This Saturday, May 19, we’ll be at Des Moines’ Blank Park Zoo for Gardening & Conservation Adventure Day!! YAY!
Come out & see us, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m., and do a fun free activity. Hint: it’ll be something you can plant at home and the activity includes HydroSave.
Here’s the full lineup of the Zoo’s adventure days. (The gardening one will be the best of course!)
When I was at a garden center last week I asked about the stack of onion crates by the door. “Ahh, we were going to throw them out but you can have them if you want,” was the answer I got.
So I threw them in my car with glee, already envisioning what I’d do with them.
When I got them home I could see one box was too far gone so it got tossed. Then I glued landscape fabric into the bottom of the other two.
I sprinkled in some pea gravel, added compost and filled with potting soil. I sprinkled HydroSave over the topsoil. And in I tucked my plants. A random mix of colors and textures give it the c’est la vie look I was going for.
Every time I see them on my porch, with all my other planters, they make me smile!
What have you turned into a planter?
Happy mother’s day!!We hope you’re all enjoying some quality time with the important women in your life. Whether she’s your mom, your mother-in-law, your wife, your sister, your grandma, your aunt, etc. — let her know how much her love & devotion means to you!
We salute all you hard-working, always-loving moms and thank you for all you do! Consider this a virtual bouquet in gratitude. Enjoy your day!
My suburb has its own monthly magazine and the latest issue has a feature on local folks who love doing lawn care. I was pleased to see the intro letter from the editor who smartly reminded readers to follow application instructions on lawn and garden products. Yet when I got to the main story I was horrified to read one of the ways this man keeps his yard so nice is to apply fertilizers FIVE times a year, even though the product labels recommend 1-2 times. He also turns on his sprinkler every morning.
5X application means this man is adding WAY more than he needs AND helping it wash away. The “a little is good, a lot is better” rule is NOT true when it comes to fertilizers. Not only could over-application hurt your lawn and garden, it will most likely just runoff into local water sources. Causing water pollution kills good biology in local rivers and streams. Those all flow eventually to the Mississippi, gulf, ocean, etc. Fertilizer runoff is a serious issue. (Here’s a nice article on runoff from K-State.)
Of course we recommend using organic nutrients and fertilizers for safety & health reasons. But whether you are applying organic, conventional or both, the application directions are VERY important!
So what is this?
We’ve talked before about how various weeds indicate various issues in your soil. But what do you do when you don’t know what the weed IS?
I re-seeded an area of my lawn this spring that’d been destroyed by a skidloader during a fall project. Now I have all these little invaders in that portion of the yard — they must’ve been in the seed bag. But I don’t know what they are so I’m pulling/digging but would like to know how best to amend my soil to counteract them.
I stumbled across a very cool tool though for just this kind of dilemma — the Better Homes & Gardens’ weed ID guide! It has 34 common weeds, photo and details. Very helpful!
Also, this is a Weed ID guide that helps you narrow down what the weed could be by category.
Happy May Day to you!
Today kicks off my favorite month of the year. May is usually a very vibrant, colorful, blooming month here in Iowa; usually the time when it finally feels like sunny spring.
Make your own May Day basket and deliver to friends. What’d be better than a basket of blooming lovelies and candy on your porch?
They’re slimy, gooey, ooey, ugly and moist. If you have slugs in your garden, you are probably looking for a way to get rid of them. Below are some obvious ways to get rid of slugs, as well as some alternatives you may not have heard of before. Enjoy, and good luck fighting those nasty creatures!
Beverages: Apparently slugs like to drink a lot of the same stuff as humans. Put beer traps and coffee out in the evening and you will find a collection of swimming slugs by morning.
Plants: Some plants that are known to deter slugs are wormwood, rue, fennel, anise rosemary, ginger, garlic, mint, chives, red lettuce, red cabbage, sage, sunflower, fennel, foxglove, mint, chicory and endive. Garden Guides recommends planting them around your garden as barriers against the slugs.
Other types of barriers that work as natural ways to repel slugs are hair, sandpaper and vinegar.
Animals: Some animals love slugs as much as you hate them. If you have room for a few extra pets, get a few chickens and/or ducks; they love to eat slugs! Toads and rove beetles have also been known to eat slugs in large quantities. But if you’re like me, toads and beetles are just as bad as slugs. So I’d stick with the chickens and ducks.
Elements: Cu and Na, otherwise known as copper and salt. Many gardeners have had success deterring slugs by placing copper wire or even pennies around their plants. You can also get rid of slugs naturally with products comprised of flexible copper strands that make it easy to wrap around the base of plants to protect them from slugs and snails. And, if you’d like to give salt a try, you can scatter it around your garden as well.
Food: Lemon, oranges and grapefruit rinds do well at attracting slugs. Place citrusy foods out at night and round up all the slugs in the morning. Hazelnut shells are also said to deter slugs.
With slugs, many people get so grossed out that they want to yell and scream and call the exterminator right away. BE WARNED: Aside from getting rid of slugs naturally, there are dangerous chemicals frequently used to deter slugs. These chemicals are only effective because they are extremely hazardous. They kill slugs because they are capable of putting your child in the hospital if ingested orally. Natural methods of controlling slugs are just as effective as toxic chemicals. So when looking for ways to handle your slug problem, be wary of the following ingredients:
That’s it for my list of ways to get rid of slugs naturally. If you have any other suggestions or thoughts, please let us know!
About the author: Nate Armstrong is a 20 year old guy that lives and works in his yard regularly. He uses Orbit irrigation parts for all his big projects. He’s no fan of pests, but enjoys learning and sharing ways of controlling them. You can keep up with Nate on Twitter and Google+.
One of the most popular questions I get from customers, especially in the spring, is “I have dandelions. How do I get rid of them?”
Really the question should be “I have dandelions. What is causing that?”
Dandelions are often a big red flag that your soil has compaction problems. The dandelion’s long taproot can dig deep down to find available nutrients so this is an ideal setting for the weed.
By adding in good nutrients to your soil and addressing your compaction issues, you’ll have less of an ideal setting for these much-hated yellow-topped flowers!
We recommend using our HydroSave to add calcium and sulfur to your soil while building up your soil structure and reducing compaction.
I just saw a great infographic on Pinterest about pesticides and want to share it here. Here’s the blog that I originally found. They were sharing the graphic from ecomom.com. Here it is:
The #s are pretty scary, to me. I’m sharing it just as a matter of education – please consider the health effects of pesticides when growing your own food and when you purchase food. NatraTurf is all-organic, always safe, but we obviously don’t make every garden product available so we encourage folks to find similarly minded companies & products for healthy growing!