Posted on May 21, 2009 under Best Perennials |
Perennials are those flowers which reliably bloom year after year. They die back to the ground each winter after flourishing for a full growing season only to reemerge again in the spring. They’re also noted for their texture and vibrant colors. Generally, perennials are a bit maintenance though there are those require almost no maintenance. These perennials are some the easiest to care for. They also provide colorful flowers and long lasting foliage.
Daylilies are a very common perennial which do remarkably well with very little maintenance. Their flowers, which are available in a wide range of colors, bloom on stocks which grow up from clumps of long pointed foliage. A profuse bloomer, daylilies flower for weeks. They prefer a bit of shade in the afternoon when the sun is strongest.
Iris is one the first perennials to emerge in the spring. Its purple or white flowers are an essential in the spring garden. Iris grows in spreading clumps which increase in size each year. When their finished blooming, iris will provide the perennial garden with striking foliage through the summer.
Hosta is an extraordinarily hardy and durable perennial. They can grow for an entire season with very little care. Hosta provides the garden with mounds of lush foliage and striking purple or white flower. Hosta is also very adaptable and versatile and can be used in a variety of garden situations. They’re effective as an edging plant and when grown among other flowers in a perennial bed. Hosta is great for shade and part shade gardens.
Astilbe is one of best perennials for the shade or part shade garden. They prefer organic soils and protection from the afternoon sun as dry soils and direct sun tend to cause withering in the plant. Astilbe has finely cut, fern like foliage and pink, white, or peach colored flowers. Astilble may require dividing every few years to encourage healthy blooms as they will often out grow their spot in the garden.
Geranium, a great perennial for the border garden, is a vigorous grower and flowers abundantly. With its spreading habit and profuse flowering abilities, geranium provides the garden with pink, white or purple flowers through mid-summer. Geranium is a wonderful edging plant in a full sun perennial border. Geranium is able to thrive for years with very little maintenance.
Asters bloom in fall and are effective in both the formal perennial garden and the wildflower meadow. Asters bloom in a variety of colors including, white, pink and purple. They are great addition to any perennial border.
Black eyed Susan can tolerate poor soils and survive extreme conditions such as heat and drought. The challenge with black eyed Susan isn’t growing them its keeping them from taking over your garden. As a vigorous grower, they require dividing every few years. Their tall stems produce bright yellow flowers bloom in summer which last though early fall.
Sedum autumn joy is a wonderful fall flowering perennial. It grows clumps which grow larger year after year. Its blooms are tones of pink and not deadheaded, they turn a rusty brown which can add winter interest to the garden. Sedum autumn joy also provides the garden with beautiful lush foliage in the summer.
While these perennials are easy to grow, there are a few very basic maintenance guidelines to follow which will help your garden flourish. In the summer, deadheading the perennials the process of clipping off the spent blooms, in necessary to encourage new blooms. As your perennials grow larger and begin to crowd each other, they may require dividing. Dividing perennials is easily the best way to increase your plant stock. Simply dig the perennial you intend to divide out of the ground making sure to dig out as much of the root system as possible. Take a shovel and chop or divide the plant in half and then replant each half.
Before planting your flowers, observe the conditions of your garden so you can determine what will work best for you. Have a plan or list in hand before you head out to the greenhouse. Once planted, these perennials will provide years of gardening enjoyment.
anonymous
http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/gardening-with-easy-care-perennials-87624.html
Posted on Jul 03, 2009 under Gardening Tips |
Just planted it 3 weeks ago and it’s growing like crazy
www.gardenhere.com
Hs a great forum. you can also swap plants and seed with other gardeners
Posted on Jul 03, 2009 under Best Vegetables |
I am currently in the process of opening a produce company in Kankakee illinois and need more information on which vegetables would grow best in a short growing season. In the past I had great success with tomatoes, cucumbers and pole beens. Are there any others that I should consider adding to my Victory garden? Chef with a green thumb
Corn, lettuce, swiss chard, peas, broccoli, asparagus, strawberries, tree fruits, eggplants, summer squash, winter squash, zuccini, basil & other herbs (Thyme, cilantro, parsley, savory, margoram, oregano, mint, dill, fennel, etc etc), peppers, carrots, Rhubarb, potatoes, soybeans, shallots…
…pretty much anything you can think of that’s not a tropical fruit can be grown in your area. Even peanuts and sweet potatoes (which need a long growing season), if you plan ahead a little and do a few extra things to make them ‘work" up here.
Posted on Jul 03, 2009 under Best Seeds |
I have heard of several seed banks across the world, but which one(s) will provide the best seeds while being safe and discrete?
I would say seed catalog companies that guarantee their seeds.
Posted on Jul 03, 2009 under Best Tomatoes |
tomatoes inside you should store them somewhere dark so they will turn red?
You aren’t growing them anymore, you are ripening the fruit (which hormonally, is a very different thing). Ripening the fruit in a dark area, usually means that the fruit is enclosed in something right? That’s the trick right there! Enclosure! The fruit (in this case a tomato) releases a gaseous hormone (ethylene gas) which ripens it. When you enclose it, you trap the gas and cause it to ripen more. Yay!
Posted on Jul 03, 2009 under Best Perennials |
I have a big bunch of them that I want to separate and move some to the back yard.
Daylilies are a very sturdy plant. Its almost impossible to hurt them. Late spring is the best time to transplant because it guarantees blooms for the next year but you can do it anytime during the growing season in Minnesota. So dig them up and remove the flower stalks, divide and replant. Make sure to give them extra water during this period and a little water soluble fertilizer would not hurt. Here is a link to help you.
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/DG1106.html
Posted on Jul 03, 2009 under Best For Garden |
What is best to plant in a home garden? Keep in mind it is not huge and we would like to plant things that will take up the least amount of space but yield a nice harvest. So I guess I could ask, what plants give you the most bang for you buck?
What are your thoughts?
Lettuces and spinach take little space and are easy to grow during the spring and fall.
Carrots and radishes can be planted pretty densely and radishes only take a month from seed to harvest so several crops can be planted in a season. I would often eat them right out the garden.
A couple of tomatoes are a must. They are more vertical space. At least a cherry (for eating in the garden) and a beefsteak for slicing. Buy or make big sturdy cages
Sugar snap peas are a favorite. Build a trellis for them to climb and they take little space.
Same goes for vine cucumbers.
Peppers and eggplants are pretty compact but I gave up on them after the flea beetles arrived.
Zucchini and yellow squash are big plants but you can get a big yield from one mound of plants.
Hope that helps.
-Brian
Posted on Jul 03, 2009 under Best Vegetables |
The Benefits of Raw Vegetables
We’ve been told since birth to eat our vegetables and yet far too few of us actually do it. Even when we do get around to eating our vegetables it’s only after we’ve cooked out most of the natural nutrients that our body is desperately craving.
Keep in mind, as you proceed, that while all raw vegetables are incredibly beneficial, raw green vegetables actually serve as the basis of nearly all life on this planet. That may sound a bit extreme to you, but stop and consider for a moment that almost every organism on this planet survives by either eating raw green vegetables or by eating an animal that eats raw green vegetables…they really are that important.
I know, you’ve probably eaten most of your vegetables cooked since you can remember. Simply put, just because something has “always” been done a certain way doesn’t mean that it’s the best way to do it. You will get a lot more out of your vegetables if you consume them raw.
I specifically used the word “consume” because, in reality, you get the same benefits from raw green vegetable juice as you do from eating them whole and usually you get it faster. This is because raw vegetable juice takes less internal work to digest and is absorbed into the body almost instantly.
It seems that most people only know that they should eat vegetables because they remember mom telling them to; very few people seem to have a grasp on the amazing nutritional value of vegetables.
Raw vegetables are extremely rich in minerals, vitamins, trace elements, enzymes and natural sugars. All of these are things that your body needs to function properly and the raw veggies will help stabilize and normalize your natural bodily functions. They actually help pretty much ALL of your natural bodily functions operate.
You’ve probably heard about the necessity of vitamins and nutrients to your overall health your entire life, but the concept of enzymes may be new to you. Basically, the enzymes in raw vegetables help your body digest food. This is one of the reasons that green vegetables are sometimes considered “nature’s laxative,” because they get your stomach working properly.
The average American diet is actually comprised of quite a few foods that are incredibly difficult for our bodies to digest properly. When we aren’t digesting properly, the food sits in our stomach longer than it should and we miss out on any nutritional value it did possess.
Okay, so at this point, you may have started to become convinced about the necessity of vegetables…but why raw?
All of our cooking methods have been shown in scientific studies to reduce the amount of vitamins, minerals, and enzymes in vegetables. Of the cooking methods, steaming has been shown to retain the largest amount of vitamin content although it still reduces it.
Vegetables begin losing their valuable nutritional elements as soon as they are plucked, pulled or picked from the ground. For this reason, the additional loss of nutrients during cooking would be a smaller problem if we grew our own vegetables and cooked them the same day we harvested them.
However, most of us don’t live that way. The largest majority of us purchase our vegetables at the grocery store after they’ve been shipped hundreds or thousands of miles. During that time, the nutritional value has been seeping out of them.
Finally, to make matters worse, repeated studies have shown that commercially grown vegetables, right out of the ground, aren’t as rich in nutrients as they were 50 years ago. One large contributing factor to this is that farmers have found so many ways to make their crops grow faster that we aren’t receiving the full benefit of naturally mature vegetables.
It is admittedly extreme, but not that extreme, to state that any vegetable you get from the grocery store and then cook at home probably has the nutritional value of cardboard by the time it hits your stomach.
Start eating (or drinking) raw vegetables as soon as you can. Whenever possible, grow them yourself or purchase them from local farmer’s markets.
Gray Rollins
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/the-benefits-of-eating-raw-vegetables-137325.html