Gardens are the best places to unwind after a long day at work. Every one feels connected to nature while strolling past beautiful plants and the lovely flowers. Seeing fresh organic vegetables from your own farm, being served on the dining table can bring smile to any health-conscious person’s face. Gardening once practiced becomes a way of life.

However, as with life, gardening also involves lots of learning and hard work. Gardeners are normally very anxious people, always on the lookout for fresh tips and tricks to make their efforts more productive.

Following are some useful questions and answers that will come handy if gardening is your favorite hobby:

FAQ 1 – What’s the normal life span of the vegetable seeds?

You can make your vegetable seeds last up to even five years if you put them in a dry, airtight container having a silica gel packet to prevent any moisture.

This container should then be stored in a refrigerator.

With the help of this method you can store tomato, sunflower, broccoli, radish and cabbage seeds for almost five years and the pumpkin, carrots and peas seeds for up to almost three years. It is advisable to not to store parsnip, onion, spinach and the corn seeds for a period exceeding one year.

FAQ 2: What’s the ideal time of year to plant the bulbs?

This actually depends on the climate zone in which cultivation is being undertaken. The bulbs that normally flower in the spring season should be planted in the fall or late summer. In the same manner, the bulbs that flower in fall or summertime, should be planted during the springtime.

FAQ 3: What should I be adding to the soil so as to optimize the roses performance?

You can use potassium rich banana peels to help your roses bloom with flying colors. You must place these peels around the base of your rose plant, right under the soil. These peels will break down with time and mix into the soil to provide roses with good potassium feed.

FAQ 4: Can I remove the foliage of the unattractive plants in my garden? These plants have spring or fall bulbs that have ceased to bloom.

No, you should wait until the time the foliage turns yellow, since this is the only medium of feeding the bulbs. It may normally take several weeks for the color transition to happen. Therefore, you can make use of annuls or the ornamental grass to cover them up.

FAQ 5: I don’t like wearing gardening gloves and also hate the idea of struggling for hours to remove soil from the hands. What’s the way out?

You can make use of a thin sock, nylon stockings or an old sock to come to your rescue. Put a soap bar inside whatever you may choose from the above and keep this set besides your waterspout or the tap for quick access. While the soap forms the lather and cleans up, the socks or stockings do the job of scrubber to get rid of the stubborn dirt.



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Grow a cutting garden and enjoy flowers indoors and out

If you feel guilty when you cut flowers in your garden, worrying that you’re destroying nature or leaving gaps in your flowerbeds, it may be time for you to plant a cutting garden, says the American Association of Nurserymen (AAN). A cutting garden is designed to provide flowers for indoor arrangements, and it will give you a new perspective on removing flowers from your garden.

Choosing the Right Flowers and Plants

As with any garden, the first step in planning your cutting garden is to select plants that grow well in your part of the country. Ask the experts at your local garden center for their suggestions, and keep in mind your soil conditions, the amount of sun or shade your garden receives and how much it rains.

Selecting a Color Scheme

After you’ve decided which plants will thrive at your site, choose a color scheme, whether bright and vivid primary colors, soft and muted pastel shades or dusty earth tones. Since the purpose of a cutting garden is to grow flowers to use indoors, think about how flowers of certain colors will look when you place them in main rooms of your house.

Finally, plant flowers and plants in such a way that no one will notice that you frequently forage for new material for your indoor bouquets. One way to achieve a continuously balanced look in your cutting garden is to group your plantings by color, so that when you clip several blue flowers one day and several yellow flowers another, the overall appearance of the garden is still one of continuity and growth.

You can also fill in around your flowers with shrubs and larger, bushy plants that can easily spare a few leaves or berries, as well as plant a mix of perennials, annuals and bulbs so your garden will bloom all year ’round.



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Investing money in the hydroponic system every gardener hopes the equipment will remain working for as long as possible. Buying durable products and quality equipment is the first step to ensuring their long life and proper working, while purchasing unreliable tools and frequently replacing them may, in the long run, result for a gardener in the significant explicit costs. The second step, which is of not lesser importance for preserving your equipment, is good care of it and its proper maintenance.    

 

Grow lights, besides being vitally important for your garden, are also one of the most expensive hydroponic supplies; thus, it is absolutely necessary to take good care of them. First of all, you should always remember that lights produce pretty much heat, especially taking into account their working period (which is about sixteen hours per day). With the lapse of time heat can damage the parts of the lamps, as well as have negative impact on other hydroponic equipment. To eliminate excessive heat from your garden you can use auxiliary fans. Keeping normal temperature around the hydroponic system will help not only provide its longer lasting (lights can serve twice as long), but it will guarantee you more comfortable work there.  

 

There is also another way of prolonging the life of the lights in your garden. The matter is that high intensity discharge lights are supplied with special ballast to control and regulate the flow of current in the grow lights. Older generation magnetic ballast can be substituted with modern digital ballast, which is more precise and capable of better controlling the flow of electricity and making it more steadfast in the bulbs. Moreover, digital ballast works quietly and produces less heat than the older ballast, which will favorably reflect on your hydroponic system. Finally, it is possible to save money on electricity with the help of this modern equipment: it is always better to have more consistent operating conditions and fewer power surges.  

 

The reservoir and pump can be cleaned with the help of the pH-adjusted water, the amount of which in the vessel should cover the pump. As soon as the reservoir is filled with water let the pump run for about five minutes. Then disconnect it and place the drip tube into a bucket. It is necessary to turn the hydroponic system on in order to pour out the remaining water into the bucket. Don’t forget to plug the system out once it begins to absorb air. After that connect all the tubes in the proper way again and load the reservoir with pH balanced nutrient solution.

 

The pump will work smoothly if regularly cleaned. For this reason, all its components should be cleansed every three months. It is also recommended to either wash or replace the growing medium at the end of every growing season. All the equipment should be regularly cleaned by rubbing it down with isopropyl alcohol to disinfect it and eliminate various germs, as well as maintain the proper looks of the equipment. Buildup on the equipment parts is also quickly and easily dissolved with isopropyl alcohol.



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