10 Simple Tips for a Successful Vegetable Garden Planning

There are always new things to try in the garden in the quest for for more harvest with less effort and anything which saves a little time, increases your chances of success or saves money is worth considering.

Here are our top ten gardening hacks Turn a long-handled tool into a measuring stick. Lay the tool on the ground and place a tape measure next to it.

Using a permanent marker, write measurement marks onto the handle. When you need to space plants a certain distance apart, you'll already have a measuring device in your hand. Rejuvenate old plastic labels by rubbing with sandpaper. Permanent marker will be rubbed away quite easily and you'll get several years of use out of them. Or, make your own labels. Used, clean yogurt pots can be cut into strips to make several labels from one pot.

Old broken roof tiles make attractive markers by labeling with white paint or, for a more natural look, smooth flat stones of various sizes can be written on with paint or a permanent marker and can be placed unobtrusively at the base of your plants and reused each year. If you're all out of cloches and there's an unexpected frost forecast use a terracotta pot instead. Turn it upside down and pop it over your precious seedlings. It'll act as a warm jacket against a light frost. Don't forget to remove it in the morning so your plant can get the light it needs to grow. If you garden organically, the chances are that, come aphid season, you'll have them infest your plants.

Many gardeners tackle this by squishing them with their fingers - it's a messy job! You could try blasting them off with jets of water but this is time-consuming and uses lots of water. Instead, try using sticky tape.

Wrap a wide strip of tape around your hand, sticky side out, and pat the leaves of the plants infested with aphids. Concentrate on the undersides of leaves because that's where they like to hide. If you live in a hot area or have a particularly sunny spot in your garden you might find that thirsty plants like cucumbers and tomatoes dry out quickly without irrigation, reducing the crop or quality. Make water reservoirs out of plastic water bottles to keep your plants healthy. Drill a few small holes into the cap to allow water to percolate out. Cut the bottom off the bottle. Sink the upturned bottle into the pot or ground before planting, leaving about an inch poking above the surface of the soil. Keep the bottle filled and the plant roots will absorb the water as it's required. Reduce your water bill by reusing water from your kitchen. Save the water from boiled veggies and once it's cooled, use it to water your garden or your pots. If you use a plant-based dishwashing detergent, this water too can be used on your garden.

Don't use it if you've washed pots with lots of dairy or meat as you don't want these products in your soil. Some seeds like peas and sweet peas have a hard coating. Once planted out, it takes a while for this coating to break down and for germination to begin. Get a head start by soaking the seed you'll use in lukewarm water overnight then plant out as usual. Some vegetables, like beans and peas, don't like to have their roots disturbed so conventional wisdom is to plant them in situ, and not to plant out. This has some problems, as seeds can rot in cool soil and damaged plants will result in gaps. Bypass this by making your own pea and bean planters from cardboard tubes. Take a tube and make three cuts about a third of the way along the tube to make flaps. Push the flaps into the center and press to keep in place. Fill with potting soil and sow seeds as usual. Store the tubes in a tray to prevent the flaps from failing.

When ready for planting out, plant the seedling and tube as one. The cardboard will rot and the roots of your seedlings will find their way out. If you have a small garden, go vertical. There are many varieties of vegetables which will climb or trail. You can also make vertical planters for walls or fences. Start with guttering and cut to length. Drill small holes along the length to allow water to drain out. Install the recommended brackets and clip the guttering in place. Add a moisture-retentive growing medium, and with strawberries or salads - plants which don't mind the shallow soil. Keep it watered or install drip irrigation. Use garden planning software to help plan what you're going to grow and where.

Good planning reduces the risk of losing plants by sowing at the wrong time, spacing them incorrectly, or forgetting to rotate crops to reduce the likelihood of soil-borne pests and diseases from one year to the next. It would also help you to plan succession planting so you can quickly see where gaps will appear and have plants ready to fill those gaps, making sure you get as much food as possible from your space. What's your top gardening hack? Share it with us by leaving a comment in the box below and subscribe to our channel for more great gardening videos.

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3 Common Garden Planning Mistakes

 

 

In this article I'm going to discuss common mistakes it's easy to make when planning a vegetable garden, along with tips on how to avoid them. First up, is overcrowding. Although it sounds obvious, even experienced gardeners will tell you that every now and again, they succumb to the temptation to try to grow more in the space they have. Perhaps it's because seed packets typically come with generous quantities of seeds so it's tempting to raise more plants than you actually need. And when first planted, they'll look like they're growing perfectly well see you don't notice the issue straight away. It's only as the plants start to reach their full size that the problems start. 

As each plant's root system starts to compete with its neighbors for water and nutrients from the soil, the plants fail to mature properly, resulting in a disappointing harvest. To avoid this, make sure you use the recommended plant spacing, as shown here. If you're using our Garden Planner, it will automatically space plants along rows or in blocks, calculating how many will fit, and you can use the colored area around the plant to see how much space the roots require for good growth. Leave a little extra space if you have poor soil. And if you're using the Square Foot Gardening method, be sure to switch to SFG mode to see how many plants can fit into each square. 

 

The second common mistake is ignoring nature. It's tempting to imagine our gardens as miniature farms, with big areas of beautifully growing crops. This all sounds fine at the planning stage, but try it and it won't be long before pests such as aphids strike. They like nothing better than a large area of their favorite crops to eat. But a little forward planning can ensure that Mother Nature is on your side. For example, it's a good idea to mix in several different companion planting flowers which will attract beneficial insects such as hoverflies. When the pests descend, these natural predators will keep them at bay, and your plants will thank you. If pests strike early in your area, remember to include some of the early-flowering companions - a few onions, garlic, or carrots left in the ground from last year and allowed to flower provide an excellent first source of nectar to attract nature's defenders.

Scientific studies have shown that mixing up crop families - shown here by the different colored backgrounds - helps to confuse flying insect pests, but for some crops it's necessary to use further protective measures. For example, brassicas (plants in the cabbage family, which have green backgrounds) are a favorite plant for cabbage white butterflies to lay their eggs on under the leaves. When the caterpillars hatch, they can decimate your crops in a few days. To prevent this, many gardeners keep their crops together in one bed using netting or other protection over them to keep the butterflies off. Similarly, carrots are often covered with fine netting or fleece to prevent carrot fly. 

 

 

 

The third common mistake is planting everything at the same time. The old adage 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket' is good advice for vegetable gardeners. Planting out all your tender crops at once can be disastrous if there's a sudden late frost. Similarly, transplanting pea seedlings only to have birds or slugs eat them all is all too common. The best method is to sow seeds in small batches every or weeks. If you're using the Garden Planner, switch to the Plant List where the blue and green bars indicate the window of time during which you can make multiple sowings in your local area, and you'll receive email reminders every weeks. As well as ensuring you have backup options if disaster strikes, this has the added advantage of preventing gluts by spreading your harvest out over a longer period. 

The Plant List also shows the number of plants you need for each vegetable, which can be a real time and money saver helping you to raise just the right number of plants for the space you have. Of course, there's much more to gardening success than just these tips but by avoiding these common mistakes you'll give yourself the very best chance of success in your garden, and be off to a great start. .

Kitchen Cabinet Design Decisions

Choosing kitchen cabinets is generally one of the first steps in a kitchen renovation. It is important to think about these issues early in the planning process. Here are 5 factors to consider in selecting cabinets. Price. Most experts say kitchen cabinets account for about half of the total cost of kitchen renovations. Finish. What kind of finish do you want on your kitchen cabinets? Do you want a color, such as white or black? Do you want a wood finish - natural, maple, walnut, oak, cherry, or another wood? Do you want a glazed or a matte finish? Style. 

Will your kitchen be traditional, country or contemporary? Will it have a distinctly American, Southern, French, English, Old World or rustic flavor? Or, will you be happier with a more eclectic style? Door Styles. Your cabinets and drawers might have an overlay, a flat or a raised panel. Manufacturing style. The manufacturing style you choose might have the greatest impact on your budget. Knock-down. These are the least expensive kitchen cabinets.

You can usually take these cabinets home from the store the same day and assemble and install them yourself. If your project is on a tight budget, this is the best choice. Stock. Stock cabinets are mass-produced and are the most popular choice. They will be available in a limited number of woods, finishes styles and prices. They also will be available only in standard sizes. Semi-Custom. These cabinets are also only available in standard sizes. But there is more variety of styles, finishes, woods, accessories and accessibility and organizational options. Custom.

Custom cabinets are the most expensive. This type of cabinet is typically available only from cabinet makers. They are built to exact specifications in any size and with any modifications of style, inserts and size you require. Kitchen Cabinet Value hopes these seven buying considerations help you in selecting your new cabinets.

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Bringing More Wellness Into Your Life

If you don’t change anything, nothing will change.

FACT.

“Don’t be so negative!” I hear you cry.

This isn’t negative, it’s the truth!

Through The Law of Attraction we all draw into our lives experiences based on who we are and what we resonate with, it’s not magic or woo woo, it’s physics.

So if you are carrying around old wounds and beliefs from way back when someone betrayed you, told you that you weren’t good enough or scarred you in any way at all, then you are still sending out frequencies to the universe that are in alignment with these heart breaking moments in your past.
This means two things.

Firstly you are blocking your flow and you can’t bring in the good stuff that I KNOW you deserve.

Secondly you are going to bring in more stuff you don’t want, stuff that resonates with your old wounds and your inner victim.

I know you are not doing this on purpose, none of us do, but you don’t know what you don’t know right? That’s why I am sharing this. Now you know better, you can do better and you can look for ways to heal your past and change your focus.

If your life experience is not in alignment with what you really want then it’s your job to do something about it (and I don’t mean whining!). The universe rewards action, so whatever Wellness means to you, start making that your focus. Start eating better, sign up for that course you know you want to do, let go of the people that drain your energy, or any other suggestion that you know could bring a significant improvement into your life.

Do something your future self will thank you for, because unless you start changing, nothing will change, and I know that you are worthy.

What could you do to bring more Wellness into your life today?

See you on the happy bus!

Love Kate Spencer

Garden Design Formula 1

I am Rachel Mathews from Successful Garden Design. In this short video, I am going to show you the difference that design can make to a garden.

Now if you’re like most people, you’ve probably been led to believe by books, and magazines and garden centers that it’s the plants and features that really make a garden look wonderful, but that’s only true to a degree. Plants and features are the finishing touch to a great garden, they’re no the starting point.

Unless you have a good design structure in place first, you can spend all the money in the world and you won’t achieve really good results. In fact, I’d go as far as saying the more money you spend on your things for the garden, the more cluttered and disjointed the garden is going to look. Now as a professional garden designer, I am bound to say that design is the most important thing, but I want you to see this for yourself. So I am going to show you some example gardens, and then you can make up your own mind as to just how much difference design can make to a garden. So let’s start by looking at a fairly typical front garden. But if we look at what we did with the design, just a very simple, clean shape put in with a few cobbles, has made a tremendous difference.

It’s transformed something that’s just a regular shaped lawn and you’ve got something to look at that is complimentary to the front, it doesn’t need to be anything wildly fancy, but just a simple shape makes a dramatic difference. And then if we look at this property here, it just got box standard paving. If you put a little bit of design into it, here is what you can achieve. Now you know, if we just use decking or we just use paving on its own it wouldn’t have had the wow factor that mixing of the materials in a design way achieves.  And then this garden in Spain, you can see the wall is quite an angle here and that really is the most dominant feature. Now with a little bit of design put in, by rendering the walls, and creating these planters, it helps take your eye away from this wall here. And you can see a few years later when the planting is established even more, you barely notice the sloping side wall of the garden. And then here is it from another angle. And the design is what makes it interesting. You know if we just pop the plants in, without having the design shape in place, it really wouldn’t have been anywhere near as effective.

Now if we look at this garden with the awkward angles both on this wall and this wall, here is the difference design makes to that. So if we just put in a square deck or patio, it really wouldn’t have achieved what putting in a good design can do. Now this garden very  typical with just standard paving, and lawn and a few plants. Now the clients wanted a minimalist garden, but even so, design does make a big difference even with minimalist. You can suddenly see it all comes together just by the shapes we’ve used. And again, when you’re dealing with changes in level like this garden, it’s not very exciting, but when you put design in, you can actually change the shapes and positions of the retaining walls. And do all sorts of things with it. Again this here comes to design shapes and materials. And in this garden quite big on two different levels. Someone had already attempted on doing some landscaping with this path, but it didn’t really pull the garden together very well. So again putting in a design shape, a main lawn, and then putting in the landscaping, suddenly makes a dramatic difference.

And this simple cottage garden is nice enough in the summer when the lavenders were flowering, but the rest of the year it looked dull and uninteresting, but once the design is done, then it all come together. And just the few little design tips and tricks that are used to pull this together, makes all the difference. The long, narrow garden all lawn. Now the client didn’t want any lawn, they wanted completely low maintenance, and you can start to see it’s getting more interesting. And then a year or two later, when the plants have filled up, it all really comes together.

But it’s coming together because of the underlying design shapes that  he used within the garden. You see it needs the design layout because the planting is pinching in the key areas which makes the garden more interesting and wider. And these clients wanted a modern look garden. And they had a driveway running right the way down the side here to get to the garages at the back. So it was important the we help screen that and make it more interesting. So these design elements that you’re seeing here which i’ll explain more in the next video is really what makes a big difference when you’re wanting to create a stunning garden. It’s not all down to the planting, the planting is the finishing touch. So hope I’ve been able to demonstrate just how important design is in a garden. In the next video, I am going to show you what you can do yourself without needing to hire a professional garden designer.

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