Gardening Tips You Can Use

Bring up the topic of gardening in almost any social situation,
and you're bound to receive plenty of gardening advice. Everyone
from greenhorn to green thumb has plenty of gardening tips to
offer. Some homegrown ideas can produce bountiful results, so
ask around and see which ideas grow on you.

There are plenty of sources available when you're looking for
gardening tips. You can read gardening books, catalogues and
magazines. You can enquire at a garden center or check the
Internet. Of course, you can ask a more seasoned gardener for
his or her advice. Gardening methods, tricks and tips can vary
depending on the type of garden or variety of plant your
tending, but some gardening tips are universal and apply to any
type of plant.

Gardening tips for planting tend to by fairly universal. All
plants need room to grow, so space them so the roots can develop
and the plants won't overcrowd each other. It's important to
know the amount of sunlight required. Some plants, like hostas,
prefer a shady corner of the garden while others, like most
annual flowers and vegetables, thrive in open sunlight.
Ventilation is also important because like all living things,
plants need proper air circulation. Sources offering valuable
gardening tips will also tell you to add some type of nutrients
to the soil, such as mulch or compost, to help your plants grow
bigger and stronger. Every plant will benefit from these general
gardening tips.

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Getting the Best Price for your Home Includes Landscaping for Curb Appeal

If you own a home, then sooner or later you are going to be ready to sell that home. Maybe you've already sold a home or two. People tend to move more often than our parents did.

There are a lot of things that go into getting the best possible price for
your home, but the very first thing your home needs is curb appeal. When a prospective buyer, or a realtor for that matter, pulls up in front of your home, they immediately form an opinion about your house. Fair or not, that's what people do. You can have the most beautiful home in the city, but if prospective buyers don't get a super positive feeling about your house the minute they lay eyes on it, they are going to enter and view the rest of your house with a negative impression.

Fixing that problem is easy enough to do.

When people pull up in front of your house there are two things they see. A house, and the landscaping in front of that house. If the landscaping is unattractive, the house will appear to be unattractive. Landscaping for curb appeal does not cost a lot of money, it's simply a matter of making sure the landscaping is neat, with well defined edges, and colorful. But when landscaping for curb appeal, the most important thing you need to do is to raise the beds with topsoil. Of course you have to do this before you plant.

Plants do much better in raised beds, and the plants in the beds really
stand out. In order to raise the beds around your house you do not have to buy expensive stones and build retaining walls. Just establish the outline of the planting beds, cut an edge into the soil with a spade, and fill the planting beds with approximately ten inches of good rich topsoil. You'd be amazed at how much you can raise a planting bed without any type of retention.

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How To Grow Tomatoes In Your Vegetable Garden

For many people, growing big juicy tomatoes is part of what
makes vegetable gardening so enjoyable. Whether purchasing
plants from your local nursery or starting tomatoes from seed,
there are a few basic steps to follow to ensure that you harvest
an abundant crop at the end of the growing season. There are
many different varieties of tomatoes to choose from, depending
on whether you will be cooking, canning, slicing, or eating
miniature or grape-like varieties right off the vine. Sweet
100�s are very abundant, and are good for salads as well as
eating fresh from the garden. Roma tomatoes are good for making
salsa, because the peels are not as tough as others so you don�t
need to peel the skins off. Romas are also known as the classic
paste and sauce tomato. There are Early Girls, Early Boys, Big
Boys, Big Mamas, Sweet Baby Girls, Beefsteaks, French Rose
hybrids, Big Rainbow, specialty tomatoes and many more. So start
by choosing the kind of tomato you would like to grow.

Planting Tomatoes from Seeds

Tomatoes grown from seed will require six to eight weeks before
they can be planted in the garden. Purchase individual
containers or flats, starter soil or mixture, and the seeds of
your choice. Fill each container with soil, pressing it tightly
to remove air and to avoid settling problems after watering.
Typically, seed companies print instructions for planting right
on the tomato seed package. Each variety is a little different
so follow instructions carefully. Prepare a label identifying
the type of tomato and the date started. You can make your own
from Popsicle sticks or purchase them at the store or garden
center.

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Spring Planting Tips

Spring means that the garden centers are packed with people, and car trunks are packed with plants. Everybody has dirt on their knees, dirt under their nails, and are excited about gardening. To make certain that this excitement yields positive results, let's discuss the basics in this article of spring planting tips.

Installing new plants and having them grow successfully is not difficult, nor is it as complicated as some would have you think. Is it as easy as just digging a hole and setting the plant in? Yes, it certainly can be. I won't get into bed preparation, as I have covered that in other articles that are available at http://www.freeplants.com

Let's start with B&B plants. B&B is short for balled in burlap. Closely examine the ball on the plant that you have purchased. Did the diggers wrap twine around the ball to hold the plant secure? If they did, you should at least cut the twine and lay it in the bottom of the hole, or remove it completely. Pay close attention around the stem of the plant where it emerges from the root ball, as diggers often wrap the twine around the stem several times as they tie the ball. This is extremely important because if the string is nylon, it will not rot and will girdle and kill the plant two or three years from now.

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Container Gardening

Container gardens can create a natural sanctuary in a busy city street, along rooftops or on balconies. You can easily accentuate the welcoming look of a deck or patio with colorful pots of annuals, or fill your window boxes with beautiful shrub roses or any number of small perennials. Whether you arrange your pots in a group for a massed effect or highlight a smaller space with a single specimen, you'll be delighted with this simple way to create a garden.

Container gardening enables you to easily vary your color scheme, and as each plant finishes flowering, it can be replaced with another. Whether you choose to harmonize or contrast your colors, make sure there is variety in the height of each plant. Think also of the shape and texture of the leaves. Tall strap-like leaves will give a good vertical background to low-growing, wide-leafed plants. Choose plants with a long flowering season, or have others of a different type ready to replace them as they finish blooming.

Experiment with creative containers. You might have an old porcelain bowl or copper urn you can use, or perhaps you'd rather make something really modern with timber or tiles. If you decide to buy your containers ready-made, terracotta pots look wonderful, but tend to absorb water. You don't want your plants to dry out, so paint the interior of these pots with a special sealer available from hardware stores.

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Plus Points For Organic Gardening

Organic gardening is the way of growing vegetables and fruits
with the use of things only found in nature. Why would one want
to indulge in organic gardening?

1.One can easily make compost from garden and kitchen waste.
Though this is a bit more time-consuming than buying prepared
chemical pesticides and fertilizers, it certainly helps to put
garbage to good use and so saves the environment.

2. Organic farming does not use chemicals that may have an
adverse affect on your health. This is especially important when
growing vegetables. Chemical companies tell us that the
chemicals we use are safe if used according to direction, but
research shows that even tiny amounts of poisons absorbed
through the skin can cause such things as cancer, especially in
children.

On the average, a child ingests four to five times more
cancer-causing pesticides from foods than an adult. This can
lead to various diseases later on in the child's life. With
organic gardening, these incidents are lessened.

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