Nasturtium Garden in a Pail
In any case should you have a green thumbed friend who is inclined to eat flowers you would probably make their day with this. They get a galvanized pail filled with everything they need to grow their own salad, stir fry veggies, or just something nice to look at. Just add water and give it some sunlight. The Garden in a Pail is available from Gardeners Supply Company for $37.95
Perhaps your better educated than I am (something I willing to concede as probable), but the very first thing I thought when I saw this product was: “What the heck is a Nasturtium”. If you knew already, don’t hold it against me. A quick trip to organicgardentips.com tells me that nasturtium is a flower, it’s a salad ingredient, and it’s used in stir fry. I was always taught as a child you don’t eat the flowers. Maybe that was just daisies.
Wednesday ~ October 10, 2007 by Steve W Posted in Container Gardening, Gardening Gifts for Women, Houseplants, Vegetables | Add Your Comments
Oxygenating Watering Can
The Oxygenating Watering Can holds a full gallon of water, uses very little electricity, and is available from Clean Air Gardening for $89.99The proof is in the results. University tests confirm that increasing the content of oxygen in the water you feed your plants results in larger flowers, more veggies, and overall healthier plants. When I first read about this thing I did a search on oxygenation of water and electrolysis and the science behind it and…Well, I’m going to leave that to the scientists. But the process to use this is simple enough. You fill it up with water, plug it in for about five minutes and water your plants with it. The design may be rocket science but using it surely is not.
Tuesday ~ October 10, 2007 by Steve W Posted in Container Gardening, Garden Tools | Add Your Comments
Rolling Pecan and Nut Picker Upper…It may not bring you the remote…
You can absolutely trust me when I tell you that there are better tools available for this job and they don’t cost near as much as a teenager. The savings on Xbox games alone…. After the failure of my original plan I started looking at tools to more efficiently pick up the pecans and I gotta say this is the coolest I’ve found so far. It is basically a wire spring ball on the end of a four foot long handle and it will pick up nuts whether you can see them or not (You know, in case you don’t have that fantasy golf course lawn), just by rolling it over them. It holds about two quarts of nuts before you empty it out and works for all kinds of things you might have that are roughly pecan size. It is available from Clean Air Gardening for $64.99I have several pecan trees in my yard and 14 years ago I came up with what I thought was a brilliant plan. I convinced the wife that we should have a son. I was young and naïve; I could picture vividly a dutiful son who would bring me the remote when I left it on the TV, do all the more demanding yard work, and this child would delight in picking up all those pecans laying all over the well manicured golf course like lawn I would surely have …well…You can probably guess what reality is like. The kid usually loses the remote, breaks the lawn mower, and when we send the now 14 year old to gather the years harvest he sulks in with half a dozen pecans and goes back to killing zombies on his Xbox. The next day as I go out to my car I hear the sickening crunch as I find all the ones he missed in the ankle tall grass; Kids today.
Sunday ~ October 10, 2007 by Steve W Posted in Garden Tools | Add Your Comments
Cricket Poop Fertilizer. No, seriously….
But even if it had occurred to me it certainly wouldn’t have occurred to me that Cricket poop is something someone would offer for sale on the Information Super Highway. But today is a day for learning new things; new to me anyway, I’m sure it’s pretty much business as usual to the crickets. And today what I learned is that Cricket Poop is not like other similar products produced by similar creatures. Our noisy little sock eating friend produces a dry, sandy-like odorless substance that works as an excellent fertilizer (it has an NPK value of 8.48). To me, life is too short to try and raise a big enough herd of crickets to fertilize much of anything. And can you imagine the noise level of that many crickets in one place. Luckily, as I alluded to above, you can get pretty much anything on the internet. And that internet includes Cricket poop from: Organic Cricket Poop Fertilizer from Clean Air Gardening for $14.99 for a 5 pound jug. Honestly…I mean, I guess it would have to be obvious but I never have really considered the idea that there was such a thing as cricket poop. Conventional wisdom is that you should never kill a cricket because if you do his friends will come and eat your socks and if it eats, well it just follows that….
Sunday ~ October 10, 2007 by Steve W Posted in Organic Gardening | Add Your Comments
Biotal Leafmould / Leaf Compost Maker
Here’s another great product to help you with your fall gardening chores. Biotal Leafmould / Leaf Compost Maker quickly turns your leaves into quality compost, faster than through a normal decomposition process. Here’s what they have to say about the product: Leaves - converts leaves into rich leaf mould in months rather than years * 10ml of Compost Maker, mixed with a full watering-can, treats about one-and-a-half bin bags of waste. Anybody used this stuff? Does it work?
* Compost ready for use after ten weeks of rotting.
* Can be used to re-activate partially-composted or dead heaps.
* Suitable for use in all types of compost bins
Wednesday ~ October 10, 2007 by kswanson56 Posted in Natural Pesticides and Fertilizers, Organic Gardening | Add Your Comments
Farmhouse Ladder Stand
I know what you’re thinking… Why not get an actual ladder from an actual farmhouse. I mean, authenticity is the hip way to go isn’t it? Well trust me on this; I’ve tried to balance even small stuff on real ladders and it’s always ended badly. Plus your average ladder is at least eight foot tall and you have to deal with the whole bad luck aspect. If you have pets and/or children how many times are they going to walk under the thing? No, this is absolutely the one you want. Built out of solid hardwood and five foot tall and with a manageable foot print of two and a half feet square it will fit in anywhere from a big city apartment to a farmhouse in the country. And forget balancing things on narrow little rungs. You have three nice and wide steel trays; galvanized to resist rust and easily removable so you can keep things clean. My grandma’s farmhouse didn’t have anything this cool. The Farmhouse Ladder Stand is available from Smith & Hawken for $399.00
Wednesday ~ October 10, 2007 by Steve W Posted in Garden Furniture | Add Your Comments
Electric Leaf Shredder
Well, here is one solution that I thought was flat out brilliant. It’s an electric leaf shredder. Basically, we have a funnel that dumps leaves down into the body where a string trimmer chops the leaves into tiny pieces and then deposits the resulting particles directly into a bag. Eleven full bags get condensed down to a single bag; And the resulting particles compost faster so you don’t wind up with a back yard full of leaf bags. The electric leaf shredder is lightweight, stores easily and is available from Clean Air Gardening for $179.99.I felt bad for him, I really did. He was new to the neighborhood and obviously cared about his lawn a great deal. The first weekend he spent trimming and edging the long neglected lawn of the house he had just bought, and when I left for work the next morning there on the curb were four bulging bags of leaves sitting, waiting, for a trash truck that would never come. See, our city like many municipalities had decided to stop picking up lawn clippings and bags of leaves. It makes sense, from a practical stand point, because rather than fill up the landfill that plant matter is better returned to the land from which came. But in the short term, what is to be done with all those leaves?
Wednesday ~ October 10, 2007 by Steve W Posted in Garden Tools | Add Your Comments
Aluminum Can Crusher makes recycling cans easy
Although it isn’t really a gardening item per se, we think that recycling is important enough to merit a post about this Aluminum Can Crusher from Clean Air Gardening. $74.95. The can crusher is also an aluminum can receptacle that holds up to 400 crushed cans before you have to empty it. That’s a lot of coke!
Monday ~ October 10, 2007 by Ulrich Posted in Gardening Lifestyle | Add Your Comments
The Copper Pig Watering Can
It’s the year of the pig in the Chinese Zodiac; the fire pig, to be exact. They say that people born in the year of the pig are caring, tolerant, sensitive, optimistic, obliging, honest, altruistic, and hospitable. I’m not sure I buy all that but I know that this pig watering can is a heck of a lot cooler than the one I have. From a functional standpoint I guess there really isn’t that much difference. It’s made out of tin and holds a half gallon of water. But can you just leave your watering can out on the shelf in the living room without it looking like…well…a watering can? Obviously, that isn’t the case here. In fact, it would look perfectly fine sitting on the shelf just for decoration but that would be kind of a waste. The Copper Pig Watering Can is available from Smith and Hawken for $49.
Saturday ~ October 10, 2007 by Steve W Posted in Garden Tools | Add Your Comments
Fall Leaf Collecting Tools
Fall is here! Soon, your yard will be filled with leaves that will need to be picked up. While you’re shopping for leaf collecting tools, why not buy something for a friend or neighbor as a gift? They’ll thank you for it. Read this handy article about leaf collecting tools, it makes the decision making easy and has some great gift suggestions!
Wednesday ~ October 10, 2007 by kswanson56 Posted in Garden Tools, Gardening Gifts for Women, Gardening Lifestyle | Add Your Comments
