Archive for June, 2009

Many people may not be aware that gardening can actually harm the environment. A large amount of carbon dioxide can be released through tilling the soil. This contributes to global warming. When you cultivating and compacting the soil, destroys good fungi. Fertilizers like nitrogen and manure often leach out of the soil and pollute the water you drink.

Global warming

Did you know that the earth’s soil gives out carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 10 times more than all human activity? This comes from the pill bugs, microbes, fungi and worms when they breathe, digest food and then die. Although in the past plants have been capable of absorbing carbon dioxide caused by small-scale tillages, this isn’t the case nowadays.
The increase of the globe’s average temperature is because of the carbon dioxide the soil emits when tilled. The good news is that tilling can be minimized by mulching or sheet composting.

Good Fungi

In untilled soil, there is beneficial fungi known as the vesicular-arbuscular-mycorrhizae or VAM for short. VAM actually forms a symbiotic relationship with plants. Their filaments increase root hairs and provide nutrients to the plant. They give out zinc, copper, potassium and phosphorus. Plants provide carbohydrates for the fungi in return. It is possible to grow a garden without tilling the sooiil at all by mulching heavily until the soil is soft and friable.

Surplus Nitrogen

Many gardeners waste nitrogen and manures; farmers do otherwise. Farmers only need a quarter to a third of nitrogen to mix with an inch of compost, horse, or cow manure. Kate Burroughs of Sebastopol California, uses the same rule for her home-grown lettuce and sweet corns. When it comes to broccoli and pear trees, farmers only need a small amount. Notice that gardeners apply larger amounts of compost and manure than farmers. Obviously, they are not only wasting their fertilizer but also their money.

The best gardening advice that can be given to those concerned is to do all things with moderation. Keep in mind that too little and too much of something is not healthy. This is the most valuable advice one can have in gardening.

Alfalfa, which is a perennial herb, has a long list of dietary and medicinal uses and research has proven that Alfalfa might lower blood levels of cholesterol and glucose. Many take Alfalfa supplements orally and is has been proven safe except in a small percentage of people where it produces lupus like symptoms. In the seeds and sprouts of Alfalfa, amino acid L-canavanine is present and that is what is thought to cause this reaction. However, this is not present in the leaves of the Alfalfa. The whole leaf and the herb are what are rendered from the Alfalfa plant.

Since the sixth century the Chinese have used Alfalfa to relieve fluid retention and swelling. The Arabs were the first to find Alfalfa and they named it “the father of all foods.” The leaves of the Alfalfa plant are very rich in minerals and nutrients, including potassium, calcium, magnesium, and carotene. The Arabs first fed it to their horses because they believed the Alfalfa made them swift and mighty. Alfalfa has been an animal crop for over a thousand years but is also used as an herbal medicine.

Alfalfa is a good diuretic and also a good laxative. It also works well for urinary tract infections, and kidney, bladder and prostrate disorders. The latest and greatest discovery of Alfalfa is the benefits that it might provide for lowering cholesterol because there are certain agents in Alfalfa that stick to cholesterol which keeps it from remaining in the blood stream. Further, it may also have a very strong relationship with lowering blood sugar levels.

When it comes to Alfalfa it is something that many people enjoy in their cuisine. It is good in salads and some people eat it as a vegetable all alone. Many people claim that eating Alfalfa is a big part of eating healthy. Besides wheat grass and algae, Alfalfa has the most nutritional value. It is high in fiber, vitamins, minerals, and has all of the required digestive enzymes.

It is warned by avid Alfalfa lovers that you likely will not like the way that it tastes in your mouth, it may feel like it is burning the tip of your tongue and you actually might just completely dislike it however, they urge you to not give up because it is an acquired taste and you will begin to like it. The best news is that soon after eating it regularly you will find that your appetite for heavier foods will diminish.

Alfalfa is also great for reducing fevers and is very good for the blood. It contains natural fluoride and prevents tooth decay. Alfalfa makes a great tea because when the Alfalfa leaves steep in the hot water it is a source of nitrogen. The tea is not only made for human consumption because people who grow Irises and Delphiniums just love Alfalfa tea because of the great effect that it has on the plants when used as a foliar spray. Many with a green thumb also use Alfalfa as mulch for their flower beds.

While tending to my own garden, I have found that one of the most
frustrating things that can happen to a gardener is to walk outside to
check on your plants. It’s just a routine walk to make sure that your
garden is thriving, but you end up finding holes in all of your plants
that looked fine only hours before. The explanations for some of these
plant-destroying holes are garden pests. Some of the main garden pests are
slugs, worms, caterpillars, birds, snails, and the occasional gopher.
Although you can never wipe out these pests entirely, after all your hard
work in the garden you have to do something.

Insects are one of the worst things to have in your garden; they can live
under the soil, in old weeds or piles of leaves, or in a number of other
places. In order to help keep insects away, always try and eliminate
places in your garden and near your garden that these insects and other
plant diseases could be living. Remove old leaves, weeds, or any other
decaying matter that insects and diseases could be living in from your
yard. Also, regularly turn over your garden soil and break apart any
clumps of dirt so that you can eliminate the living spaces any insects
that might be hiding underground.

Another way to rid your garden of the pests is to use dormant spray, which
is used to keep destructive insects and diseases under control. It is best
that you use dormant spray when your plants are dormant, usually around
February or early March. I have used dormant spray many times on my garden
and it has worked wonders on keeping insects out. But as I learned from
experience, dormant spray is only effective if you follow the correct
instructions. When I first decided to use some on my garden, I just dumped
it everywhere in hopes of killing everything harmful. Unfortunately I
ended up killing my entire garden along with my neighbors. Some insects
can be beneficial to your garden though, so be sure to find out which
insects help your garden.

Another pest problem I’ve had besides insects has been birds. Whenever I
see birds in my garden I run outside a chase them away, but as soon as I
step inside they come right back. The solution that I’ve come up with to
keep the birds away from my garden is to put a bird feeder in my yard.
Instead of costing me time and money by eating my garden, the birds eat at
the bird feeder. In the long run it’ll save you money. Not only can a bird
feeder help keep birds away from your garden, but they can also be a new
part of your yard decoration. Although not completely eliminating my bird
problem, my bird feeder has made the problem smaller. Getting a dog has
also helped.

If you start seeing mounds of dirt around your yard, and your plants keep
unexplainably dieing, you can assume that you have a gopher problem.
Thankfully, this is one of the few garden pasts that I haven’t had.
However my friend has struggled with a tremendous gopher infestation, so I
decided to research it. Gophers are rodents that are five to fourteen
inches long. Their fur can be black, light brown, or white, and they have
small tails. One method of getting rid of these root-eating pests is to
set traps. The key to successfully capturing a gopher using a trap is to
successfully locate the gopher’s tunnels and set the trap correctly.
Another way to get rid of them is to use smoke bombs, which you place into
the tunnel and the smoke spreads through out it and hopefully reaches the
gopher.

If you suspect that your gardens are being pillaged by any of the pests I
mentioned, I encourage you to try your hardest to eliminate the problem as
soon as possible. The longer you let the species stay, the more
established it will become.

When a tree is in the young stages, one of the most vital things you need to provide for it in addition to water and nutrients is support. If you don’t hold up the tree somehow, it might end up bending in a certain direction and growing extremely crooked for the rest of its life. So no matter what, you should always have some kind of support.

The most popular method of keeping young trees upright is to put long stakes into the ground on either side, and tie loops around the tree. Each loop should be fairly loose to allow for further expanding of the trunk. Lots of people just have a stake on one side of the tree, but this is not a good practice because it generally doesn’t allow for further growth of the tree.

You should only be staking your tree if you think that wind and other forces might be literally moving the ball of roots within the ground. Your staking should prevent all of this movement, because this is the most harmful thing that can happen to a young tree. It causes the roots to be in motion too much and not be able to properly get a hold on the soil so that the tree can develop normally.

Before you stake a tree, you should be completely sure that it needs it. If you constrict the movement and growth of a tree that doesn’t need to be tethered down, you could harm it beyond repair. For example, the staking mechanism you use could cause abrasion or “rashes” on the trunk. This will happen anyways, but why have it happen needlessly? Also, staking gives your yard an unnatural look and can present a hazard for people walking or running across the yard.

The staking process is actually rather simple. Just take 3 stakes and tie each one separately near the base of the trunk. If you use some sort of tether to prevent rope burn on your tree, that would be an even better solution. These can be purchased at any gardening shop, and are designed to be friendly to the bark of the tree. It is much better to stick with these instead of bare rope, to minimize the amount of friction the tree endures.

When you think your tree has been staked long enough to stand on its own, you should remove the stakes from the ground as soon as humanly possible. Every moment the tree is constricted it is losing some of its vitality. As soon as it seems like the wind is dying down around your area, look on the weather reports and see how much wind is forecasted. If the skies will be pretty clear for a while, you should at least temporarily take off the stakes.

To wrap it all up, you should never deny your tree a good staking. It is a completely necessary thing to do in certain situations. It is very crucial to understand when those occasions are, though. Staking a tree that doesn’t need it can be as damaging as not staking a tree that does need it. It might be beneficial for you to consult an expert, and get their opinion as to whether your tree should be staked, and for how long.

If you want to protect your fruit tree from pests during the summer, this is almost impossible to accomplish without the use of pesticides or chemicals. This might scare some people into thinking that the actual fruits will contain traces of the chemicals. If you do things correctly, you can get rid of all the pests and not infect the actual tree. If you’re going to be spraying chemicals, you most likely will be using either a handheld pump or a hose-end sprayer.

If you’re using the pump sprayers, you will be able to more accurately determine the mixing of the chemicals. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to spray it very far. Usually it won’t reach the tops of trees. This can be achieved with the hose end sprayers, but getting the correct mix of chemicals is quite a challenge. It all depends on your water pressure to get the correct mixture of chemicals, but water pressure is not constant. One day it might be lower, in which case your chemical content would be higher. The types of materials you buy for hose application are generally in an extremely strong form. They need to be severely diluted before they are weak enough to apply.

When you are mixing the chemicals for spraying, you need to follow the directions exactly. You are dealing with dangerous chemicals, so its best to do exactly what the professionals recommend and wear the proper protective gear. When you’re dealing with chemicals like this, you should always wear rubber gloves. Use the exact portions indicated on the label. Estimation won’t work in this case, and you could end up killing your tree or not killing any bugs. You should usually start by putting in the proper amount of pesticide, and then top it off with all the water.

Now comes the spraying. The goal is to spray the same amount over all the areas. You still don’t want to spray so much that enough builds up to drip off of the leaves. Usually you will want to get a ladder so that you can get within spraying distance of all the portions of the tree. Apply the pesticide in even, full sweeps as to hit every piece. Never go over the same part twice, because that is when you start to drip.

If you’re dealing with a large and well developed tree, you should stand on a ladder under the base of the trunk. Spray all segments from the inside towards the outside. After you are done spraying the outer canopy, you’re ready to get out from under there and work on the rest. Once you are done cleaning, be sure to fully and thoroughly clean off every bit of equipment you used, including your clothes. Don’t include the clothes you wore while spraying in the rest of your family’s laundry.

While you’re spraying for pests, the main thing to keep in mind is to avoid dripping onto the ground. When this happens, the pesticides will be absorbed by the roots of the tree and be transported to the actual fruits on the trees. As long as the pesticides stay on the outside and you wash your fruit thoroughly before you eat it, you will have nothing to worry about as far as being poisoned goes.