How To Make Compost

It's easy to cook up your own compost. Just layer grass clippings with a dash of leaves and twigs to create a concoction that turns into humus -- the best plant food.

There are two types of composting: cold and hot. Cold composting is as simple as piling up your yard waste or taking out the organic materials in your trash (such as fruit and vegetable peels, coffee grounds and egg shells) and then piling them in your yard. Over the course of a year or so, the material will decompose. Hot composting is for the more serious gardener, and you get compost in one to three months during warm weather. Four ingredients are required for fast-cooking hot compost: nitrogen, carbon, air, and water. Together, these items feed microorganisms, which speed up the process of decay.

To create your own organic hot-compost heap, wait until you have enough material to make a pile at least 3 feet deep. Then, to ensure an even composition, create alternating 4- to 8-inch layers of green and brown materials. Green materials -- such as vegetable scraps, grass clippings, and plant trimmings -- create nitrogen. Brown materials -- such as leaves, shredded newspaper, and twigs -- create carbon.

Sprinkle water over the pile regularly so it has the consistency of a damp sponge. Don't add too much water or the microorganisms will become waterlogged and won't heat the pile properly. You can check the temperature of the pile with a thermometer or simply reach into the middle of the pile with your hand.

During the growing season, you should provide the pile with oxygen by turning it once a week with a pitchfork. The best time to turn the compost is when the center of the pile feels warm or the thermometer reads between 130 and 150 degrees. Stirring up the pile helps it cook faster and prevents material from becoming matted down and developing a bad odor. At this point, the layers have served their purpose of creating equal amounts of green and brown materials throughout the pile, so stir thoroughly.

When the compost no longer gives off heat and becomes dry, brown and crumbly, it's fully cooked and ready to feed to the garden.

Fall Frost Preventitives

If it hasn't hit already, your region's first frost is likely to arrive this month. Stay tuned to television and news reports to find out exactly when. Prolong the growing season by throwing a sheet or other non-plastic material over your annuals and vegetables. In fact, for vegetables, you can cover them indefinitely with any very light landscape fabric and anchor the corners with bricks or stones. It lets in sun and rain, but prevents light frosts from doing any damage.

How to Divide Spring Blooming Perennials

Late summer or early fall is the ideal time to divide spring and summer blooming perennials.  Division takes an existing plant and splits it into several new, smaller plants.  This is a great way to control aggressive plants and it helps to rejuvenate crowded, poorly performing perennials.
Division is most successful when the parent plant is dug, divided and all plants immediately replanted.  If you must hold the newly divided plants for a short period of time, keep them cool, shaded and moist.  Wet some peat moss or shredded newspaper and cover the plants with several inches of the material.  This method of propagation is simple and requires only a few tools, a small amount of planning and plenty of elbow grease and back strength.

Before dividing a plant, prepare the area where the new divisions will be located.  This allows you to quickly put the plants back into the ground and increases survival rates.  Next gather the tools you’ll need; most divisions can be done using a spade and either two garden forks, a large butcher knife or a folding pruning saw.  The type of plant you’re dividing will dictate what type of a cutting device will be needed.  Use the spade and cut around the outer perimeter of the plant.  Loosen the plant with a garden fork, lift the clump out of the ground and remove most of the soil from the roots.  Soil is removed from the roots so the individual plants within the clump become visible.  Observe the plant crown and discard any portion that is severely injured or appears unhealthy.
A daylily is easily divided by placing two garden forks back-to-back in the center of the clump.  Pulling the handles together and then pushing them apart causes the fork tines to separate the roots.  Once the clump has been loosened, new divisions that contain two to three shoots can be separated out.  Iris need to be divided about every 3 years because the center of the plant dies due to crowding.  Divide by separating the vigorous rhizome side shoots from the old mature rhizome. 

Throw away the old mature portion. Trim the foliage back by 50% before replanting the new divisions.  Peonies can be divided by cutting the tuberous roots into pieces that contain three to five eyes or buds.  Poppies can be divided by cutting the roots into 4-inch sections.

How quickly a newly planted division blooms is largely dependent on the size of the division.  If you want blooming to occur next spring, divide the clump into a few large plants.  If you want large numbers of a plant and are willing to wait several years for blooms, divide the clump into many small plants.  Regardless of size, all divisions should be planted immediately so they can become established before cold weather arrives.  Providing winter protection may help poorly established plants survive cold weather.

Thoroughly water any plants that are to be divided the day before division begins.  This water will help loosen the soil and hydrate the root system.  Try to do the division on a cloudy or overcast day and have a bucket of water at the site.  After dividing, soak the root system in the bucket of water for about an hour prior to planting in the new location.  Water thoroughly immediately after planting and closely monitor the soil moisture for several weeks after planting.  Provide temporary shade to help the divisions establish quickly.

Move Houseplants Indoors

Don't wait until you start getting a frost to move your houseplants indoors. You will want to bring them indoors when the outside temperature is similar to that of your inside temperature. Basically, if you are comfortable leaving the windows open, then it might be a good time to go ahead and start acclimating your plants back to the indoors. While your plants were outdoors, it's possible they acquired pests such as ants. To get rid of pests, treat with a mild insecticide. It is also a good idea to wash the leaves of your houseplants with a mixture of mild soap and water. As with your herbs, most houseplants will not require as much watering during the colder months.

Fall Tasks

Autumn is a better time for many garden tasks If you didn't get all of your gardening chores done last spring, maybe you were wise to wait. Autumn is a better time for many garden tasks:

Preparing new beds-Why try to dig beds in the wet springtime? Dig new beds now, and they'll be ready for early planting next year.

Fighting broadleaf weeds-In the autumn, dandelions and other perennial weeds are storing up nutrients for next year's growth. They also absorb herbicides more readily, so now is a good time to eliminate them.

Improving the lawn-Aerating, fertilizing, and overseeding cool-season lawns are timely tactics, especially in areas with early winters.

Planting for next spring-It's time to plant spring-flowering bulbs of crocus, daffodil, tulip, hyacinth, allium, muscari, leucojum, and others, for colorful rewards early next year. P

lanting edibles-Autumn is the best time to plant garlic for harvest next year. In most areas, you can also squeeze in a quick-growing fall crop of radishes, lettuce, or peas.

Planting cover crops-To improve a garden plot, plant cover crops, such as clover, alfalfa, rye, or buckwheat to till into the soil next spring. Why wait till spring? Let the county extension service analyze your soil now so you can amend it right away-and have healthier soil for next season.

Autumn Chores in the Garden

   As weather starts to cool, now's the perfect time to... Store your harvest, boost your lawn, and enjoy the golden months. A to-do list of autumn adventures... Gardeners may view spring as the most important gardening season, but fall has its share of tasks and activities, as well. As weather starts to cool, now's the perfect time to...

Plant garlic: In most regions (except for the very warmest climates) early fall is the best time to plant garlic. Select the healthiest bulblets from nursery or garden-grown bulbs (supermarket bulbs often are treated with growth retardants and may not sprout in your garden). Plant the bulblets 2 inches deep, 6 to 8 weeks before the first frost date in your area. Garlic takes up to eight months to mature in cold-weather areas, and will be ready to harvest next summer.

Pamper your lawn: Fall, rather than spring, is often the best time to fertilize your yard. Grasses can use a boost after the summer's heat. Cool-season grasses (fescues, bluegrass, ryegrass) can build up reserve strength for early green-up next spring. Apply a fertilizer with a nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium (NPK) ratio of 3:1:2 or 4:1:2 (for example, bags marked 6-2-4 or 8-2-4) according to directions. If you choose to use chemical weedkillers on your lawn, now's also the time to apply those systemic herbicide treatments to attack dandelions, clover, and many other weeds. Why? As perennials, these plants store up nutrients in their roots for winter, and treatments applied now will be more effective. Catching these weeds at the proper time minimizes the amount of weedkillers you'll use in the future. (As always, be sure to follow label directions with any herbicide.)

Ease back in: Herbs, geraniums, and other tender container-grown plants that have spent the summer outdoors need attention before you bring them back inside. First, inspect them for disease or insects--you don't want to bring infected plants indoors. Wash off your plants with insecticidal soap and the hose to knock off dirt and small insects. Let plants dry off, and then bring them inside for a few hours every day over the course of a week or so. Gradually increase the amount of time plants spend inside until your plants are acclimated to indoor conditions again. If your plant needs cutting back, now is a good time.

August Tips for you Garden

August is still holiday month for many people and while you are away your plants may need some attention, if you have a neighbour or friend who can give your plants some water in hot weather all the better. Failing this, wood chippings or peat spread around the plant roots, then soaked with water will help prevent too much moisture evaporating during a hot summer day.

If you have plants in the greenhouse, they must have regular attention. Tomatoes especially must be watered on a regular basis, in fact irregular watering will cause the fruit to split.

Now is the time to pinch out the centre shoot of your tomato plants, in order to concentrate the plants growing energy on filling out the existing tomatoes, rather than producing more growth and more flowers.

Bedding plants should be covered in flowers at the moment and to maintain this show they must be fed with a liquid feed. Read the directions as to application because overfeeding can encourage too much leaf growth, rather than flowers. Hanging baskets and tubs need a weekly feed, the feed in the compost will now be exhausted and being confined to a container the plant is unable too send out roots to gather nutrients from the surrounding area.

Always remove the dead flowers on your bedding plants and other decorative plants, if they are left to go to seed the plants will stop flower production before the summer is over.

Daffodils and other spring bulbs are best planted this month, give the ground a good deep digging and try to mix some form of food into the soil, farm yard manure is best but failing that a good general fertiliser will give you flowers to be proud of in the spring. Winter flowering pansies can be sown in the greenhouse, but be warned, do not keep the young plants inside any longer than is absolutely necessary or they will develop long lush growth in the summer heat. The winter pansy plants that you buy from the garden centre are treated with special dwarfing compounds to restrict early growth.

Finally, to give a bumper crop, it is essential that you give your runner beans plenty of water at this time of year.

July Tips for your Garden

At this time of year lawns take heavy punishment, and a little time spent on maintenance will pay big dividends. If there is any moss in the lawn this can be removed with a lawn rake also pull out any perennial weeds. Then apply any of the proprietary brands of lawn fertiliser; carefully follow the directions on the box with regard to application. This will then give you a lawn to be proud of right into the autumn.

Rock plants (Alpines) and herbaceous perennials can be grown from seed at this time of year, most types are relativly easy to grow and seeds are cheap. You can also root cuttings, taken from established plants, but this is perhaps best left to the more experienced.

Soft fruit is much in vogue at this time of the year; unfortunately the birds seem to think that the fruit is there for their consumption. A readily available bird-scarer, which can be hung in surrounding trees, are the CD disks which daily pop through our letter box. These reflect the light and flash in the breeze. I even use one as a shaving mirror.

Early July is the time to plant out your late cauliflower, cabbage and brussel sprout plants. Prepare the ground well, remember that vegetable plants are gross feeders, so mix plenty of feed into the soil. Also remember to dust the stems with an anti cabbage root fly preparation soon after planting. Cabbage root fly lay their eggs in the stem, then the hatching maggots eat their way down to the roots and by eating the roots destroy the plant.

There are several brands of cabbage root fly killers on the market for gardeners, widely available at garden centres and other such retail outlets. See application help guide on the box.

Roses, remove all flowers that are finished, if you allow them to produce seed pods the plant will not be able to produce more flowers, instead using all its energy to produce seeds. Also remove any flower buds that are failing to open and rotting, these buds can harbour disease.

In the greenhouse, temperatures can reach great heights at this time of the year, so shading must be introduced. There are many types of shading materials available at retail outlets, and are easy to fit. You can also buy automatic devices to open the the glasshouse windows, thermostatically controlled fans are also available. These devices are of great value where the owner is away at work in the middle of the day.

Summer is a busy time in the garden. 

Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

       On trees you may remove limbs to repair a broken branch now - however summer is not a good time for general pruning.

        Mulching to conserve moisture when it is hot and dry is very important for newly planted trees.  But, remember not to let the mulch pack against the tree trunks.

        Guard your trees against borer attacks, as well as other damaging insects, by being extremely careful when mowing or using a power trimmer.  Take care not to hit or damage the bark as this may create an entrance for insect and disease.

        Always cut flowers correctly.  Cut above a joint where a five-leaflet originates to encourage strong new shoots and blossoms to form.

        Don't forget that hanging baskets will need more water during hot weather.  Soak them thoroughly, then water again only when the surface is dry - take care not to overwater.

        Early morning is the best time to water.  Watering at night encourages disease on plants. 

        Cut summer grasses regularly to prevent browning.  You will remove the green part, leaving only brown stems, if you wait until the grass is tall before cutting.  

        It is important to cut grasses to the proper height.  Listed is the type of grasses with the correct height:

with one cutting, you may end up with only brown stems.

Continue to prune spring flowering shrubs after flowers fade.

Visit your local Garden Centers for those plants that you were not able to start yourself earlier.

Harden off summer bedding plants in early May. Do not place outside if there is still risk of frost in colder areas. With this strange weather be cautious. In mild areas plant summer-flowering plants that have already been hardened off.

GENERAL YARD & GARDEN CARE:

Many gardeners plant useful vegetable gardens OR beautiful fragrant flower gardens. Try combining the two by planting nasturtium and marigold in with your vegetables OR herbs around your flower garden.

Plant lily-of-the-valley or other flowering bulbs around the trunks of your trees to enhance it's natural beauty.

Create a colorful border by planting corn with Strawflower instead of building a fence.