Ok, this is pretty darn cool! We usually only see the end result of these pumpkins, but this video gives an entirely new perspective.
Monthly Archives: September 2011
New Troy-Bilt tools to try – Battery Pole Trimmer and Hedge Trimmers
Ooooo, look what shiny new toy showed up on my porch yesterday — Troy-Bilt’s new battery operated tools – a chainsaw pole trimmer and hedge trimmers. I tried out both of these tools when we were back in Ohio for our Saturday6 kick-off event and I am eager to put them to use here in the garden. I am sold on battery operated tools as I find them easier to operate AND, in the case of the hedge trimmers, I won’t have to worry about cutting the extension cord ever again. (Come on, you know you’ve done that at least once, right?)
I’ll be unboxing these, shooting some video and reviewing how they work in the real world in the next week or so. Watch this space for more information!
This post is part of my paid work as part of Troy-Bilt’s Saturday6. The opinions are solely mine.
A Gardener’s Notebook in Troy-Bilt’s newsletter, “The Dirt”
As part of my work with Troy-Bilt, I regularly write for their monthly newsletter, The Dirt. This month, my article is entitled “Inch-by-Inch” and appears below in it’s entirety.
If you would like to subscribe to The Dirt, visit the Troy-Bilt web site and subscribe.
Your garden – inch by inch by Douglas Welch, A Gardener’s Notebook
Often we look at our garden plant by plant – which is doing well, which is doing poorly, which one needs to be moved. At other times, we try to take in the big picture. We map, we plan and try to create one seamless whole. There are times, though, when inch-by-inch is the way we see it, and it brings a unique viewpoint.
The Edging
- Wine bottle edging in the garden (Photo credit: dewelch)
Several weeks ago we started a new edging project in the garden. Beginning with the smallest rose bed, we decided to use old wine and glass water bottles to surround the bed. The previous limbs we had used were now several years old and had deteriorated almost completely. I did a bit of research online, including looking for images of bottle edging, to make sure we wanted to proceed. It certainly seemed worth a try. We would do this small bed first and then decided if we wanted to continue it in others.
Of course, doing an edging project like this means getting “down and dirty” with your garden – usually on your hands and needs. You notice immediately how the soil differs inside the bed to the hard, compacted soil of the surrounding paths. You get a clear view of the quality of the soil in the beds as you dig the trench alongside.
You notice insects – good and bad – weeds, and maybe even the rust that is forming on the lower leaves of the roses that you hadn’t noticed before. Oh, oh, are those aphids?!? Ah, but you also notice the lady larvae and adults ready to eat them up. Your garden takes on a different meaning on this micro scale. You don’t notice the thistles and bindweed as much, but the blackspot and Japanese beetles really catch your eye. You don’t notice the bad pruning on the box hedges, but the quality of the soil as it sits in your hand makes you sit in wonder for just a moment.
A project
If all this sounds very foreign to you, I am going to charge you with a project the next time you are in your garden. Take a 1-meter-square area of your garden and mark it off in some way. Use a piece of rope or string to outline the area. If you have seen archaeologists working in movies or on TV, think about what their digs look like. While this 1 meter can be a patch of lawn, consider placing it over the junction between a bed and the lawn. You’ll get better results in your experiment.
Now that you have marked out the area, sit down – better yet, lie down on your belly – and start to take note of every living thing you see there. First off you’ll see the grass, the daylilies, the small weeds. Then look deeper. You’ll see ants, aphids, beetles and a host of other insects. Keep looking. Now there are worms, spiders, sow bugs, spider mites and more. I can guarantee you that you will notice more than you ever thought possible in your small 1 meter area and all of it is there, teeming with life, every day.
I know that, for me, observing my garden in this macroscopic way brings a deeper appreciation and deeper understanding of my garden when I look out from my back door each morning, coffee cup in hand. I never see just the paths and the plants anymore. In my mind I see it all – everything that exists down there among the roots, as well as everything on the surface.
It is quite amazing how a small garden project can lead you down the merry path of deep thoughts, but, then again, isn’t that one major reason we garden in the first place?
This post is part of my paid work as part of Troy-Bilt’s Saturday6. The opinions are solely mine.
I Like This – September 25, 2011
- A collection of gardening items I found interesting this week.
- Gardening Books: The one-minute review solution – September 25, 2011 – Some nice reviews and great recommendations for garden books. The book, “Planting the Dry Shade Garden” especially interests me.
I Like This – September 16, 2011
- A collection of gardening items I found interesting this week.
- Hart’s tongue fern – September 16, 2011 – Hmm, I wonder if this would work in California in the shady parts of the garden. Certainly a nice look.
Photo: Oaks, acorns and an unidentified spider that needs a name
It is flag football season again, so an hour or so of each afternoon involves me sitting in the park trying to work or read or do something else productive.
Today I happened to notice these tiny acorns on the tree above my head. They are small, but yet the perfect definition of an acorn. A little online searching makes me think these trees are Quercus chrysolepsis based on the shape, size and color of the leaves. If I am mistaken, please let me know. It seems to be one of the few oaks we have here in California that doesn’t have lobed leaves of some sort.
Click for larger image from Flickr
Click for larger image from Flickr
Finally, here is a small spice that climbed up my laptop screen as I say writing. I have no idea what this species this is. Do you have an idea? Leave a note in the comments. I would love to know. It is probably a bit difficult as it is most likely a juvenile and the picture is severely zoomed to give you even this basic image.
Click for larger image from Flickr
Photo: Wine bottle edging in the garden
An overview of the wine bottle edging shown in my latest video.
Video: How-To: Wine bottle edging for your garden beds project
Douglas takes you through a project using wine bottles to edge a garden bed. This is a great recycling project and easy enough that anyone, even kids, can help out.
Disclosure: This post is in conjunction with my paid partnership as one of the Saturday6 from Troy-Bilt. All thoughts are my own.
Related posts:
Photo: Incipient Tomato
Tomatoes are about to arrive here in our garden. This volunteer tomato which sprouted from some compost I used for potting has been putting out flowers and today I noticed a small, cherry tomato already forming.
Our volunteer tomato
A closeup from the same shot
It is always such fun to see things go from seed to fruit in your own garden, even if you do it in a pot, like this one.
Project: Roof cleaning for the Fall and Winter
If you have a lot of mature trees on your property like we do, you will be faced with this project once or twice a year. In our case, we sometimes fall down on the job and don’t get to it when we should. This year, though, I see Fall approaching rapidly even here in Southern California. We are only about a month away from our first regular rains of the season and it is never good to have a bunch of leaf litter on your, and in your gutters, when the rains come. It can cause water to dam up agains the shingles and leak into the house and also shorten the life of your roof generally.
If you can, it is always better to plant trees some distance from the house to prevent damages from falling limbs and invasive roots. I only have a bit of control over this, though as the previous owners planted all there trees long before we purchased the home. We have removed the most dangerous trees, and removed quite a few smaller ones, but the size of the lot dictates that the trees overhang the house quite a bit.
What the roof looks like now
What it should look like — the garage roof after cleaning
So, struggling to get anything done today, I tackled a small part of this project. I started with the garage, as I can reach all the leaves on this section of roof without actually climbing up on the roof. I was along for most of the morning and, as you might imagine. climbing around on your roof without anyone nearby who might be able to call 911 is not very smart. That said, I was able to clean off about 90% of this roof, except for a few, small areas that will require an actual visit up there.
I also cleaned up the small section of gutter on this area. The gutters on the house are almost non-existent and really need replaced, so I have never taken the time to fit leaf guards so I don’t have to clean them out. Of course, I have never gotten around to replacing them either, so I still have to deal with the problem every year. Sometimes you can get caught in a bad cycle like this. Still, I do plan on replacing these gutters eventually…sometime…really…I mean it…would I lie to you? (LAUGH)
A small section of gutter that is now clean and ready for the rain
The majority of this leaf litter will be run through out chipper-shredder, as soon as I get it out of moth balls. We don’t have a lot of occasion to use this behemoth of a machine, but along with these leaves I have a host of small pruning jobs that could also be shredded, either for the compost pile or as mulch for the garden beds.
I plan on pressing forward with this project as quickly as I can since possible thunderstorms were already predicted for the area. This means that our regular Fall and Winter rains can’t be far behind. I these leaves get wet before we can remove them, the job becomes much more difficult due to the extra weight and mess involved.
I’ll keep you informed on my progress and whether my good intentions help me to finish in time.
What is happening in your garden as Fall approaches? I have seen some people pulling up their tomatoes and babying their pumpkins already. Leave me a note in the comments to share your stories!