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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Compost, produced from decomposed grass clippings, leaves, twigs, and branches, becomes a dark, crumbly mixture of  organic matter.

Understand how composting functions. Even a newbie to composting can make excellent top quality compost. It could be compared to cooking as art or component science. The following 7 elements will help you master the art of composting.

1. Components
Following a time anything that was as soon as alive will naturally decompose. But, not all organic and natural items must be composted for your house. To prepare compost, organic material, microorganisms, air, h2o, and a tiny sum of nitrogen are required.

These products are risk-free to compost at residence:
* grass clippings
* trimmings from hedges
* vegetable scraps
* leaves
* potting soil that has grown old
* twigs
* coffee filters with coffee grounds
* tea bags
* weeds which have not went to seed
* plant stalks

These products aren’t safe to compost at home:
* weeds which have went to seed
* dead animals
* pet feces
* bread and grains
* meat
* grease
* cooking oil
* oily foods
*diseased plants

2. What To Do To create It Work
You will find little forms of plant and animal existence which break down the organic and natural substance. This life is known as microorganisms. From a minute quantity of garden soil or manure comes a lot of microorganisms.

Nitrogen, air, and h2o will supply a favorable environment for that microorganisms to produce the compost. Air circulation  and drinking water will maintain the microorganisms wholesome and working. The nitrogen feeds the tiny organisms. You may need to add a tiny quantity of nitrogen for the pile.

Putting on too much nitrogen can kill microbes and too a lot h2o causes insufficient air inside the pile. You just can not add as well a lot air.

3. Helpful Microorganisms
Bacteria are the most successful compost makers in your compost pile. They are the first to break down plant tissue. Then comes the fungi and protozoans to help with the procedure. The arthropodes, like centipedes, beetles, millipedes and worms, bring in the finishing touches to complete the composting.

4. Smaller is Much better
The materials will break down more quickly if the microorganisms have a lot more surface region to eat. Chopping your garden supplies with a chipper, shredder, or lawnmower can help them decompose faster.

five. Size of the Pile
The activity of millions of microorganisms generates heat within the compost pile but a minimum size 3-foot by 3-foot by 3-foot  is necessary for any hot, fast composting pile. Piles which have been any larger might hamper the air supply required inside the pile for that microorganisms.

6. Moisture and Aeration
If you are able to imagine a wet squeezed out sponge with its many air pockets, then this would be the perfect enviroment for the microorganisms within the pile to function at their best. Pay attention although your pile is composting, towards the quantity of rain or a drought you may possibly have. H2o inside a drought and maybe turn the pile inside a lot of rainy days. The extremes of these two may possibly upset the balance from the pile. The use of a pitchfork would come in handy at this time.

7. Temperature and Time
Retain your pile between 110F and 160F and the helpful bacteria will love it. Not as well cool nor as well hot.
The temperature will rise more than several days if you retain a great ratio of carbon and nitrogen, sustain lots of surface area within a big volume of material, and preserve adequate moisture and aeration.

-Importance of Compost-

+Compost has nutrients, but it is not a full fertilizer.

+Compost offers nutrients within the soil until plants require to use them.

+ It loosens and aerates clay soils

+ Retains h2o in sandy soils.

-Using the Compost-

+ A soil amendment, mix 2 to five inches of compost into gardens each year prior to planting.

+ A potting mixture, add 1 portion compost to two parts potting soil.

+ Make your own potting mixture by utilizing equal parts of compost and sand or perlite.

+ A mulch, prodcast 2 to 4 inches of compost close to annual flowers and vegetables, and up to five inches around your trees and shrubs.

+ A top dressing, mix finely sifted compost with sand and sprinkle evenly above lawns.

The final factor I would suggest as soon as you have mastered the art of composting is to appear very seriously at making your very personal aerated compost tea. This elixir will give you outcomes that are difficult to believe.

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While it may not seem like there are a lot of different methods for planting strawberries, there are actually many different ways to grow them. If you are concerned about not having enough space or time, don’t worry – there are countless options for you to try!

These days strawberry plants do not need to grow only in a specially prepared strawberry patch, they can thrive just about anywhere, indoors or out. There are many different types of strawberries to plant, though most people will choose ever-bearing varieties instead of the June bearing plants. Strawberries only require two things to grow well, six hours of sunlight or more, and regular watering. When you remember a few a few techniques on how to grow strawberries the rest is pretty easy from there!

Container gardening remains to be a favourite method, especially when garden space is limited. The choices for different types of containers are many, and your only real limit is your imagination. Many people choose container gardening because it is much easier than learning how to build something from strawberry planter plans.

Another way to plant strawberries is in an upside down hanger. Youi can make your own by reusing plastic bottles from around the house, or you can often find them at any garden supply store. If you purchase one from the store, you will get a kit that includes the seeds, container, and directions for using this method. There is also a layering method some people will try for growing strawberries, which is often referred to as lasagna gardening. For this type of gardening you do not need dirt or soil for growing your plants. Instead, you use layers of fertilizer, cardboard, and compost to make your dirt. Lasagna gardening is preferred by many organic gardeners, since it makes it easier to grow your plants without using dangerous lawn chemicals.

The possibilities are endless on the various ways you can use to grow strawberry plants. When you give your plants the proper type of care, you just might be surprised what they can use for growing in.

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It’s funny about giving out tips, once you know them you need to share them so others can enjoy the same success without so much trial and error. That’s why I started this vegetable gardening tips blog, to share.

Once I started gardening I found so much of the stresses in life just faded away while I was putter around in my gardens. I enjoyed it so much that I started a backyard gardening tips blog to share my experiences. Later I started vegetable gardening and found that it was a good stress release also but it also puts food on our table that is organic and we didn’t have to pay a grocery store for it.

Note: My wife and I were more than surprised at the difference our produce tasted compared to the stuff we buy at the grocery store. Our first experience was fresh strawberries andwe were speechless. Needless to say we didn’t really share any of those strawberries, maybe next year.

Once winter slammed into us I thought it was a great time to start a vegetable gardening tips blog to share what we are learning as we go because really we are still vegetable gardening newbies.

Fear Freezes So Many Potential Gardeners

We put off vegetable gardening for a long time because I just figured it was too hard and needed too much care but that was just fear of failure. Once a friend of my wife’s gave us some useful tips and advice we start and haven’t looked back.

We started in our first year planting one strawberry plant in a big pot and a couple of tomatoes in big pots as well. It was great but they soon grew out of their containers and I had to put them in the ground. They all survived although we were told to leave the strawberries without eating the fruit until the second year. By the second year that one little strawberry plant had turned into a patch of about 16ft by 3 feet and gave us so many berries.

The tomatoes just kept producing tomatoes until the fall and all the leaves were gone. It was amazing how many tomatoes we had and we did share many tomatoes.

The following year I started my first garden patch and then I was completely hooked.

I had a lot of fun learning about vegetable gardening in that first year and even started a garden recipe blog to share some of the recipes we used with our fruits and veggies throughout the summer.

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