Top 100 Opinions » Gardening

Few Organic Fertilizers

admin — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 09:26:39 +0000

Organic garden fertilizers are used to improve soil fertility and not for long term complete source fertility program. Its very essential to enrich organic garden fertilizers using compost, manures and cover crops as your primary source of additional nutrients.

Organic garden fertilizers are non-synthetic type naturally available substances used to make soil more fertile. A few commercially available organic garden fertilizers are bonemeal, plant-based fertilizers, soybean meal, seaweed meal, rock phosphate, organic garden potash (plant source), gypsum.

Bonemeal: It is used to stimulate root growth and also used for base dressing before planting shrubs, fruit, and other perennials.
Plant-based fertilizers: These are comfrey, alfalfa, and soy to cultivate vegetables.
Soybean meal: It is a high-nitrogen source used on vegetable beds once in a year or as a base dressing in unfertile soil.
Seaweed meal: It helps in improving humus levels in soil. It is applied to annual beds, fruit trees, bushes and lawns.
Rock phosphate: It is used to rectify a phosphate deficiency. This is considered as a better non-animal substitute to bonemeal.
Organic garden potash: It is distributed over one season and is used to cultivate fruit and vegetables.
Gypsum: It supplies calcium without changing pH of soil. Generally gypsum and dolomitic limestone mixed in 80:20 ratio is used to lighten heavy clay soils.

Different Types Of Plants For Indoor Container Home Garden

admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:22:01 +0000

These days most of the people are living in apartments. They don’t have sufficient place for garden. But you can create garden in containers like pots, tires, boxes etc. You can place that container plants at your balcony, windows, and door. Here are some of the plants, which can grow in containers.

1. Biennials:

Canterbury bells: These bells are in purple, lavender, blue, pink and white color. This is choice biennials.
Herbs and Fragrance: You can grow the herb garden in a container. Rosemary, marjoram, parsley, sage, fennel, mint and chives are the different type of herbs.

2. Perennials: Perennials plants include rose, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon, apple, and peppermint.

3. Angel ivy ring topiary: It is also called as wire vine. It grows 12 inches tall and 8 inches in diameter. It is a fast growing seasonal flower plant.

4. Cactus Combo Bonsai: These plants will have defense mechanism. These types of plants can grow at high temperature and low moisture places also. It requires 6 to 10 inches container to grow.

5. Chinese evergreen: Chinese evergreen will grow in low light. And also it requires less maintenance. These leaves are in silvery gray and dark green color.

Indoor plants will clean the environment and also act as a decorating tool in the home. And these plants are easy to maintain.

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Growing Plants through Hydroponics

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:09:02 +0000

Hydroponics is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions instead of soil. Terrestrial plants may be grown with their roots in the mineral nutrient solution only or in an inert medium, such as perlite, gravel or mineral wool. A variety of techniques exist. Plant physiology researchers discovered in the 19th century that plants absorb essential mineral nutrients as inorganic ions in water.

In natural conditions, soil acts as a mineral nutrient reservoir but the soil itself is not essential to plant growth. When the mineral nutrients in the soil dissolve in water, plant roots are able to absorb them. When the required mineral nutrients are introduced into a plant’s water supply artificially, soil is no longer required for the plant to thrive. Almost any terrestrial plant will grow with hydroponics, but some will do better than others. It is also very easy to do; very young children often undertake the activity with such plants as watercress. Hydroponics is also a standard technique in biology research and teaching and a popular hobby.

Passive hydroponics, semi-hydroponics or passive sub irrigation is a method of growing plants without soil, peat moss, or bark. Instead an inert porous medium transports water and fertilizer to the roots by capillary action. Water and fertilizer are held in a reservoir and conducted to the roots as necessary, reducing labor and providing a constant supply of water to the roots. In the simplest method, the pot sits in a shallow solution of fertilizer and water or on a capillary mat saturated with nutrient solution. Since routine maintenance is much simplified, passive hydroponics can reduce the labor required to maintain a large collection of plants.

The various hydroponics media available contain more air space than more traditional potting mixes, delivering increased oxygen to the roots. Allowing air to reach the roots is particularly important in preventing root rot in epiphytic plants such as orchids and bromeliads, whose roots are exposed to the air in nature. Passive hydroponics also may add additional ambient humidity through evaporation. It is important in passive sub irrigation to wash out the system from time to time to remove salt accumulation. Plants that require drying between watering or a dry dormant period may fail to thrive under the constant moisture of passive hydroponics.

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