Bonsai master Mike Hansen, owner of Midwest Bonsai, gives a potted lesson for total beginners in this 2 min, 11 sec video on Expert Village. Mike is a diffident man that has spent most of his life tending to these miniature trees. It is worth listening to his quiet, gentle expertise.
Mike puts the viewer right on three important points. The first is that “805 of bonsai trees that die, die from lack of watering.” It is not being small that kills these little trees, but sheer thirst. Mike points out that bonsai potting soil is quite coarse. It is not meant to retain water. At best, the soil in a bonsai pot will hold water for no more than a day and maybe less at the height of summer.
Another point Mike makes is that many beginner bonsai growers put their little potted trees on the window sill, TV or coffee table and then are disappointed when the tree dies. Mike says: “In fact, bonsai trees are outdoor plants. They would do better on the patio — which is not to say they couldn’t do with some protection.” Mike cautions against “loving your bonsai to death — literally.”
Mike reminds us that bonsai trees are small because they are pruned to be that way, and not because of hunger! “So make sure they have enough water, fertilizer, fresh and air sunshine.”
Wise words about bonsai from Mike Hansen, who is someone that knows.
Jose Zuriga doesn’t know a thyme plant from a basil plant (he confuses the two in this video – check it out) but he manages to convey some useful information anyway in 2 mins, 23 seconds. This video is part of a video series entitled “How to grow a herb garden indoor or outdoor.”
Essentially you plant an indoor herb garden in pots, one to several plants per pot. Fill each pot halfway with organic soil, then loosen the plant’s roots by squeezing the nursery bag. Take the plug of soil out gently and transplant it to the pot. Build up soil gently around it and then tamp it down firmly.
The big message here is that you should not over-water your potted herb plants. They don’t like being swamped. They want well-drained soil. And if you are keeping them in your kitchen, don’t put them anywhere near the stove or they will get burned to death.
Here’s Tomato Gardening for Dummies, or Tomato Planting 101.
The blurb says: “Are farm stand tomatoes still not fresh enough for you? If so, then you will probably want to grow your own. There are many varieties of tomatoes and the good news is that you do not have to choose just one.”
It sounds promising but all you really get to see is a tousled lady sitting in an ancient armchair in a garden shed (one assumes this is a garden shed as this is a gardening show. It might be her house for all we know.)
And yet some interesting things emerged from the video, such as an insight into what made the early tomato breeders tick. Some of the extraordinary names they called the old classic varieties include Brandy Wine, Burpees, Green Zebra and Zorba — not a single one of which makes you think “tomato.” In fact, they make you think “disease,” as they are highly susceptible to tomato sicknesses.
The number of modern hybrid tomato varieties available is startling. You get plum, cherry, stewing, drying, bottling, salad — and all of them are disease-resistant (bred for resistance) and many of them bear fruit all year round. Get advice from your nursery before buying a selection of plants. And — this is important — when buying the plants you should buy the staking materials you will need. It’s best to have the stakes in place before the vines grow, then train them up the stakes as they grow.
Our Lady of the Shed says you can use things like hockey sticks and fishing rods (?) to stake your tomatoes but you should avoid your garden looking like a junkyard.
This is a short, sweet introduction to planting bulbs with a superscript that says: “Bulbs are a great way to add colour to your garden all year round. Charlie Dimmock shows you how to spot a good bulb and how best to plant them.” Well, I though Charlie would be a knobbled-fingered man but it turned out to be a redheaded lady kneeling in an overgrown garden in England somewhere.
Charlie told me several things I never knew about bulbs. First, you get the hardy and non-hardy types, so ask you garden center about which is which. Second, “bulbs” is a misnomer. They are either corms or tubers. Third, you plant begonia corms with the hollow side facing up. Fourth, a healthy corm is fat, round and hard (like a good garlic bulb). Fifth, you plant bulbs at three times their depth. Sixth, if you have heavy clay soil put a layer of grit at the bottom of the hole to prevent the bulbs lying in moisture. And seventh, you plant summer-flowering bulbs in early spring and winter-flowering bulbs in early autumn.
It was well worth spending a couple of minutes seeing how it’s done.
Soilman, the presenter on this video, could stand only 58 seconds of demonstration. The reason for this was a large bag of chickensh..t. Yes, that’s what it takes to really get your compost heap into the stratosphere. Soilman, a gardener of British origin judging from his accent and sense of humor, opened the bagfull of chickensh..t his Mom donated him — “Thanks, Mum,” he said — and with visible paroxysms of revulsion emptied the bag into the compost bin. Reeling, he managed to say: “Anything that smells that bad must be good.”
Soilman then advised that you need to spread it all around, and then tried to follow his own counsel, but was unable to do so. “I can’t really,” he said in a strangled voice, “It’s all congealed and disgusting. The smell is outrageous.” He staggered backward from the bin and then rallied somewhat to deliver this parting shot was: “It (chickensh..t) is packed full of nitrogen so don’t put it on anything until it has rotted down well or it will burn the plants. You have been warned.”
I just love Kimmie Haworth of the National Gardening Association. Apart from having a nice rosy complexion, she is irreverent. Lots of her gardening videos are quite tongue in cheek, such as the one about a hundred ways to control snails.
In this video (just over 1 minute long) Kimmie talks about something I would never have thought would justify a video of any duration at all — garden gloves. According to the inimitable Kimmie, “A gardening girl can never have enough gloves.”
Okay.
She then goes on to show that all you need are two pairs of gloves: one pair made of leather or thick material for working out in the garden with thorns and foliage and stuff, and a neoprene pair for working with chemicals (not rubber, not plastic, not latex) because neoprene prevents chemicals from penetrating the glove and getting through to your skin.
Then Kimmie washes her hands of the whole subject by illustrating how you should clean your dirty garden gloves. Why, you just wash them with them still on your hands, just like you wash your hands, even using a handwash liquid, then spray them off with the hosepipe. Take them off and let them dry so they are ready to use next time.
Gardenmagik spokesperson Melissa Allman says there are two types of folks in the South: those who plant their own tomatoes and those who will plant their own tomatoes. This is an 8 min, 7 second “audio visual” (Melissa talking to camera) giving us a kind of overview of tomato planting for amateurs.
Prospective tomato growers need to consider your garden size when thinking about planting tomatoes as the bushes can be determinate or indeterminate. This refers to their size. Determinate vines are predictable. You know how big they will be. But the indeterminate types can be really huge — only you don’t know just how huge! They might need caging or staking.
You also have to decide what size fruits you want. You get the small cherry / grape sized fruits and then at the other extreme some types that can weigh 5 – 7 lbs! And when do you want your tomato plants to bear fruit? Their are spring types, summer types and autumn types.
Melissa says it’s better to prepare the soil in the fall when you can plant other crops. The soil needs to be acidic (pH about 6.5) but it’s good to add lime when getting the soil ready. This is really important for the calcium that tomatoes need so much. A lack of calcium leads to all kinds of disorders, from rotting fruit through to leaf curl.
When planting tomato plants you need to fertilize the soil at a ratio of 15:15:15, referring to Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium. As the plants grow you can change the ratio to 5:10:15. Melissa says that too much nitrogen might hinder the plant’s ability to absorb calcium — this you don’t want to do.
Here is an interesting little video of 2 mins, 53 secs where Master Gardener and butterfly enthusiast Reba Cummings gives you a rapid lesson in butterfly husbandry. First of all, plant the right kind of host plants in your garden. For instance, Fritillaries like the Passion Vine (eating the buds and living there) while Swallowtails like Bronze Fennel or Parsley. That’s where the butterflies will come and lay their eggs, where the caterpillars will hatch, where the chrysalises will attach themselves and the butterflies emerge…. if they survive the wasps and lizards, that is. THERE IS A WAY TO RESCUE CATERPILLARS! You keep them in a PVC and netting “cage” where the chrysalis forms and the butterflies emerge. The fun part is releasing the butterflies into the garden to repeat the cycle.
There seem to be plenty (some would say too many) movies on the internet about raking leaves. One deduces from this that leaf-raking is a huge issue wherever there are deciduous trees that drop their leaves in people’s gardens in the fall. Young George Maziak, who is famous for his videos about How To Tie A Shoelace and How To Open That Really Sticky Jam Jar, has made a video about raking leaves as a sort of gentle revenge on his Dad for buying a house out in the woods. He shows us how to use a rake to move the leaves using the simple oar-stroke method or the little quick stroke method. It is a long, long job, he assures us, and then demonstrates an alternative — the leaf blower, which blows the leaves around if you are not careful, and which can also be used to Hoover up the leaves.
George also demonstrates how you can jump into and onto the pile of leaves for light relief. At the end of the day, though, you need to get the leaves onto a big piece of tarpaulin and take them — where? Well, over the road and into the woods, away from the lawn. I have spent a more profitable 6 minutes, 9 seconds in my time. But thanks, George anyway.
Young SprinklerDaddy over at YouTube sums up the difference between spray and drip irrigation quite nicely:
SPRAY IRRIGATION Here a spray head is attached to a pipe for widespread water about 6′ to 12′ in all directions. “This method is good for watering a large bed of flowers or perennials that are all the same size,” says SprinklerDaddy. And lawns, he might have added. It is not suitable for a bed where there are different sized plants as the larger shrubs tend to block the water and the small shrubs get nothing.
DRIP IRRIGATION SprinklerDaddy really likes drip irrigation. He describes it as “cool.” He says: “This is for localized type of watering where you want to get water to the root of each shrub. There is no blocking out of smaller plants and no wasted water. It is a really good option when mulching. Once you have put down the bark or rocks, lay the pipes on top and cover with mulch. No need to dig a trench for the pipes.” And no need to watch the 1 min, 48 sec video either. All you will see is a talking head repeating what I have written above.
