Like many parents, I’ve always had trouble getting my adolescent son to do work around the house. I’m really big on my yard and all the outdoor work that comes with it. I do a lot of gardening, a lot of shoveling, and even more trimming and loading. For years, it was nearly impossible to get my son to help with any of this, and I finally stopped asking for any assistance at all.

A couple years ago, the family up and moved to Colorado. And not just any part of Colorado … the Rocky Mountains. We found a nice house with a great yard in a small community called Evergreen, about 25 miles west of Denver in the foothills of the Rockies. To our surprise, the house came with a little bonus: A big wooden shed on the property containing an old ATV and a bunch of accessories to go along with it.

After arriving in late November, we found ourselves settled right in time for the winter’s first big snowstorm. And boy, did it ever come down. After three days of constant blizzard conditions and over five total feet of snow, we found ourselves trapped behind 200 yards of snow-packed driveway. The thought of attempting to shovel that huge area was overwhelming, until I recalled seeing a snow plow fitting for the old ATV in the shed. Hoping this might do the trick, I tracked out to the shed to see if I could put it together.

With a couple calls to the manufacturer of the ATV (Kawasaki), and the manufacturer of the snow plow (WARN), I was set up and ready to go. Curiously, I only made it to the edge of the garage before my teenage son was running at me with wide eyes and a never-before-seen look of interest in household chores. Amazingly, the kid begged me to shovel the driveway, a task he had always faked a cold to get out of.

In just two hours, the ATV had plowed the entire 200 yards of driveway, and my son ran in as excited as if he had just spent the time on his snowboard. For the remainder of the winter season, his eyes lit up each and every time the snow fell, and we never spent more than a couple hours snowed in. During those great hours, my wife and I would simply warm up a pot of hot cocoa and watch the amazing transformation taking place from the warmth of the house.

When spring came around and it was time to get started on my tree trimming and garden duties, I found a similar interest in these outdoor chores. I would trim the branches, and my son would load them into the ATV plow and transport them to the edge of the property. He then spent a week straight digging up dirt and proportioning areas of land for my grand gardening plans. In a fraction of the time it had taken in previous years, I had a great garden, thanks mostly to the help of my son and his new favorite toy.

In the past two years, I haven’t shoveled a bit of snow in the winter. For the past two summers, I haven’t put a bit of work into my garden. Yet I still have the best looking yard and garden on the block, and my son did it all with an old ATV and utility plow. And anytime the neighbors come to ask me how I got my son to be so helpful around the yard, I simply point at that old ATV and say “Get one of those and you’ll see for yourself.”

Ryan Heath is the owner of 4 Wheel Online and one of the greatest gardens in Colorado. Unfortunately, his doctor has recommended cutting down on the hot cocoa in the winter due to rising cholesterol levels. If you would like help in purchasing an ATV plow to help in your household chores, feel free to call him toll free at 1-800-811-0335, or visit the website at http://www.4wheelonline.com/
http://www.4wheelonline.com/?ATV_Snow_Plows.

Tired of tomatoes that are rock hard and taste like cardboard? Stupid question! Use these tips to grow your own tomatoes bursting with flavour.

Tomatoes are the most popular home garden vegetable grown for good reason. They are easy to grow and will tolerate a wide variety of soil types. They are also incredibly versatile. The methods described here will suit most tomato varieties. And what a variety! Big fleshy ‘Ox Heart’, sweet cherry-type ‘Tom Thumbs’, Grosse Lisse, Roma, the list goes on and on.

If you are starting your plants from seeds, put them in trays with a good quality seed raising mixture and cover lightly. Water very gently, perhaps using a spray bottle, so as not to disturb the seed. They will germinate best in a temperature of low 20’s Celsius (about 70F). In cooler climates start your seedlings indoors or use a cold frame. (see www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/start-seedlings-indoors.html)

Try to introduce them to periods of sunlight as quickly as possible to harden them off. You don’t want them to be too spindly. Once they are large enough to handle, repot them into their own small containers of potting mix. Water them in well, but gently. Make sure the containers drain well. Tomato plants hate to sit in water. Small regular dressings of sulphate of potash will help your seedling form flowers and resist disease. Just a pinch a week watered in should do it.

In about 6 weeks, your tomato seedlings should be ready for the garden. If you are growing tall varieties, put your stakes in before the seedling so as not to damage the plants roots.

Tomatoes need full sun to grow. They also have plenty of fiberous roots just under the soil so don’t allow them to dry out. But again, don’t let them sit in water either. Water deeply to encourage deep root growth and mulch around the plant to protect the soil from drying out. Every few weeks, water in another dressing of sulphate of potash. A couple of tablespoons per plant (under the mulch) should keep them happy.

Harvest your tomatoes when they are pink and bring them indoors. Temperature rather than sunlight is what allows them to ripen to their rosey red. Put them inside in a dry place OUT of the sun to ripen. Putting them on the windowsill or in the fridge will rob them of their full flavour. Enjoy!

Judy Williams (http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com) splits her time between being an executive and an earth mother goddess. No Dig Vegetable Gardens represents a clean, green way to grow your own food. The site covers all aspects of growing, cooking and preserving your harvest.

How well do you know your nutrients?

There are many different plant nutrients on the hydroponics market today. Their function is to provide the optimum mix of Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Potassium, Calcium and various other trace elements, in order to sustain growth, improve yields and allow the plant to achieve its potential. The plants requirements will vary to some extent as it develops. Concentrations and plant food components may also vary with differing growing mediums. The food is absorbed through the plants roots and transported to the leaves, where it is converted into the sugars that the plant needs for energy.

The most important thing to remember about plant nutrition is that the NPK, (Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Potassium) Calcium and trace element ratios are correct. There can be a wide variation of ingredients in the various mixes for sale.

Because the plant will take whatever it requires from the elements available and leave the rest, the balance will alter as unused elements build up in the solution. If left unchecked this will result in a toxic build up of salts and a subsequent drop off in growth followed eventually by the death of your, well loved and nurtured, plants. This same result will occur if the water content is not replaced and the mixture strength increases. If the plant transpires 50% of the water from the supply tank, the concentration of elements within the solution will become dangerously high.

The concentration of salts in the feeding solution is measured using an Electrical Conductivity (EC) meter. The EC meter measures the strength of the solution in parts per million. This means that in a 1000 PPM solution there are 1,000 units of dissolved salts to every 1,000,000 units of water. The meter measures the total salt concentration in solution and does not discriminate between Potassium salts say and Calcium salts. It cannot tell the difference between a good and a bad mix, only their relative strengths.

The EC meter works by measuring the speed at which electrons travel between probes immersed in a solution. In distilled water, the electrons cannot find any impurities to use as footholds to cross the water and so the meter returns a 0 reading in mMho or mS (these are units used to measure electrical conductivity). As food is added to the water, the concentration of impurities in the form of salts increases and the electrons can find more footholds, and so cross the water faster. Thus the meter reading rises. Of course this is a very simplified explanation, but it should serve to give you an idea of the basics. One other important thing to remember is that as in all things chemical temperature plays an important part. The higher the temperature, the faster the electrons move and the higher the EC reading. This means that that in order to accurately assess your mixture’s EC you must record the PPM as mMho (mS) at a specific temperature.

As the PPM reading is a conversion from an electrical reading and as each addition of a different salt will alter the electrical properties, in order to obtain an accurate EC reading you will have to use a reference solution of a known value. Because the EC meter you are using will not necessarily have been calibrated for the mix used by the people who prepared your reference solution, these values can be quite inaccurate. In view of this, any reference solution that does not show the EC value in mS, or give you the conversion ratio that was used, is of no use for nutrient evaluation purposes.

It is important to note that if the nutrient EC reaches 3,000 PPM (or the meter reads over 4.0mS) your plants will begin to show signs of nutrient deficiency even though they will have an excess. The reasons for this are quite complex, but basically it is because the chemicals dissolved in the solution are competing for the available water and the stronger ones are blocking out some of the weaker ones. This leads to the roots having to work harder to absorb the nutrients. By working harder they have to expend more energy at the expense of growth. If at this time the temperature rises and the water level drops, due to evaporation, your plants will, very probably, die.

Probably the most important factor that will affect your plant growth in relation to nutrient uptake is pH. Different types of plant prefer different pH values and it is important to ascertain which the optimum for the species you are growing is. The medium in which you are growing will affect the cation exchange capacity of the plant. This is the ability of the medium to hold nutrients on call for the plant roots to use. Normal soil has a high cation exchange rate (CEC) of between 100 and 200 equivalent units. A number of growing mediums and of course water cultures have a CEC of 0. This means that once a nutrient has passed the roots it cannot be taken up by the plant, and neither will it have any buffering effect. The nutrients, the gasses, the trace elements, the water and the growing medium all have differing electrical charges and are all exchanging positive and negative charges around the roots of the plant. This ionic battle enables the roots to absorb the nutrients it needs to sustain the plant. If the pH is incorrect it stops the particle exchange. This is because the shapes and sizes of the charged particles will be different from the spaces available within the plant root tissue. The pH can be looked at a bit like a Yale lock and key. If all is correct the lock opens if the plant pH and the surrounding pH differ then the lock cannot open.

Different plants need different nutrients at differing stages of their growth. These nutrients have different charges and so in order to get the greatest nutrient uptake the pH must be closely monitored. If in doubt about the requirements of your plant try asking the manufacturer of your nutrients for help. After all he made the mix in the first place and so should know all there is to know about it.

If your plants are not thriving look at the pH as the primary cause and try to work out which of the nutrients is not being absorbed and why.

A partner in a thriving retail hydroponics supply business, Rickie Haughton is the owner of http://www.hydroponics-gardening-information.com. Your First Choice For Hydroponics Gardening Information, the Hydroponics-Gardening-Information website is packed with good content about all aspects of hydroponics gardening and offers a free Hydroponics Gardening Information Club membership to all subscribers.

Copyright (C) 2004, 2005, 2006, John R Haughton - All Rights Reserved

Dried plants and dried flowers are midway for people who cannot afford gardens or costly fresh flowers and artifical flowers or plants for decoration. The household woman will get immense satisfaction, if she can nurture the hobby of making these dried flowers and plants, and then decorate her home. But few are aware of the type of plants and flowers to select for drying and the methods of drying while retaining the original beauty without much loss of color or shape.

Agrostis: Two commonly grown grass species are Agrostis nebulosa (also called cloud grass) and Agrostis pulchella, are annuals and can be grown easily in pots through seeds. They grow to about 10-12 inches in height, and have panicles which present a misty cloud effect.

Avena: This oat species can be an important attraction to floral arrangements when dried. It is usually grown as an annual and is a popular ornamental grass.

Pennisetum: Many species of this grass are extremely decorative grassesn for floral artwork, but are suited to greenhouse and conservatory decoration. These have a long long inflorescence consisting of white or purplich bristles.

Triticum: This ordinary wheat species has well known spikes which are valued for their decoratory attraction and the dried panicles are often used in floral arrangements for harvest festivals.The most suited species of this class is Triticum spelta, which is a hardy annual and grows upto 2 feet tall.

Hordeum: This is commonly known as barley or squirrel tail grass. It is easily raised from seed as a hardy annual and grows about 12 inches in height.

Phalaris: The species Phalaris arundinacea pitca is a beautiful variegated perennial for the herbaceous border.The leaves are striped white and green and the panicles are greenish purple. It grows about 3-5 feet high and has short inflorescences colored green, white and purple.

Method of Drying: The fresh leaves are dipped in 50% glycerine solution for a few days before drying under sheets of paper or in folds of a thick carpet. Glycerine helps to make the leaves more flexible and increases the durability of dried plants. A fair number of flowers have inbuilt property to retain shape and color very well after ordinary drying. The flowers should be picked up when they are just opened, and hanging them upside down until they are absolutely dry. The cut stems are dried upside down so that they maintain an erect rigidity when subsequently used for decoration and stems have stiffened. For floral art work it may sometimes be advantageous to dry a few stems so that they give curved lines to an arrangement.

Ravikumar Uppaluri is from Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh State in India.The author Holds a Masters degree in Agricultural Sciences and is cofounder of an organization involved in Nature conservation and sustainable development. The author can be reached at uravikumar@yahoo.com

Gardening fanatics, with no space for a garden, like apartment dwellers and those in shared housing, can be assured gardening is not inevitably gone from their lives. You can always build a container garden on a balcony, patio, deck, or sunny window. Not only the joy of flowers but vegetables and some fruits can be grown. You can raise perennials, annuals, and even shrubs and small trees all in a container.

Container gardening can present it’s own set of challenges. It requires proper planning just like any other kind of gardening. You’ll need to find your USDA zone (to identify plants suitable for your zone), see how much daylight you get in your apartment or balcony, and from there you can select the best plant variety.

When buying plants be prudent and choose ones with a healthy appearance and good natural shape. Trunks should be straight. Stay away from plants with twisted, slanted or deformed stems, which can affect the healthy growth of a plant. Try to buy your plants from the local nursery unless you have the right conditions to raise seedlings indoors.

For your container, glazed ceramic pots with drainage holes are a good choice. Terracotta pots are nice looking, true, but dry out quickly and leave your plants without moisture. Wooden containers are good, but can be susceptible to rot. Cedar and redwood are fairly rot resistant and make nice containers but make sure the wood is not treated with creosote or other toxic materials that can damage the plants.

Although you in general don’t want to keep your container garden plants outside when the temperature dips below 45° F, there are plants that are frost resistant for colder climates. Eulalia grasses, Mexican feather grass, Cornflowers, Lavender cottons, Jasmine, Million bells, and Stonecrops, stand up to the frost well.

If you follow these few suggestions you will be off to a good start with your new minature garden creation.

Ms. Boulay writes for http://www.OnlineTips.org, where you can find information on installing fiberglass insulation and How to Replace an Entry Door

When you want to create a beautiful and functional landscape, the task may be overwhelming. Before the first shovel of soil is turned, close your eyes and picture your dream garden. Begin by asking what are your landscape goals. Some of the common reason to landscape include:

• Create privacy

• Invite entertaining

• Provide recreation

• Modify the climate

• Beautify the property

• Grow a kitchen garden

• Attract wildlife

• Reduce water use

When a landscape is thoughtfully planned, it does more than beautify the property: It can provide a recreation area and places to entertain. Well placed trees and shrubs can cut down on heating and cooling costs. A good design can also add more living space to your home in the warm seasons and provide a window to the natural world during colder months.

Following are some landscape design basics that apply to all designs. Every good garden design owes its effectiveness to certain basic design principles. These rules apply to all levels of gardens, from a simple garden border to an elaborate classical design. Remember, in any well-designed garden no one feature, plant or structure is completely dominant. Instead, all features work together to establish a sense of unity.

A. Repetition. Repeat certain plants, textures or colors.

B. Simplicity. This is the result of constraint. It keeps your design from being cluttered and unfocused.

C. Unity. A unified design ensures that the garden reads as one whole design rather than a hodgepodge of separate elements.

D. Scale. Scale refers to the balance between sizes of various elements, which includes the house, walkways, paths, fences, garden beds and plantings. No one element or feature should overpower all of the others.

Donna Evans is a landscape designer and website designer. Donna along with her husband own, Gizmo Creations LLC, http://www.gizmocreations.com, works with residential property owners and commercial property owners to create landscape designs that provide beauty and functionality to the site’s owners. As well as having a landscape designer, the company has a licensed landscape architect on staff. In addition to working with nearby property owners, Gizmo Creations also does on-line landscape design through their site at, http://www.gclandscapes.com. Donna also teaches an on-line landscape design course. For information about the course go to http://www.gizmocreations.com. More articles on landscaping and sample plans can be seen on the website.

Chainsaw manufacturers have safety videos available. Always make sure you check safety features such as chain brakes, safety chains, and deadman switches. Chainsaws provide all the convenience of a Chainsaw, even in enclosed areas and near residential buildings. Make sure to service your systems chainsaw will help ensure that your equipment will not let you down.

Correct chain tension proper lubrication and a properly tuned engine. Your new chain if possible, soak the chain in oil to allow oil to penetrate all chain components, the chain tension should be checked and adjusted if needed before every use.

Before using your chainsaw each time you need to inspect the fuel system.After every 10 hours of use you need to clean or replace the air filter. Chainsaw two stroke engines a great power-to-weight ratio compared to many four-stroke engine designs.

The air intake filter tends to clog up with sawdust. The fuel filter should be replaced after every 20 hours of use. You’ll acquire better chainsaw performance through basic maintenance, carburetor setting, and filing techniques. A vibration dampening system, which makes simple work of the most difficult tasks. These are merely tips to assist you while searching for a Chainsaw.

Chainsaws are easier to use than ever. Your chainsaw converts logs into lumber or timber. Before you use a chainsaw you should undergo extensive training, and only trained people should use a chainsaw, always think safety.

Suitable protective clothing suitable protective clothing should be worn - no matter how small the job.

Chainsaws produce a level of noise that will affect unprotected ears after only 15 minutes of exposure, wear ear muffs or ear plugs to keep as much noise as possible out.

Jerry Smith can help you. Find out how thousands of people have been helped with the advice and information. Visit this link for details: Buy Chainsaws

Everybody asks about Easter lilies! Can they go outside; can I plant them in my garden? And to this I reply, "Why not?" Like other bulbs, there are two options if you plant your leftover Easter lily bulbs - either they will live and flower for many years (it is perfectly hardy into zone 4) or they will immediately die. If you don’t plant the bulb, it will definitely die. So you have nothing to lose by planting.

Once the Easter lily bloom has faded in the house, cut the stem back as far as you can. Grow the plant in a sunny windowsill, keeping it moist (not sopping) and feed weekly with houseplant food. After all danger of frost has passed wherever you live, you can plant it outdoors. Planting outdoors is as easy as digging a hole and planting so that the top of the bulb will be three inches below the surface.

Add a shovel of compost and a shovel of peat moss to the planting hole and ensure the soil is well loosened. Remember it is necessary to dig a large enough hole to spread the lily roots out and to ensure it is at least eighteen inches from another plant. Place the bulb in the bottom of the planting hole and backfill the soil up to the neck of the bulb – do not cover the green leaves. Covering the green leaves at this time could rot them.

Wait until the leaves have turned yellow and faded before totally filling in the hole. After you’ve planted the bulb, water it thoroughly. Carefully water and turn the area into a mudhole so no air spaces are left around the bulb. The original foliage may die back immediately after planting. If this happens, cut the foliage right back to the bulb and then backfill the hole. Do not be surprised to see a new set of leaves emerge from the hole. Water thoroughly after backfilling.

The key to success with growing Easter lilies is to give the tops full sun but to shade the roots. Hot tops and cold feet would describe this growing condition. Also, excellent drainage is essential for bulb success. Poor drainage or clay soils will rot the bulb over winter because of excessive moisture.

Remember the normal time for the lily to bloom is mid-summer. The first planting year you may see a bloom in mid-summer but the likelihood is that the bulb will wait for next year to bloom again. Your job is to grow the bulb. Do not cut off leaves until they are well faded and quite yellow. Do not pin them up so other plants can grow next to the lily. You want those leaves to stretch out and absorb as much sunlight as possible because they are feeding the bulb and making next year’s flower bud.

And next year’s Easter lily bulb is what you’re looking for, and the one after that, and the one after that too. If you’re looking for other bulb information, check out this website. To contact the author, use the email form at http://www.flower-garden-bulbs.com/gardeningtips.html

copright Doug Green 2005

Doug Green Award winning garden author
http://www.flower-garden-bulbs.com
Blog:http://www.simplegiftsfarm.com/gardens-gardening-news.html

There are no doubts about the benefits of using hydrogen peroxide properly in a hydroponics system. This becomes especially true if your nutrient reservoir is kept above 72 degrees. Warm water holds less dissolved oxygen, and therefore encourages the growth of more viruses, fungi, and anaerobic bacteria. Hydrogen peroxide adds oxygen to you water and cleans the water of pathanogens. Benefits include healthier root systems, increased nutrient uptake, thicker stems, and bigger leaves.

One expert claims it should be used on all soil gardens as well as in hydroponics sytems. Knowing as much as I do about beneficial fungus and micro-organisms and the benefits they provide to living plants, I am shy in taking this advice. However, when this first line of defense fails and plants become sick I often resort to using hydrogen peroxide treatments on my soil grown plants.

The chemical formula of hydrogen peroxide is H2O2. You may notice it is simply water with an extra oxygen atom. In fact, as hydrogen peroxide breaks down in a solution the result is oxygen and water. Its application helps deliver oxygen to over watered plant roots and helps to sterilize the growing media by killing harmful anaerobic (not oxygen compatible) bacteria and pathanogens that cause disease. This includes bacterial wilt, pythium fungi, fusarium fungi, and others.

I avoid using the common 3% hydrogen peroxide you normally find at drug stores. This is because such low percentage solutions are unstable, and chemicals are added to the peroxide to keep it from breaking down before it can be used. I did a little research because I did not know what chemicals were used for this, or if the plants uptake these chemicals, or if there was a health risk associated with any of these stabilizing chemicals.

Hydrogen peroxide is usually stabilized with acetanilide. Acetanilide is a synthetic compound that was first used for its fever reduction and pain killing properties in the late Nineteenth Century. For many years it was utilized as an alternative to aspirin to treat various ailments, but large-scale medical use stopped when the toxic side effects of consuming acetanilide became apparent. This was enough to make up my mind to use 35% hydrogen peroxide instead.

Firstly, 35% peroxide is caustic and should be treated with the same caution as a strong acid. 35% strength hydrogen peroxide should be readily available at any quality hydroponics supply shop. The stronger concentrations do not use the added stabilizers.

The recommended dosage is to add 2-3 ml to each gallon of water, however, I use 5 ml per gallon and have never had any problems. At every nutrient change treat your fresh water with hydrogen peroxide. The general idea is to let the hydroponics sytem circulate the hydrogen peroxide solution for about a half hour to let the peroxide work against pathogens and to let the solution stabilize before adding your nutrients.

The beneficial effects of using hydrogen peroxide last about 4 days. There are some gardeners who add a little peroxide to their nutrient reservoirs every 5 days in between nutrient changes. If you decide to do this, stick to the guidelines and always make sure your solution is thoroughly mixed before exposing your plants roots to it. Another option is to top off your nutrient reservoir with peroxide treated water whenever it is low.

The original article with pictures and additional info can be found at http://www.jasons-indoor-guide-to-organic-and-hydroponics-gardening.com/using-hydrogen-peroxide.html

Hi, my name is Jason, from Jason’s Indoor Guide. I have ten years experience growing indoors, under lights. No less than two of those years I was using hydroponics methods. It is my goal to improve the results of every organic and hydroponics gardener through accurate, easy to understand information. Visit me at http://www.jasons-indoor-guide-to-organic-and-hydroponics-gardening.com/

How often you mow your lawn will depend on a number of factors. Firstly how much time you have to devote to your lawn’s maintenance. How fast your lawn grows, and this in turn will depend on whether you fertilise it regularly and whether it receives adequate water and sunlight. Normally, lawns should be mowed at least one a fortnight to keep them in check, so to speak.

One of the worst things you can do for a lawn and a big misconception is that you can or should mow your lawn very short in order to reduce the number of times you have to mow it. Grass generally will do much better when mowed at a higher setting. This is especially the case in the summer months, where short grass can often be burnt by the sun otherwise. It is suggested that you should never be cutting or trimming off more than 1/3 of the length of the grass in a mowing session. If you have let your lawn go and it is far too long, it is recommended that you firstly mow it at a longer cut and then remow it at a slightly lower setting. If it is still too long, then you can go over it again in a couple of days time. Although this is time consuming it is the preferred method for caring for your lawn. Needless to say like having your hair cut, you should maintain your equipment. In this case make sure your mower blades are sharp and in good condition. Remove any stone or other obstructions from the lawn before mowing to avoid any damage to the mower or lawn.

Other recommendations for mowing a perfect lawn:

• Do mow in different directions, it does not matter which way – whether it is diagonal, horizontal, or vertically each time you mow your lawn. This prevents the grass blades from curving in a particular direction after numerous cuts.

• It is well known that you should never mow when your lawn is still wet. The reason for this, however, is not so well known. There are actually two reasons for this. Firstly, you will not be cutting your lawn evenly and when it dries may be a lot longer than expected. Secondly, you can often cause fungus to establish itself.

• For the lawn bowl look of a flatten smooth lawn larger lawn rollers can be purchased. To use these you simply roll them over your lawn after mowing in nice even and straight rows.

HCOA is a directory of information on mowers, tractors, fertilizers, grass and outdoor appliances. For more information you can visit their website at http://www.hcoa.com.au