Image via WikipediaYou will be rewarded in many ways – financial, spiritual and physical - when you choose to plant your own backyard vegetable garden. Once you eat some of the vegetables that you planted and nurtured with your own two hands and discover how tasty they are, you will never want to eat store bought again. Best of all, your garden will likely produce more vegetables than you could possibly eat so you could share the bounty with your friends, which makes for a tasty gift!

Vegetable Reward #1

One of the best rewards of a backyard vegetable garden concerns the savings you will receive at the grocery store when you don’t have to pay their exorbitant pricing on their fresh vegetables. Your vegetables will be so fresh and tasty that you could pull them up or pluck them from the vine as you need them. This element is not something you will come close to in a grocery store retail chain as those vegetables are sometimes picked a few days before they are ready due to the ripening process during shipping.

Vegetable Reward #2

The second reason why a backyard vegetable garden works is it could become an entire family affair, a project everyone could work on for some quality time together. Jobs could be split up between the adults and children and the children could learn about the growing process and how to tell when the vegetables are ready to be picked.  In addition, children who would normally scoff and turn their noses up on vegetables may actually eat what they grow – and with enthusiasm too! Therefore, the health of your family will get a great boost from the vitamins and minerals cultivated in your backyard vegetable garden.

Vegetable Reward #3

One of the best things about a backyard vegetable garden is the fact that sometimes, it produces more than you can eat. You could share the excess with your friends or learn how to can or freeze them for future consumption. If you choose to freeze or can your excess vegetables, you could essentially end up with “fresh” vegetables virtually all year long! Most people prefer eating their own bounty from their backyard vegetable garden even frozen or canned in comparison with the paler fresh vegetables you may find off-season in the grocery stores.

When fresh and healthy is the name of the game in your family, a backyard vegetable garden is the best scenario for your family. Cruise your garden center’s vegetable seed and plant aisles and start planning your garden today so you’ll have fresh vegetables in the future.

Whether you have a backyard vegetable garden or a flower garden they need watering.

Plants are approximately 90% water and therefore it is essential that they get enough water to survive. Backyard gardening is all about balance and that applies to the amount of water your plants need to stay healthy.

Over watering can be as harmful as not giving them enough water.
The soil that the plants are growing in is a big factor in the amount of water that you should be giving them.

If the soil is heavy and doesn’t drain well you will need to give them less water or they could get water logged and the roots can rot.
If the soil is a lot freer draining then you might need to water a little more often.

Too much water can reduce the plants ability to draw oxygen and nutrients from the soil and this is as essential to their growth as the water.

Gentle watering is better than heavy watering with a hose as the higher pressure of the hose can cause the soil to turn to mud. Once the soil dries out again it will become solidified. This compacting of the soil after heavy watering makes it more difficult for the plants to grow.

Soakers are a good method of watering provided the flow of water is not too great.

Soakers are also excellent when using a timed irrigation system so that the plants get sufficient water when you are away and particularly in the hotter months of the year when the soil tends to dry out more often.

If you are using timed irrigation you will need to adjust the timing and the flow of water according to the seasons and always make changes when there have been unseasonal changes to the weather that will require extra care for the plants.

Once again, plants need the human touch to maintain that balance.

When one thinks of an antique, a rose might not immediately come to mind. But antique roses have been around for centuries. Shakespeare used the word ‘eglantine’ when speaking of the rose in his sonnets and plays. Eglantine is described in the dictionary as a European rose with sweet-scented leaves and pink flowers.

If you aren’t familiar with the word ‘emporium’, it means a large store with a wide variety of things for sale. There are antique rose emporiums to delight rose growers. You can buy an antique rose already rooted from a rose emporium.

How does one prepare to grow an antique? First choose an area that allows for several hours of morning sunlight. It is best to give the plant room for healthy air movement as the bush will grow and develop. Break the soil well; a tiller is helpful should you desire to plant many plants in one area. It’s better to have rich soil in which to grow your antique. The antique will do better if you add good quality organic material and if the soil has proper drainage.

When does one prepare the area for planting the antique? It’s best to prepare in the spring or summer if you live in a southern climate. When you are new to planting, it is an easy assumption that all planting should be done in the spring. But it depends on the climate of the area where you live. If you are buying seeds, there are usually helpful maps on the back of the seed packets to use as a guide. If you are buying from a nursery, be sure to ask there. Of course, you could always try looking it up online or going to the local library or enlisting the advice of an established gardener.

How long can you keep an antique in a container before planting outdoors? If needed, you can keep an antique in a container for several months. You’ll want to give them more attention than once you get them established outdoors. Remember to fertilize and water frequently—and don’t forget proper drainage and air flow around the plants!

Should you add mulch to your antique roses? A true-blue gardener would gasp at the neglect to add mulch! It cuts down on weeds. This may seem strange since it aids the growth of one type of plant and inhibits the growth of another. Mulching also means less stress to your roots from the heat.

How often would one water an antique? It helps to deep-soak your antique once a week—that means saturating the ground in which you have planted your rose. Several hours or overnight should do the trick. This is where it is extremely helpful to have a soaker hose for soaking more than one plant at once.

An antique rose is not disease free, but it is disease resistant. It’s still important to watch for insect or other damage. Should you spray, it is preferable to use a mild fungicide. If in doubt, read the labels on the product carefully. Prune your antique lightly and respectfully. It won’t bloom well if the new growth has to endure damage from heat or frost.

Image via WikipediaI had a question from a new reader.

Karen, desperate to save her flowers asks how to deal with hungry rabbits that find her flowers quite tasty.

Nothing is more disheartening that to look at how well your flowers are doing just before you go to bed and then wake up to find that rabbits have chewed up everything and stripped the bark from most of your shrubs before leaving.

We haven’t run into to this yet as we live in the middle of our city, but if we see deer here every once in a while it won’t surprise me to see a few bunnies around.

I will give you a couple of cheap alternatives to rabbit repellents which tend to be expensive.

1. Ammonia sprayed around the perimeter at dusk will keep them away.

2. Make a pepper spray using cayenne pepper and water. I used the same thing to get my son’s dog to stop digging up the yard.

You may have to do this periodically as the old rabbits may learn to stay away but the newest once still need to be taught a lesson.

Image by …Tim via FlickrIf by chance you are using a weed killer and it accidentally gets on to your plants you should hose it off immediately. The sooner you can do this the less chance of damage affecting the condition of your plant.

Sometimes while we are spraying elsewhere a wind can carry the spray to other plants and it won’t be until sometime later that the damage from this appears.

This damage will appear as leaves that have become smaller, narrowed and twisted.

Once this damage is seen there is nothing that can be done other than to remove the damaged portions of the plant and hope that more damage will not occur over the following days. Often a plant will recover if it has only received a light residual amount of weed killer that has blown over from a breeze.

It really depends on how much weed killer it was exposed to and how big, or how durable the plant it.
Some plants are a lot more susceptible to weed killer than others and only a small amount of exposure to this will be enough to kill the plant.

You really need to take care when using weed killer to ensure that none of it drifts to areas where it shouldn’t be.
Only use weed killer when there is no wind and hold the sprayer close to the weeds so it will only go on them and nowhere else.

It is also wise to have dedicated containers for weed killer and other sprays in the garden as residual weed killer left in a container that you would use for other things in the garden could ruin your plants. f it is not possible to have more than one container for poison and another for other garden sprays then you should always ensure that you clean it thoroughly after use to remove all the poison.