Loving Nature's Garden

3 tough-love ways to keep plants alive

May 17th, 2011 | 4 comments |

Organic tomatoes by heliosphan

Spring is in full fling and the array of plants available now at your local garden center is dizzying.

Whether you are transplanting tomatoes, putting in perennials, adding annuals, or planting an herb garden these 3 simple, tough-love tips will help you keep your transplants alive.

Green thumb transplanting

You probably already know the basics of what plants need to grow: water, light, and growing medium. The difference between a green thumb success and a gardening failure lies in tough-love, especially when it comes to a plant’s water needs.

1. Remove flowers and fruit

You picked the best looking plant you could find, the one which has lots of flowers, or already has fruit. You want instant success with your plant. Right? Wrong. Growing flowers and fruit takes important energy from your plant, energy your plant needs to put into new roots after transplanting. Be tough and remove flowers and fruit. Your plant will produce plenty as soon as it is settled in.

2. Remove leaves

If you balked at removing flowers and fruit you’re going to like this one even less. You need to remove leaves to help your plant get settled in. While leaves are food factories for your plant, they also cause your plant to lose water. A plant with less leaves suffers less transplant stress. Be tough and remove at least 1/3 of the leaves. An experienced gardener would probably remove more, but it’s a start. If you’re in doubt, try an experiment: remove leaves from half of your plants. Watch and see which plants do best.

3. Cut the plant roots

Again, it sounds crazy, but plants from garden centers are often root bound, or pot bound and need some root cutting. When you remove the plant from the pot check the roots. If there are many surface roots visible your plant will do best if you cut some of the roots. Don’t just pop a pot-shaped, rooted plant into new soil and expect the plant to thrive! Cut slits down through the roots. The cut roots will grow out into the new soil. Here’s a quick video showing you how to cut plant roots.

Are you ready to be tough?

Do you still worry about every little plant and try to treat plants gently during transplanting, or are you ready to get tough? By removing flowers and fruit, some leaves, and by cutting the roots you’ll help keep your plants alive and thriving after transplanting. Experienced gardeners with “green thumbs” are deliberate rather than gentle with plants. What about you?

Do you wimp out when you transplant plants, or are you ready to get tough? Have you watched how an experienced gardener transplants?

Kid tip: let kids help with transplanting, they love instant gardens, just like we do!

Butterfly garden in a weekend

May 3rd, 2011 | 8 comments |

There’s a little corner of my front yard, right by the driveway, which needs some help.

I’ve issued myself a butterfly garden challenge. You too can do a butterfly garden in a weekend.

Plan your garden

I’m sure every garden has a place for at least a few butterfly plants. Whether there’s a non-native plant you’d like to replace, or simply a blank spot, together we can come up with a plan. This should be a quick and enjoyable project.

Start here

Here are the five steps you need to take:

Pick a spot in your garden. If there are several equally good options it doesn’t matter which you pick; butterflies don’t care, though they prefer sun. My corner garden is on the north side of my house, but it gets sun from dawn to mid-day. For sun-loving plants you need 6 hours of sun and I have that.
Measure your space. If you’re planning on plants for butterflies to fill an empty garden spot simply get an idea of the size in square feet. My corner garden is a quarter segment of a circle with a 5 foot radius. It calculates out about 19 square feet.
Choose your plant types. If you’re replacing non-native plants you can choose a native with a similar size and shape. If you’re planning a new garden, or a bigger replacement, you’ll want variety. Small perennials usually need 1 square foot. Larger perennials are spaced 3 feet apart, needing 9 square foot of space. Shrubs often grow to 5 feet wide and take up 25 square feet. My corner garden is big enough for a shrub, but it would look out of place. A grouping of smaller perennials would be better.
Make a plan. Sometimes I do a simple garden plan on square paper, other times, for a smaller area, I prefer just to calculate the number of plants, go shopping, and find something I like the look of.
Find your local native plant source. You’ll need to know your best local source for native plants. Garden centers normally carry only a small selection of butterfly plants, but there is an extensive network of specialist native plant centers across the country.

With just a little garden space and a few hours this weekend you can add some butterfly plants to your garden. These five steps outlined above are the planning you need to go through before you go shopping.

What questions do you have? Do you need help finding a local nursery which sells native butterfly plants?

Kid tip: tell your kids about how some plants are good for butterfly nectar and others for the larvae to feed on. Ask them what colors of flowers they’d like to grow.

Practically-free tub vegetable gardens

April 19th, 2011 | 13 comments |

Karen McKnight, an Arkansas reader of Loving Nature’s Garden, wrote to tell me about her frugal, practically-free, tub vegetable gardens.

Karen is 67 years old, lives on social security, is a breast cancer survivor, and has a back problem. She is obviously resourceful and determined to still be gardening. I wanted to know more.

Karen’s vegetable garden is a container garden, but it’s a container garden with a difference. Karen writes:

“All together I now have 100 tubs. The tubs are about 30 inches tall, making them easy to sit in a chair and weed and plant and pick. It’s just wonderful. I have three sections: veggies; then 30 tubs of blue berries; then 30 tubs of corn on the cob.”

How to get free gardening tubs

“Some of the tubs I get from farmers who have cattle and feed molasses in them… they stack them around in their barns. They are glad to get rid of them.”

“I have seen tubs rolling around empty in fields with the cattle. So I stop at the next house and ask if they would like to get rid of them, then I walk out and pick them up. Even with cracks they grow veggies very well and last several years. I think its soooo neat to recycle these.”

“You can also get plastic 50 gal drums and cut them in half and put holes in and each drum gives you two tubs. Some car washes will give you empty soap barrels.”

How to prepare and plant in tubs

“I drill holes in the bottom and around the side of the bottom about 2 inches up for good drainage I wash them and fill with soil, cow poop, and horse poop and it makes black rich soil.”

“If you want to just start seeds outside…just wait a little in spring and put your seeds in the tub. Water them in and get some cheap saran wrap and put over the top with a little masking tape and you have a tub hot house. When the plants get to the top of the tubs take the saran off.”

Spring crops won’t need any covering – this method is for summer vegetables like tomatoes and peppers. If you plan to use the saran wrap method you will need to be aware of how much sun your tubs are getting. When you create a mini greenhouse like this you can easily overheat your plants. Milk jug greenhouses, which Karen also uses, are another option.

How Karen starts seeds indoors

“I start seeds in the house in the winter. I use two little hot houses that were $20.00 each. They come apart and you put them together. I break them down every year and keep them in a box in the store room. They each have three shelves.”

“I use anything I can get my hands on for starting pots: old butter bowls; plastic meat containers; salad containers; anything that’s free. I ask my family to save for me too. I re-use them every year till they’re worn out.”

Moving plants outdoors

“I move plants out in the spring after frost. With tomatoes, I put about 6 or 8 little plants together in a clump and cover them all with a gallon milk jug with the bottom cut out and the lid off; it makes a little green house. I water them down through the top. When the green shows through the top of the jug I separate them and replant them and again the jugs are free and last for several years. You just run a string through the handles and hang them up for the next year.”

More tub vegetable tips

“A nice thing about the tubs it that if a plant isn’t doing well you can easily move the tub for more or less sun. I use a two wheel cart which I got at a backyard sale to move them.”

“I put the tomato tubs in two rows. I get an old piece of fence and two steel posts and put the wire down between the two rows. You don’t need tomato frames from the store. You just tie both sides up with old bailing twine, again free from farmer because it’s been used already to bind hay – its free for the asking.

“Now you have all your plants tied up on each side of the wire’. It’s easy to spot bugs and to weed and to pick your produce all from a chair.”

“Here is a list of things i have grown in tubs: corn, carrots, peppers, beets, onions, garlic, lettuce, cabbage, kohlrabi, radish, cucumber, squash, peas, snow peas, bush beans, and gourds.”

Karen is an able gardener!

I think we can all learn something from Karen, whether you want to grow vegetables in tubs, wonder whether gardening is possible for you, or just need some inspiration to be resourceful. Many containers make great gardening containers. You don’t need to have the money to invest in something expensive. Karen has shown us what is possible with even seemingly limited resources.

How is your garden growing so far? Let me know, or ask a question for Karen in the comments.

Kid tip: tubs are really easy for kids to weed. These large tub gardens are deep enough for native plants to attract butterflies and beneficial insects.