Your Questions About Gardening

GardenersCardiff answers:

We have your kind of weather too. My hubby and I do lots of container gardening…..even vegetables. You can grow anything you like in pots. Here is our method (USA):

Plastic pots 14 inches across the top.

Holds 25 pounds potting soil-we use Miracle-Gro Potting Soil with Plant Food for flowers (not vegetables-ask the clerk at the nursery for vegetable potting soil).

Mix water crystals into the top six inches of potting soil-these hold water so you do not have to water more than once per week when the temperatures hit 100 degrees.
Water well and leave it alone for a few days so the crystals can absorb the water. Do not plant or the swelling crystals will push your flowers up and out of the potting soil.

After a few days, mix 4 tablespoons Osmocote flower fertilizer into the top four inches of potting soil. Water in well and wait a day or so. There is also a vegetable Osmocote fertilizer. (Read and follow the directions on the container just in case your container is different from ours.)

Now you can plant. Water well.

Every 14 days fertilize with liquid fertilizer – we use Miracle-Gro Bloom Booster.
Check for a vegetable liquid fertilizer.

Stop fertilizing one month before your first autumn frost. But keep watering.

Let your flowers go to sleep after the first frost or take them indoors and place in a south facing window (sunny window).

Lightly water through the winter months, but do not fertilize.

Do not put back outside until all frost has past. We usually wait till the nights have reached 68 or 70 degrees.

Add the Osmocote fertilizer again each spring (or other good flowering fertilizer).

When flowers start failing, change the potting soil’s top 1/3 or 1/2, mix in well, add new water crystals, add fertilizer. Buy new plants. This is usually done every third spring.

Hint: Always water till it runs out the bottom. Wait a few minutes and then water again. This only need to be done about once per week to ten days when using the water crystals.

Take a look at this self watering large container, we love ours:

http://www.earthbox.com

Send for free gardening catalogs to get use to the different types of flowers and colors:

http://www.parkseed.com
http://www.burpee.com
(there are hundreds more free catalogs, google “free gardening catalongs” )

Happy gardening to you.

GardenersCardiff answers:

It definitely wasn’t from an event. I hacked it myself in Wild World and then when I sent one of my characters from Wild World over to City Folk that had had the Pikmin garden it automatically appeared in her catalog. But there is no code you can type or punch in, if that’s what you mean. You will have to buy an Action Replay and then download the hack/code for the Pikmin garden.

Your best option is to have that person buy it for you from their catalog.

GardenersCardiff answers:

The easiest way to do this is to use a chamomile rake, a short, scoop-like rake that you drag across the plants, and it just harvests the flowers. You can find them in most gardening catalogs, Johnny’s Selected Seeds I know for sure has them. Barring that, though, you just want the flowers, so just pick of as many as you need, just pinch them off below the flower, and spread them out on an old window screen in a dry, well-ventilated corner of your house or garage. Food dehydrators also work well for this. Let them dry for a week or two, and store them in a not completely air tight container-don’t use plastic bags, as the chamomile can mold without a small amount of airflow. There you go, good luck!