Out back, in the garden...
Publisher's Picks
Featured Article
Monthly Tip List
Things that make you go hmmmm...
Closing Comments
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Garden Notes Archives
WELCOME !!
Out back, in the garden...
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I still don't have any potatoes in the ground this year!
It's been such a wet spring here where I live! We've been working on a
driveway at our home, I'll do anything to keep the mud off everyone's
shoes. I've gotten to the point, with three teenagers, that I've gotten
the nickmame... mud mamma... cute huh?
Don't forget, it's time to start hardening off all those beautiful seedlings
you've been so diligently working on for the last few months! Depending on
where you live, it's ALMOST FULL BLOWN GARDENING SEASON!!! YIPPEEEE!!
I've posted an article about insects, because as sure as the tempuratures rise
so will the insect population. We can fight and curse, or we can realize that
nothing works quite as well without them.
PUBLISHER'S PICK
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When I was growing up in Oklahoma, my dad had a strawberry patch JUST LIKE this!!
I was so excited when I found one, already made to order... You can order it too, or
make one by looking at it.
We had strawberries out the wazzoo the way her grew them. Of course, there weren't
enough to freeze....
Grow Strawberries in a Small Space
The Berry Terrace is only 6 feet in diameter, but its ingenious 3-tier design gives
you enough growing space for over a bushel of delicious, juicy berries. It assembles
easily without tools and includes a sprinkler system~ I though it was a pretty good value!
- Makes it easy to grow your own strawberries.
- Includes sprinkler system!
- Strong aluminum frames are self-locking.
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FEATURED ARTICLE
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Benefit and Value of Insects
Insects need to be studied carefully to distinguish the beneficial from
the harmful. People have often gone to great trouble and expense to destroy
quantities of insects, only to learn later that the insect destroyed was
not only harmless but was actually engaged in saving their crops by eating
destructive insects. Most entomologists have had correspondents send in
the larvae of lady beetles with the complaint that they were injuring plants;
at the same time overlooking the smaller aphids which were causing the
injury and which these larvae were continually devouring.
Insects are beneficial to the gardener in several ways:
- Insects aid in the production of fruits, seeds, vegetables,and flowers,
by pollinizing the blossoms. Most common fruits are pollinized by insects.
Melons, squash, and many other vegetables require insects to carry their
pollen before fruits set. Many ornamental plants, both in the greenhouse
and out of doors, are pollinated by insects for example, chrysanthemums,
iris, orchids, and yucca.
- Parasitic insects destroy other injurious insects by living on or in
their bodies and their eggs. Insects also act as predators, capturing and
devouring other insects.
- Insects destroy various weeds in the same ways that they injure crop
plants.
- Insects improve the physical condition of the soil and promote its
fertility by burrowing throughout the surface layer. Also, the dead bodies
and droppings of the insects serve as fertilizer.
- Insects perform a valuable service as scavengers by devouring the bodies
of dead animals and plants and by burying carcasses and dung.
Many of the benefits from insects enumerated above, although genuine,are
insignificant compared with the good that insects do fighting among
themselves. There is no doubt that the greatest single factor in keeping
plant-feeding insects from overwhelming the rest of the world is that they
are fed upon by other insects. It is easy to see how the industry of insects
and their devotion to purpose, when coupled with almost unlimited numbers,
can benefit us when they seek and devour myriads of pests scattered over
a farm or a forest.
(Excerpted from The Virginia Gardener Handbook, Diane Relf, Editor.
Department of Horticulture, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0327.)
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M O N T H L Y G A R D E N R E M I N D E R S
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HELP ANOTHER GARDENER OUT!
If you have any interesting gardening tips that you would like to share,
You may do so at HERE
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO Hmmm
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Did you know that the word "listen" contains the same letters as the word "silent"?
Hmmmmmmm....
Maybe that's why we have TWO ears and ONE mouth!
C L O S I N G C O M M E N T S
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Until next month, remember the word of Suzanne Necker....
Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them.
Let GardenSimply help you with a plan of action
for YOUR garden every month!
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