Is Gardening With Tires Bad For The Environment?

Question: I have read many articles that suggest using old tires for container gardening. My father is considering making a vegetable garden out of tires. Does the tire pollute the soil and there fore the vegetables? I it is bad to burn tires.. Should I be concerned about the quality of the vegetables? Have you seen any scientific evidence about this topic? Or environmental tests?

Answer: If you already have the tires – I say use ’em. Don’t burn them, however. I can’t imagine there is any concern about the quality of the veggies since what that really depends on is the soil you put them in and how you fertilize etc. They make rubber mulch these days – probably from old tires…

One critter warning – if you are not going to turn the tires inside out to eliminate the ridges, or if you are going to “store” tires, I would give you a caveat about mosquitoes who LOVE to breed in the little bit of water that usually sits in those ridges. Make sure the tires are packed tight with soil. If you don’t have tires already, I don’t see an advantage to this method over any other raised bed method.

There are lots of unanswered questions that would help determine what the best garden situation is for you :

• Do you want raised beds because you have trouble up and down? If that is the case, build a box (make the bottom out of screening and landscape fabric so water will flow through) and set it on top of some table legs or horses.
• Or is it because you only have a little bit of space? Container gardening is easily done with vegetables. See the book Movable Harvest for really great ideas. You can use pretty much anything you can put a drainage hole in (provided it didn’t have chemicals in it first!).

Personally, I think anytime you are recycling something for a good use it is worthwhile – but for the love of God – PLEASE don’t buy new tires to try this project out!

Just in case you DO have a bunch of tires laying around, I attached a link to a site that has many ideas for using them up in the garden.

Good luck to you and your dad! 🙂

What Must I Do When I Start Seeds for Garden Indoors?

Question: I have five little jiffy green houses that you can purchase in the garden center. In it I put the seeds down with the soil. How moist must I keep them to germinate? What else must I know ?

Answer: You want moist but not soggy. You water the soil well so that it is nice and damp but not so wet that you could squeeze water out. Then you plant the seeds and put on the lid. Keep the greenhouse in a warm place. Some seeds, like tomatoes, like to have very warm soil to sprout. They don’t have to be in direct sunlight at this point. You may not have to add any more water as the lid keeps everything moist. When the seeds sprout, or most of them, you can remove the lid. After they sprout they will need more light and moisture and good air circulation to keep them strong and prevent damping off. A grow light or old fashioned fluorescent light kept close to the plants will promote leafy growth and will prevent them from getting ‘leggy’.

How Do I Get My Garden Ready?

Question: Alright, so i just got some peas and pumkins to plant in my garden. However, this garden hasnt been used in a while, lets say about 2 years. It had once very rich soil, but now, grass, and weeds have taken over! How can i get my garden ready again? If you do not know very well how to do it, some instructional videos or just plain old links on how to do it would also be very appreaciated. Best answer for the most infromation.!!! Ty!

Answer: Well, you could just buy a square shovel, edge out the area you want to plant in and get rid of about 1 inch of weed/grass and soil. By throwing this grass and soil somewhere else (woods, compost etc) you can then add bags of good healthy soil on top.
Also, invest in a little “Quick Start” for your seeds. It’s from Miracle Grow. IT’s fantastic!

How Do I Start A Garden In My Backyard?

Question: Im 14 years old, (I’ll be 15 years old on Sunday, Feb. 25th) and I am wanting to start a garden from scratch this summer.
I would like to grow raspberries, and any pretty flowers that will grow in a kinda sunny and shady area.
I don’t know anything about gardening, not even when to start on, so if you could please give me some advice and tips for my garden, I would be very grateful… Thanks!

Answer: Be sure to pick an area that will get plenty of sunshine, areas with a lot of trees are not good. Check the soil, if it is claylike and sticks to your hands a lot it will need conditioners, peat moss and bark mulch work well. You will need to till the soil, you can probably rent a rototiller for $8-20 per hour from a local rental agency, talk a relative into it, or hire an odd job worker. Next you will pick your plants, plants with small seeds should be purchased from a nursery (tomatoes, peppers) You can plant some small seeded items early, such as carrots (they are the exception you can plant them in rows, you do not purchase them as plants). Get some cucumbers, squash, melons, pumpkins, and lots of tomatoes, these are all easy to grow. The best watering system is drip or soaker hoses, but a frogeye sprinkler will also work, be sure to water in the morning or night if using a sprinkler. Plant in rows, water regularly, and watch your vegetables grow, it’s great fun. Don’t slack on the weed pulling. Use mulch to cut down on the work.

How Should I Separate My Small Garden From My Grass?

Question: No experience with gardening!! I just bought a house with a small (4′ x 3′) garden in the backyard. Right now the garden is empty but I hope to get some flowers & bushes in soon. Do I need to separate the garden from the surrounding grass with some sort of barrier so they don’t grow into each other? Or will the roots of the plants keep each other from overgrowing? Secondly, I am looking for a hardy ground-covering type plant that grows with minimal care and perhaps has some nice flowers. Any suggestions?

Answer: If it was me I’d want to put in a barrier to prevent the grass from constantly encroaching on the garden. The ditch and landscape timbers can work, but more effective barriers would be:

• tear off the sod around the garden spot (about a foot width) and a little deeper than just the sod. Then line with plastic (heavy duty plastic garbage bags work just fine, make sure to do a good job of overlapping the plastic. Then fill with rock…I find that works really well for many years
• find a good edging… find something that will go down into the ground about 8inches. Don’t get the 4″ stuff…it’s just not enough. Find any kind of edging or material that will let you put a wall down into the ground about 8″ and that should prevent things from going into your garden.

As another poster said, 4′ x 3′ is a very small garden…you will not be able to do much with it. Most plants get big fast! 🙂

Have fun and get luck!

Has anyone OVER-pruned their tomato plant?

Question: Has anyone done OVER-pruned their tomato plants before? I’m hoping the crazy leaves will start growing back, since they were growing so quickly. Also, the fruits are almost to the point of ripening, so maybe I will get at least one harvest?

Answer: As long as you left enough foliage for the plant to still be able to photosynthesis then it should live. It just depends on how much you pruned.  If you pruned like 70 or 80% of the foliage then it might not make it. If you have some tomatoes that are getting close to ripening you may get to harvest those. What the plant will do from here on out depends on how much foliage is left.

Can You Start A Garden On Top Of A Preexisting Garden?

Question: We had a small vegetable garden and a few months ago some major life things happened so we completely forgot about our garden. What I was wondering, is do we need to pull up all of the dead plants or can we just bury them there? Would this nutritionalize the soil or would it just be better to pull them all up?

Answer: If the plants were diseased you may have to start anew. You should pull up the dead plants and throw them away. This is important because some disease can live in the soil for many years. You must also before you take any action, you should identify what the problem is. (I.E. Is it Root Root (Phytophthora?, Nematodes?) But if you know that it is free of these pest then you can put it over but generally, you want to removes the previous plants. If you don’t then you run the risk of re infecting the plants. Nothings to stop you from doing that, however. But if You want to, you can experiment with a crop and see what happens then and take the steps to prevent. The reason is I suggest crop rotation if you must plant in the same space again as some “pests” cannot survive in the host’s absence. The key her is prevention and it will save you a lot down the road. Keep the plants healthy and you should do fine. Good Luck!

Tips on Protecting Your Soil in Your Garden

Here are some soil-wise ideas that will help keep your garden healthy and productive:

• If your garden is on a slope, plant the vegetable rows along the contour, rather than up and down the slope. This will help slow down water runoff and decrease the rate of soil erosion.
• Plant different crops in different places in your garden each year. For example, a plot used for growing tomatoes one year is used for planting beans the following year. Rotating crops balances the uptake of valuable nutrients from the soil and keeps your plants strong and healthy.
• Spread mulch around your garden plants using compost or grass clippings to help reduce erosion, keep moisture in the soil , suppress weed growth, and add nutrients.
• A good way to create a mulch and enrich your soil is by making a compost pile. Construct a small bin beside your garden plot to hold the composting material. Fill it with alternating layers of organic material (i.e. grass clippings, dead leaves, and plant stalks and hulls) and garden soil . Keep moist and turn the compost pile regularly to aerate it. This helps speed up the natural decaying process. A good compost will create a rich fertile mulch for your garden.
• Minimize the spraying of poisonous insecticide in your garden, by letting certain types of plants and insect-eating animals control pests. Some plants, such as marigolds and onions, contain chemicals that repel pesty bugs. Toads, ladybugs, praying mantises, and other insect-eating animals can also help control pest populations in your garden.

Planting Roses on Your Garden: A Tips

Historically, roses have been a favorite plant in the garden, grown for the beautiful flowers they produce. The ease or difficulty in growing roses depends on the class of plant selected. More recently, the hardier shrub roses have gained popularity because of their landscape value and hardiness in the Kansas climate. Shrub and carpet roses are grown on their own root (not grafted) and have relatively few disease problems. They do not need supplemental winter protection. Maintaining 2 to 3 inches of mulch is sufficient. Shrub roses grow to 2 to 4 feet, and carpet roses grow to 18 inches. Spring pruning of dead or damaged tips is all that is required. There are two general groups of roses: the bush form and climbing type. Bush-type roses have several classifications and many species and varieties.
Hybrid tea roses. The most outstanding flower performance is found on grafted, hybrid varieties that come in a wide range of colors. Most are fragrant. These plants are semi-hardy and require winter protection. They are susceptible to aphids and black spot. The plants grow 2 to 5 feet tall. The blooms are borne on single-flower stems and make excellent cut flowers. This group has also been called a monthly rose because it does not bloom continually.
Floribunda roses. Floribunda roses refer to a shorter rose bush with large clusters of flowers. Floribundas are very hardy and require less care. The flowers may be single or double, and the shrub ranges from 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 feet tall. Included in this group are other classifications of roses. The Polyanthas are low-growing continuous blooming roses with flower clusters at the tips of the plant. Shrub roses are a miscellaneous group of wild rose cultivars that are vigorous, hardy, dense bushes, resistant to most common rose diseases and insects. Heritage roses are a classification of old roses developed in the 19th century.
Grandiflora roses. Grandiflora roses have characteristics of both hybrid tea and floribunda roses. Grandiflora roses grow 3 to 5 feet tall and bear five to seven blooms in a candelabra-like arrangement on each long stem. They make excellent cut flowers and bloom more frequently than the hybrid teas. Grandifloras must be monitored for insects and disease, and they require winter protection.
Climbing roses. Climbing roses produce vigorous canes up to 20 feet long. They need a support structure to keep them upright and produce showers of clustered roses.

10 “Must Have” Tools for Gardeners Community

Gardeners may not agree on the best mulch or the perfect fertilizer, but there’s one thing that every gardener agrees on: when it comes time to purchase tools, buy the best. Quality garden tools are an investment that yield dividends over time. Here are the top 10 gardening tools every community garden should own:

1. Trowel.  A well-made trowel is your most important tool. From container gardening to large beds, a trowel will help you get your plants into the soil. Essential for everyone.
2. Hand Fork or Claw or Cultivator.  A hand fork helps cultivate soil, chop up clumps, and work amendments into the soil. A hand fork is necessary for cultivating in closely planted beds.
3. Hoe. A long-handled hoe is a gardener’s best friend. Keeping weeds at bay is the purpose of this useful tool. Hoe heads come in all different shapes and sizes and every gardener swears by a different one.
4. Secateurs (aka Hand pruners ).  Invest in a pair of quality pruners, such as Felco, which is clearly a cut above. There are different types and sizes depending upon the type and size of the job. Secateurs are for cutting small diameters, up to the thickness of your little finger ;-). Anything larger and you need loppers.
5. Watering can. A watering can creates a fine even stream of water that delivers with a gentleness that won’t wash seedlings or sprouting seeds out of their soil.
6. Fork. You can’t dig and divide perennials without a heavy-duty fork (and some dividing methods even suggest you own two!).
7. Shovels & Spades. There are several different types and shapes of shovels and spades, each with their own purpose. There are also different types of hand holds for either—a “D” shape, a “T” shape, or none at all. They are a requisite tool for planting large perennials, shrubs, and trees, breaking ground, moving soil, leaves, just about anything.  The sharper the blade, the better.
8. Wheelbarrow. Wheelbarrows come in all different sizes (and prices). They are indispensable for hauling soil, compost, plants, mulch, hoses, tools…everything you’ll need to garden.
9. Gloves  Unless you want to wear your favorite hobby under your nails, use gloves. Leather gloves hold up best. If you have roses, get a pair that resist thorn pricks.
10. Hose. This is the fastest way to transport lots of water. Consider using drip irrigation hoses or tape.

Well, I think that’s enough for now.. happy gardening ^_^