May, 2009

...now browsing by month

 
Print This Post Print This Post

Better Garden Edging and A New Soil Satellite

Friday, May 29th, 2009

How Crips Edges Can Make A Huge Difference

One of the best ideas to improve how your yard or garden looks is also the simplest:

Make sure the edges around your yard are crisp.

If the edges look good, you can get away with a multitude of sins. Plus, it doesn’t even have to be any kind of traditional edge.

One of the primary structural aspects of almost any garden is the shape of its beds and borders, and nothing better defines those shapes than the lines that give them a sense of order. They are, so to speak, the border’s border.

So, to tweak those lines is to reinforce those fundamental forms. And using some kind of consistent edge throughout the garden helps to impose a sense of unity to the overall garden.

Continue Story Here

New Mission Will Provide Global Maps Of Soil Moisture And Ocean Salinity

ESA’s next Earth Explorer, SMOS, has just passed the all-important Flight Acceptance Review, signifying that all the elements that make up the mission are in place for launch later this year.

After being in storage for around a year, the SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) satellite can now be prepared for its long journey from Thales Alenia Space’s faciities in Cannes in the south of France to the launch site in Russia.

SMOS, also known as ESA’s Water Mission will make global observations of soil moisture over Earth’s landmasses and salinity over the oceans. Through the use of a novel instrument called MIRAS (Microwave Imaging Radiometer using Aperture Synthesis), SMOS will provide global information on surface soil moisture every three days within an accuracy of 4% at a spatial resolution of 50 km – that’s comparable to being able to detect one teaspoonful of water mixed into a handful of soil.

In parallel, SMOS will also observe ocean salinity down to 0.1 psu (practical salinity unit) for a 30-day average over an area of 200×200 km, which is about the same as detecting 0.1 g of salt in a litre of water.

Data from SMOS will result in a better understanding of the water cycle and, in particular, the exchange processes between Earth’s surfaces and the atmosphere.

This data will help improve weather and climate models, and also have practical applications in areas such as agriculture and water resource management, bringing our understanding of Earth’s water cycle one step closer.

For more in-depth gardening articles, tutorials, and gardening tips advice for gardeners visit our main gardening website at Weekend Gardener Monthly Web Magazine

Related Posts

Print This Post Print This Post

New Soil Safety Measures, Pet and Tree Safety

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

EPA Strengthens Safety Measures for Soil Fumigant Pesticides

(Washington, D.C. – May 27, 2009) The Environmental Protection Agency is strengthening safety measures for soil fumigant pesticides. The safety measures will reduce fumigant exposures to bystanders—people who live, work, attend school, or spend time near agricultural fields that are fumigated—and increase overall safety of fumigant use by requiring greater planning and compliance.

“With new restrictions, we’re allowing the continued use of fumigant pesticides without risking human health and the environment,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “Full transparency and the best science shaped a plan to protect the economic interests of agricultural communities and the public health of farm workers and consumers.”

Continue Story Here

Pet-Safe Yard and Gardening Tips

According to the ASPCA, they take tens of thousands of calls each year from pet owners whose animals have come in contact with poisonous insecticides, weed killers and toxic plants.

In order to help you keep your pets safe, here is good starting checklist to help you pet-proof your yard, garden and garage.

Continue Story Here

How to Properly and Safely Stake a Tree

During the summer months many people will be planting trees. This is a good thing, just keep in mind that when planting trees, not all of them will need to be staked.

Staking is used to moderate swings or to protect the tree from violent winds that could uproot it prior to it being established. It is not meant to prevent all movement.

If a tree does not move it does not develop a strong trunk. Trees develop strong trunks in response to wind, it is a response mechanism, all plants do.

Continue Story Here

In addition, here are two short helpful videos:

How To Stake A Tree Part 1

How To Stake A Tree Part 2

For in depth gardening articles, tutorials, and gardening tips advice for gardeners visit our main gardening website at Weekend Gardener Monthly Web Magazine

Related Posts

Print This Post Print This Post

Vegetable Gardening News

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

How To Best Make Use of My Garden Space?

Most commercial farms concentrate on growing a few select crops to supply a wide variety of customers, but gardening at home is a different story entirely. Most backyard food gardeners are looking to augment their family’s diet with a variety of seasonal fruits, vegetables and herbs throughout the growing season.

For those of us who face time and space constraints in our gardening endeavors, combining crops within the same planting areas makes a lot of sense. Such techniques are particularly well-suited to organic gardens where chemical fertilizers and pesticides aren’t used to artificially boost crop productivity.

The most common way to combine garden crops is via an age-old technique called interplanting, which in essence means planting various garden edibles with different growth and spacing attributes together in the same soil beds or rows. One example involves combining fast-maturing vegetables, such as lettuce, field greens or beets, with slower-maturing ones like winter squash or pole beans.

Continue Story Here

Rahway NJ, Creating First Community Garden

Rahway New Jersey is creating its first community garden this summer on Central Avenue, across the street from Berzinec Park, to encourage locally-grown, sustainable agriculture.

“As food prices rise and food safety concerns grow, more people are looking to community gardens as sources of food and a way to conserve natural resources,” said Mayor James Kennedy. “We have the available land that hopefully will attract an abundance of enthusiastic gardeners.”

Community gardening in Rahway can be traced back to the plots tended by early European settlers. During World War II, “victory gardens” sprouted throughout the city as residents worked together for the war effort.

Continue Story Here

For in depth gardening articles, tutorials, gardening tips and gardening advice visit our main gardening website at Weekend Gardener Monthly Web Magazine

Related Posts

Print This Post Print This Post

New Blog All About Roses

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

A new blog got started this week called “The Rose Whisperer” that is going to talk about nothing but roses.

The Rose Whisperer promises to give all kinds of news, information and tips from the rose world, so if you’re a rose enthusiast, you’ll probably want to check this out once in a while.

The Rose Whisperer Blog

For in depth gardening articles, tutorials, gardening tips and gardening advice visit our main gardening website at Weekend Gardener Monthly Web Magazine

Related Posts

  • None For This Post
Print This Post Print This Post

Gardening To Save Money

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Believe it or not, but growing a simple vegetable garden can save you and your family hundreds of dollars in food costs—and more people are catching on every day.

According to a recent National Gardening Association study, 43 million U.S. households plan to grow their own garden this year, up 19 percent from last year. And gardening is appealing to an increasingly broad group—21 percent are new to gardening.

Over half (54 percent) of gardeners say their main reason for growing their own food is to save money on food bills, and 34 percent say the current recession is motivating them to garden.

And in case saving money isn’t reason enough – gardening can provide exercise, and it can aid your social life—particularly if you swap fruits and veggies with your neighbors or volunteer at your nearest community garden.

Story from: Consumer Reports Health.org

Other Articles of Interest:

How To Start A Vegetable Garden (part 1)

How To Maintain A Vegetable Garden (part 2)

For in depth gardening articles, tutorials, gardening tips and gardening advice visit our main gardening website at Weekend Gardener Monthly Web Magazine

Related Posts