Tools For Easier Gardening

As i was writting yesterdays blog i was thinking about the one i was writting and another blog subject on tools. Now that the gardening season is here i have all these thoughts running through my little brain. Thats why i started this blog was to give information about raising daylilies the right way. I am on a daylily robin and sometimes people give out bad info with little or no concern about who it will hurt. I can assure you this, what i write on this blog has been tried and done here in our garden. You can use it or lose it but it works for me.

One man or woman with the right tools can do a lot of work with half the effort and Lord knows my back is not as strong as it used to be. I had my friend come over this afternoon with his tractor and 6 foot wide tiller. This pto tiller can make beds look like smooth butter. In about 15 minutes he made me ten 6 ft wide beds. Now that the ground is broke all i need to do is add the composted pine bark, alfalfa pellets, cottonseed meal, pelletized lime and fertilizer till it all in and add the plants.

After planting i top dress with more slow release (9 month) fertilizer. Then i add a granular herbicide that is treated with Treflan. Some folks use PREEN(very costly). These granules i use come in a 15 pound bag for about $18.00. I get it at my Farmers Coop. It is put out by Hi-Yeild company so it should be available everywhere. As soon as you get thru planting your plants sprinkle liberally on the ground and water it in. When you water it in it produces a chemical barrier on top of the ground and when seeds germinate they are poisoned when they hit the surface. Then add mulch. DO NOT PUT IT ON YOUR VEGGIE GARDEN AND PLANT SEEDS, THEY WONT COME UP. My sister in law got confused last year and tried this and couldnt figure out why her veggie seeds didnt come up. Heres Your Sign!!

A good wheel barrow is handy in and out of the garden. I have always used a single front wheel barrow and last summer i saw this vinyl bucket wheel barrow that had 2 front wheels. I can load this baby down and move it with one hand and drink tea with the other. I fill it up with pine needles and can mulch for a long way down the rows. Also moving plants around the garden it is very handy. Cost is about $115, worth every dollar. I promise.

I saw my first scape today on Mysterious Eyes, yes it is a tet and please forgive me. I do love the dips but the broken patterns on the tets really get my little brain to spinning. This plant is still on Fla. time bloom wise. Bear with me while i explain. When the bloom season arrives here in first wk of June the temps are hot usually over 95 and seed set is tough for the tets. So heres what i do. I try to get my tets (when i buy them) from Fla. to be here or shipped mid March. I plant in the garden and baby them and sometime cover on frosty nites to try and get them some roots going. Now the plants think they are still in Fla at least the bloom set does. So i have had Mysterious Eyes in the ground almost a month and here comes a scape. By the end of April i will be setting seed on Mysterious Eyes. Why? Because it is so much cooler this time of year than when they bloom in June. When temps are 80 degrees tets will set seed easy. Above 90 degrees things get tough. Why do people have green houses? To get plants to bloom earlier than normal while it is cool outside. This aint Rocket Science. If i lived in Ohio i would buy my plants and have delivered in March, pot them up and put them under grow lights and outside on warm days then set seed pods when they bloomed first of May. Plant later in the ground after harvesting seed pods, then sell on the Lily Auction in the Fall. That should work like a charm. See what happens when you let me talk and wander. Thanks for listening. Jim Elliott