents while making a handy crop for your house. Most herbs can be grown in little spaces and in conditions that other plants wouldn’t survive.

Herb gardens can benefit your home in many ways. Adding green, growing things to your environment can make your house more pretty and more at ease to inhabit. Herbs can help cut odours from the air in your house and even add fresh and captivating smells to your living space.

Best of all, growing herbs lets you season your food in a natural and healthy way. Fresh herbs are full of flavor and can help you cut down on other seasonings like sale and butter. By growing your own rather than relying on dried herbs from the supermarket, you stay in control of what your family eats and where it comes from.

To start your herb garden, you will most probably need to buy plants or seeds. Herb garden seeds are quickly becoming the more popular choice because of their portability and availability, as opposed to starter plants which you must buy in your immediate vicinity.

Herb garden seeds can be ordered online and dropped at you thru the post, dumping the necessity to spend an afternoon poking thru massive amounts of plants in a nursery. This method also allows you to grow plants that you wouldn’t ordinarily be able to find in your area, resulting in a more well-rounded and exotic herb garden.

Shopping online for your herb garden seeds also permits you to do research on the plants that you’ve an interest in as you are shopping. If you see herb garden seeds online for a plant you aren’t familiar with, you can simply look up the growing information for that plant in another browser window. Fitted out with this understanding of the herb garden seeds you are perusing, you can plan out your complete garden beforehand and buy only the seeds you need.

Purchasing herb garden seeds online is also less costly than purchasing plants. When you buy a packet of herb garden seeds, you get many seeds. They may not all germinate or survive, but you get so many for such a small price that it is still very cost effective. When you buy an already-started plant, you get only one – if that plant dies, you are forced to buy another.

Starting your herb garden with seeds instead of seedlings can be a wise investment in your future gardening plans. You will get the rewards of raising plants from little seeds while enjoying the many benefits that come from growing your own herbs.

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Ecological gardening appeals to some individuals as it sounds significant. It makes gardening sound exotic, like it’s on some higher level. organic gardening is accomplished by avoiding the use of laboratory-made fertilizers, growth substances, antibiotics, or pesticides.

This means using nature’s tools to grow your plants, fruits, and vegetables. It’s a technique of being more kind to the earth. Using natural insecticides is part of that process and has become increasingly popular. If done properly, it costs less.

You can use nature to your advantage if you understand and take the time to make it work for you. If you learn to grown or produce your own insecticides, you’re also aiding the eco-system by not putting man-made lethal concoctions into the dirt and air. You can help to reduce the negative result on the ozone layer by playing your part to help nature.

Botanical is of plants. Plants are natural. So, botanical insecticides are naturally created from plants and plant parts. One such insecticide is sabadilla. It’s gotten from the seeds of a plant like a lily and utilized in dust or spray form before crop. It poisons insects when it touches them or gets inside their bodies.

Natural insecticides must still be used with caution. They are not without complications or issues. You must learn how to use them properly so that they’re a benefit and not a hindrance. Washing your fruit and vegetables is still endorsed before eating them or using them in cooking if you use natural insecticides

A misconception about insecticides of any kind can be that if you use a stronger concentration and/or more of it, the benefits will come quicker and will last longer. But this is an unhealthy attitude in many cases. If a technique or product isn’t working, make a change only by being aware of the effects. What you want might be a different product or an additional helper to go with it.

Some of the natural insecticides that are well-known are pyrethrum, nicotine, sabadilla, rotenone, and soap. Cornmeal and some hot peppers can also be effective against insect pests.

It’s still best to try and catch any gardening or crop pests in the beginning stages than to load up on insecticide of any kind. The best control can be awareness and early removal.

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Deciding on a way to make topsoil better can depend on the existing quality of the topsoil, however, there are several ways to do this.

One of the most useful things for the gardener to learn is to understand the workings of what is known as topsoil balance. Topsoil balance is a way of understanding the physics and chemistry of the soil. It includes understanding topsoil physics, chemistry and biology which help to make sure that the topsoil’s structure, nutrients and biology are all balanced perfectly.

The Mikhail system is well-known for topsoil balance maintenance. This system of topsoil balancing focuses firstly on the soil’s structure which enables good friability and topsoil composition so that living organisms can flourish. Topsoil needs a skeleton to enable the other elements of its make-up to exist and be sustained, rather like the human body. Topsoil needs essential chemical elements such as Hydrogen, Potassium, Sodium, Magnesium and Calcium.

The Mikhail system then helps to ensure that the nutrients and biology of the topsoil is in order. The structure then also needs to be balanced. Essential elements for plant nutrition are Phosphorous, Potassium, Nitrogen and Sulphur. Fertilizers can be added to provide a needed nutrient boost once the topsoil structure has been improved. Most general garden fertilizers are based on NPK, which provides these essential chemical elements. Topsoils also need to have the correct levels of trace elements.

Testing the topsoil is the best way to discover exactly what is missing, what isn’t and how improvements can be made. This can be done using testing kits for soil, which will provide the necessary information for the gardener. Once tested, the soil can then be improved by making the necessary changes to by adding fertilizer, lime and any other improvers that are required.

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Cultivating  any types of plants is perhaps your hobby. Nevertheless, if you want to achieve such a marvelous and beneficial vegetable, you need to get ideal vegetable garden tips for being certain a dreamful vegetable garden. If you wish to begin a vegetable garden, you should think the following vegetable garden tips.

The answer is that you can still plant vegetables but it might be wise to selectively opt just various things that are most appetizing to you. You could even use containers or build raised beds in available space in order to realize your garden. Here are several vegetable garden tips to aid you get started on your search:

Initial Vegetable Garden Tips – Get Real

Should be realistic and not become too ambitious, especially when it is your first time for gardening  a garden. Do not be frightened to utilize vegetable garden tips to adjust your plan, for instance redefining the square footage or gardening  unusual vegetables in your garden. If you have nothing but a large patio or even front porch area instead of a sufficient yard, you could create mini-gardens in large planters or containers.

Position is anything and is among the most wonderful vegetable garden tips given to fledgling gardeners who still have quite a bit to gain knowledge of. You will want a plotted area with much sun exposure as well as soil that is at the suitable pH levels for maximum effect. To ensure that the pH levels are correctly maintained, a soil sample should be taken and tested using digital moisture meter or other moisture test meter for the soil.

Manual Labour for Vegetable Garden Tips

Among lots of helpful vegetable garden tips, one of them is the advice of renting or borrowing a tiller to break up the earth. It can be back breaking, using a tiller. On the other hand, the vegetable bounty when all is said and done is worth the aggravation.

Sometimes, the plot of land you have selected for garden needs a bit more depth and health condition, for example are by adding compost, humus, top soil and even fertilizer additives. several garden centers have soil analysis testing or even a local agricultural co-op may provide the service so that you can determine the suitable pH health to grow the healthiest vegetables.

Vegetable Garden Tips – Opting your Vegetables

In vegetable garden tips you need to also consider your unusual vegetables to plant in your going to be vegetable garden. By opting the plants, just be certain that you are going to decide your favorite vegetables that are going to be useful as your necessary.

In the end, of course there are many other vegetable garden tips for you to follow. Such as, you have got to think about the soil condition, sunlight and the types of your vegetables to plant. For further information about vegetable garden tips, find Internet sources. Now, are you interested to try gardening  your vegetable garden? Do it now and feel the spirit of growing and caring it well!

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I started my first vegetable garden in containers on my balcony in Toronto Ontario. I was raised on a farm and love getting my hands dirty growing things. I grew flowers and veggies indoors until the weather was warm enough and then I moved them outdoors for the summer. I grew mostly herbs and tomatoes.

Once I moved to New Brunswick and got married we started gardening in containers again. We didn’t have enough space to plant an in-ground garden so we just used big flower pots and placed them along the house at the driveway.

We started our first container garden with only a couple of pots but it was a start. Our first crop was tomatoes. It was pretty cool to grow tomatoes right in our driveway.

As the summer moved on so did the location of the sun in our yard and before we knew it our tomatoes weren’t getting much sun at all. With a container garden that huge problem was solved in an instant. Just move the containers to another spot where they would get more sun. Two minutes later the task was complete and they were back in the sun.

Shortly after that we moved to an apartment for a few months until we found a better place to live. By summer we were in another house with a little more space, still not enough for an in-ground garden but big enough for a few more pots for our container vegetable garden. We did have flower beds around the front, side and back of our duplex but we didn’t want to grow veggies there. This was for flowers, my wife’s petunias. Can’t have a home without growing petunias.

Now we have our own home and even a second lot right beside us, for a real vegetable garden. I dug up a 16×4 foot plot, however we still grow a vegetable container garden. We like to grow tomatoes, peppers, well just about anything we can. The more the merrier I say. I like to put them along the side of the house, on the south side of course, where they get plenty of sun.

I did have to figure out how to keep them watered as they would dry out before we got home from work most days and looked like they were dead until I watered them. Now I am using a little drip system I made from used plastic water bottles.

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