Garden advice, tips & tricks for the home gardener

Location is key for a garden. Most vegetable plants (and flowers) do their best when planted in a location that receives full sun. Choose a location for your garden that will receive at least 6 hours of sun each day.
Once you have chosen a sunny location for your garden, plan your garden layout before you plant anything to ensure that taller growing vegetable plants will not shade the shorter plants.
The tallest garden plants, like corn and pole beans, need to be planted on the north or west side of the garden so they won’t shade the shorter growing garden plants.

Fertilize. It makes our garden grow. So if a little is good, a whole lot would be better, right? Wrong. Using too much fertilize on your garden does more harm than good.
Using too much fertilize, especially if the fertilize is high in nitrogen (the first number on the fertilize bag).
Too much fertilize will promote lush green garden plant growth, but it will be at the expense of the vegetables. You will grow smaller and fewer garden vegetables because all the plant’s energy created from too much fertilize, will go into growing lush plant foliage.
Too much fertilize also harms the garden soil, and you need good soil to grow a good garden.


Use organic fertilize like compost or cow manure to amend the soil. You’ll have a better garden, with more produce, if you feed the soil and let the soil feed the garden plants.

Spring flowering branches in a glass vase add so much warmth to a room, and announce the coming of spring, but what if you don’t have access to spring blooming trees that you can snip a few flowering branches from? Easy solution, fake it. Here’s how.
Take some branches from any type of tree, purchase some silk spring flowers that have small blooms. Remove the small individual blooms and hot glue them onto the tree branches to make it look like the spring flowering branch of a Dogwood tree or apple tree.
Place the branches in a clear glass vase and use as a table center piece, no one but you will know the flowering branch is a fake.

Create a butterfly garden for fragrance, function and of course attracting the attention of butterflies.
Plants that attract butterflies are often very fragrant, like the Butterfly Bush. It’s heady aroma will fill the summer air and draw in butterflies by the dozens.
Certain herbs, like dill, parsley and fennel are also attractive to butterflies. An herb garden can provide function by way of providing the gardener with fresh herbs and creating a butterfly garden.
Other plants that attract butterflies are pansies, asters, zinnias and phlox. Create a butterfly garden with these flowers for a beautiful landscape and to attract a multitude of winged beauty to your yard as well.

Gardeners are chomping at the bit this time of year to get something planted and growing. But the possibility of a late frost makes us hesitant to start planting.
You can get a jump start on the gardening season by starting all of your vegetable plants indoors from seeds. Then once those seeds have sprouted and set their second set of leaves, you can transplant them into your garden, with a little protection, just in case of a late season frost.
Once the soil warms up enough to work, get your garden soil tilled and amended, set out your plants and cover the tender ones with clear glass jars to create a mini green house for each plant.
As the plants grow and the weather warms, remove the jars. Have plenty of plastic milk jugs on hand, with the bottoms cut out, so you can cover your garden plants just in case the forecast calls for frost.

Garden soil and the soil under your lawn becomes compacted over time and need to be aerated to allow moisture and nutrients to penetrate to the plant or grass roots. There are several ways to aerate your soil, buying an aerating for your lawn mower or tiller, renting an aerator or you can just wear a pair of golf shoes and take a walk around your landscape.
The spikes in the bottom of golf shoes penetrate the top layer of soil and help to prevent soil compaction from ordinary foot traffic.
Look at golf courses, heavy foot traffic, golf cart traffic, and yet a golf course still has a beautiful green turf. The secret is the golf shoes that all the golf players are required to wear.
Soil aerator sandals can be purchased online (see below) or at most garden supply centers that slip on over any ordinary shoe.

We know that vegetables are good for us, we even know that vegetables are low in calories and fat. But did you know that some vegetables actually aid in weight loss?
Hot peppers is one garden vegetable that helps you burn more fat by revving up your metabolism. Eating any spicy food helps your body regulate insulin.
Plant all colors of hot peppers in your garden, red, green and yellow. Hot peppers are fun to grow, add to the beauty of your landscape with their vibrant colors, add nutrients and vitamins to your diet, and now you know that hot peppers will also aid is weight loss.

Before you head out to your local garden center to purchase garden supplies, check online to see if there are any coupon codes that will save money on the items you plan to purchase.
RetailMeNot ( retailmenot.com ) is a discount coupon service that provides coupon codes and discount promotion codes that can be to save money when you order online from some of the most popular garden supply companies, as well as many other retailers.
These coupon codes can help you save money on garden supplies ranging from seeds and plants to outdoor furniture.
It’s worth a look to see if you can save money on garden supplies you were going to purchase anyway, and gardening is all about saving money.

With the high cost of groceries, gardening is booming this year. But what do you do if you don’t own land or have room to plant a garden? Check out one of the many community gardening projects that are popping up all across the country.
If your area has a community garden, then you most likely can rent a plot of ground for a nominal fee and grow your own fresh vegetables and flowers.
Community gardening is great way to help cut the high cost of groceries, meet new people and make new gardening friends, plus gardening is a great form of exercise!
You can contact your local Chamber Of Commerce and see if there is a community garden in your area, if not, talk to them about starting one.

To be a successful gardener, you have to get your hands dirty. However, that takes it’s toll on your fingernails.
To keep your fingernails looking nice, you have to protect them while gardening.
Before doing anything in the garden, apply a thick layer of heavy duty hand cream to your hands, making sure to rub the hand cream into your fingernails and cuticles. Then put on a pair of gloves to match the gardening task you are planning to do.
The heavier and dirtier the gardening chore, the heavier and thicker the gloves should be, to protect your fingernails as well as your hands.
Thin cotton garden gloves are fine for doing some simple chores like harvesting a few tomatoes, but if you are going to be using a shovel or hoe in the garden, you need thick leather gloves for protecting your fingernails and hands.
If you are going to be working in any type of moisture, like applying water soluble garden plant food, wear heavy duty rubber gloves to protect your fingernails from the moisture.