No Gardening Today

My daily one hour gardening exercise was canceled today due to rainy weather. This is not such a bad thing as I really needed a break. Over the past 5 years I have been transforming my garden over the summer (May - October) every day during the week for one hour around 9 am. At that time it isn't hot yet and the bugs are not too bad. It is great exercise and very satisfying as you can always see the progress you have made. I have figured out that I can work the area of about 1 square yard in an hour.

The picture above was taken on June 15/2007 and shows the wild jungle I am in the process of taming. In the meantime I had a dying beech tree cut down in May 2008 and kept the pieces. I used them to create a border by putting them upright in the earth and then transplanted hostas and veronica groundcover in the newly created bed. I am still not all the way done, but am very pleased wit the progress so far. The picture below was taken yesterday, June 17/2008.

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Sleep Tip from the Mentalist TV Show

I like watching the Mentalist TV show and yesterday I got finally around to watch my latest recorded show. To my delight and surprise Patrick Jane's character gave this tip to help you fall asleep: If you have falling asleep you can count sheep or on your in-breath say or think 1 and then when you breath out say or think 2. On your next in-breath say or think 1 and when you breath out say or think 2. Keep on repeating this and you will be surprised that when you wake up it is morning. Give it a try and then connect with me on Facebook and let me know what happened . . . counting sheep

How to Make Simple Square Foot Gardening Templates

backside of template with holes drilled I am just about ready to start planting my square foot garden . Until now I have used string and sticks to mark things, but then I got an idea of how I could easily make some templates from old plastic election signs. The material was easy to cut with a knife and a permanent marker would help with the design. At first I thought that I would need a whole bunch of templates, but as I got going I realized that I could actually get away with only 2 templates. First cut 2 12x12 inch pieces from the plastic signs Draw a grid: template 1: 3 rows and 3 columns template 2: 4 rows and 4 columns Mark the center of each square of the grid by drawing diagonal lines Use the electric drill and a ½" drill bit and drill a hole at each center point. Template 1 Template 1 Grid of 3 row and 3 columns (9 plants - holes circled in blue) This can also be used for 1 plant per square foot (hole circled in black and then blue)

Companion Planting Chart

Have you ever heard of companion planting ? Wikipedia explains it very nicely: Companion planting is the planting of different crops in proximity (in gardening and agriculture), on the theory that they assist each other in nutrient uptake, pest control, pollination, and other factors necessary to increasing crop productivity. Companion planting is a form of polyculture. Companion planting is used by farmers and gardeners in both industrialized and developing countries for many reasons. Many of the modern principles of companion planting were present many centuries ago in cottage gardens in England and home gardens in Asia. Check out this helpful chart to find the benefits of companion planting: Let me know if you found this information helpful and write a comment.

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