Your Questions About Gardening

GardenersCardiff answers:

I keep 1400 sq.ft. Of perennial and rose garden, and my top 10 items are these:

1. My gardening gloves which have breathable tops, are just short of being tight, waterproof rubber on the underside of the fingers, and double leather across the palms. An added bonus is that they are pink and have bright red plastic “fingernails” at top of the ends of the fingers. Too silly.

2. My absolute FAVORITE gardening tool is a Japanese gardening knife. It has a hefty wooden handle, and the “blade” is about 7″ long and 2″ wide. One side is serrated, but it doesn’t cut plants well. It DOES saw through packed soil and perennial rootballs (when you want to divide them) really well. This knife is incredible for weeding, especially dandelion roots. I use it to loosen packed soil. I got mine from a local store called Lee Valley up here in Canada.

3. My second favorite tool is a little spring-loaded garden scissors about 5″ long total, and I use it for deadheading everything. The blades lock closed, and they slip into a pocket. Also from Lee Valley.

4. AND my canvas gardening pants with pockets everywhere and a couple of hammer loops. Pleated at the front waistband and wide legged, you could do yoga in them and they wouldn’t bind. Rose bushes won’t scratch through them. Also from Lee Valley.

5. My surgeon’s scrub brush … Put some soap on that baby and it gets the dirt off your hands and out from underneath your nails like nothing else, without tearing up the epidermis. Cost next to nothing. From … Yeah, THAT place.

6. A hand trowel that is really really wide. Great for planting containers, digging holes, moving potting soil around. NOT from Lee Valley!!!!

7. My water wand … Sprinkler head on a 3′ rod, attaches to your hose, and delivers maximum water with minimum trauma to tender young plants. Great for small areas of the garden where a sprinkler covers too big an area, for containers, and especially for hanging containers. Available anywhere. You can also get a fertilizer/mixer container than screws in-line between the hose and the wand, and mixing water and fertilizer, and allowing you to fertilize your container plants while you water them.

8. My Ozarks hoe (don’t know what it’s really called) … It’s a full-sized tool, like a shovel is a full size. This has a long, narrow hoe on one side, and a two-fingered prong on the opposite side. Great for weeding a large area where weeds are coming up like crazy and the ground is packed. Also great for just everyday cultivating. NOT from Lee Valley!!!

9. A regular old spade … One picked because it just “feels” right. Available from my garage, but I’m not letting go of it.

10. Assorted plastic buckets. An old one-gallon ice cream bucket with a handle for impulse weeding and deadheading as I move around the garden. And a 3-gallon bucket, also with handle, for super-weeding expeditions (frequent with 1400 sq. Feet), for large fall cleanup of dead material, and for moving large amounts of peat moss from my garage to my cut-back tender Hybrid Tea roses which I must cover over the winter or they will die (that’s western Canada for you).

GardenersCardiff answers:

With the straw gardening hat you find at the mine shack, when you press ‘D’ your penguin will use a watering can.

The rakes were from last years Spring Catalog

GardenersCardiff answers:

Hey T,

Just do what you can, and enjoy it. A good sharp shovel is one great tool you can hardly live without. Making raised beds is easy. Take your time, turn over the area you want to use as a garden area with the shovel. On the outside of that area, where you will walk, take a shovel of soil all the way around, and put it into the garden soil. Now, never walk on the garden soil again, it will be raised above the walk level. You can raise that bed higher by amending the soil with composted materials. That will give your garden soil some structure. This bed will be progressively easier to turn over each season, because you will fluff it up each year.

So, if you only do a 2′ by 2′ square, you can put 4 tomato plants and some garlic. The bed being higher will be easier for you to work it also. If your walk area is wide enough for a 5 gallon bucket, turn it upside down for a stool.

Now a trowel and a hand weeder (never know what to call that gadget with 3 prongs) can do the rest. Water, weed, plant, fertilize, and enjoy! Happy Gardening.