How to Keep the Sandbox Clean?

It’s quite simple really - put a lid on it!

Roaming neighborhood cats and other prowling critters will use a sandbox as their own personal litterbox. Unless you expect your child to wear gloves while playing in his/her sandbox, keep it covered when not in use. No child should have to play in a dirty sandbox when putting a lid on it is so easy to do.

To keep the sand in our sandbox clean, Connor and I cover it with a tarp. Bungee cords laced through grommets on the tarp are stretched over metal hooks along two sides of the sandbox. This holds the tarp firmly in place.

Metal brackets with lengths of 2″ lattice strips raise the tarp so rain water runs right off.

It sort of resembles a covered wagon.

We remove the tarp when it’s time to play and put it back on when we’re done.

Our sandbox is situated under a tree to take advantage of shade on a hot summer day. The birds in our backyard spend a lot of time in that tree. The tarp not only prevents cats and other critters from pooping in the sand, but it takes care of bird droppings too.

For the sake of your child’s health, I urge you to cover your sandbox too!

If it’s too complicated to plan out your vegetable garden keeping the companions together and the ememies apart, stick in some of these hard-working herbs. They seem to improve the growth and flavour of nearby crops. Their scents and blooms attract and feed beneficial bees and butterflies. On top of that, they repel harmful insects such as spider mites, ants, root maggots, borers, aphids, snails, slugs, squash bugs, many beetles, cabbage and tomato worms. They even deter apple scab and black spot.

Plant some catnip, lavender, rue and thyme in the flowerbeds to encourage pollination and deter many harmful insects.

Herbs are just the best! I can’t resist sneaking them into all the gardens and even into pots here and there. Like other herb lovers I have trouble passing by without touching a leaf or a flower. They are so good for your body and your soul.

Our lawn is looking worse than usual these days. No, it’s not due to drought, grubs or cinch bugs - it’s because we finally had some topsoil delivered to fill some low spots and now there are large brown patches of that topsoil everywhere.

In the winter time I’m only too happy to have a riding lawnmower with a snowblower attachment for cleaning the driveway, but in the summer when it comes to mowing the lawn with that same riding lawnmower, I’ve never been quite so thrilled. There were so many dips, valleys and low spots that getting an even cut was next to impossible. With a push mower you can maneuver it around by hand to get at awkward places, however, the width of the mower deck on our garden tractor doesn’t offer any flexibility. Leveling the ground just to get a perfect cut has simply not been a huge priority. That’s one reason. There’s also the fact that working on the lawn is nowhere near as much fun as working in the gardens.
continue reading "Lawn Repair - Planting Grass Seed"

Maybe it’s just folklore, but whether it’s true or not, many gardeners plan their vegetable plot carefully to have friendly plants close to one another and enemies far away. Friendly plants are thought to repel harmful insects such as aphids, borers and maggots. They might also attract pollinators with their scent or color. Some are credited with aiding growth and flavour. Unfriendly plants may actually stunt growth.

If you already have a system that works for you, by all means, continue with it, however this is a natural approach and is certainly worth a try.

These are some of the vegetable garden companions that I have experimented with over the years. Most lists I have found are similar.
continue reading "Vegetable Garden Companion Planting"

Wow, what a difference a few weeks makes in the appearance of a garden! Come along for an early June garden tour.

The three Bridalwreath Spirea shrubs are fully loaded and bending under the weight of thousands of glorious white blossoms.

It’s hard to believe they are the same scrawny, spindly specimens we planted last year.
continue reading "How Our Garden Grows - June"

More Reasons For Wearing Gardening Gloves

In a recent post I talked about the importance of wearing gardening gloves as protection against tetanus - a most compelling reason in itself. Just in case that wasn’t persuasive enough, I thought I’d give you a few more good reasons and tell you about my favorite gardening gloves.

PROTECTION

Gardening gloves offer protection against:

• slivers from wood mulch, shovels with wood handles, and other wooden-handled garden tools and implements such as rakes, cultivators and wheelbarrows
• thorns from roses or prickly shrubs such as barberry, hawthorn, firethorn, and some junipers
• dry skin from handling soil ( I find that soil sucks all the moisture out of my hands leaving them very dry and chapped)
• allergic reactions (contact with many coniferous trees and shrubs causes my skin to break out in a hot, itchy rash)

continue reading "Get a Grip on Gardening Gloves"

Have you been busy with all those spring chores around the house - with your hands in and out of water and cleaners? Are you getting caught up on all those dirty gardening jobs?

Now you have a special event planned, maybe even a well-deserved day at the beach, or you just need a little pampering. Here’s a quick method for helping your hardworking hands (and feet) to look and feel their best.

You can get your hands clean and soft with this home-made hand smoother. Mix a spoonful of granulated sugar with a little olive oil and massage in gently. Rinse with warm water and dry well.

For exfoliating heels and elbows try granulated sugar in a dab of vaseline.

No one will know you’ve just hung up your rake or dumped your scrub pail!

Hey, we’re on top of things this month! Well, my mom is always on top of things, I’m rather a poky little puppy. (funny thing - that was my favorite book as a child) I’m far from poky today - here’s a list of June jobs for the garden. And what do you know, it’s still June!

1. Prune evergreens (1/2 off new tips).
2. Prune flowering shrubs after flowering.
3. Prune trees when leaves are full.
4. Feed roses June 15.
5. Fertilize perennials June 30.
6. Weed/feed lawn.
7. Plant containers.
8. Set water plants into pond - to cover 50% -75% of surface.
9. Add bonemeal to soil around shrubs and early flowering bulbs.
10. Water/fertilize berries.
11. Plant vegetables eg. beans, carrots, beets, squash, cucumbers.
12. Set out annuals, tender perennials, tomatoes and peppers (provide support and protection if needed).
13. Plant summer flowering bulbs and mums.
14. Pick peonies to dry.
15. Root soft-wood cuttings in 1:2 mix of peat and perlite with plastic bag over pot.
16. Fill shallow pan with stones, water and few drops vinegar for the bees and butterflies.

Never underestimate the importance of the proper attire or equipment for the activities in which you choose to participate. Gloves can be just as crucial to a gardener as a parachute is to a skydiver. Safety first - not fourth.

Ordinarily you wouldn’t think of gardening gloves as a life-saving device, but when you take into account this one tiny hazard you could encounter while gardening or landscaping, you may just want to reconsider!

An article on tetanus in the May 21, 2008 edition of The Vancouver Sun proved to be a real eye opener to the dangers of gardening without gloves.

Cases of tetanus may be rare, however; the spores that cause it are everpresent in the organic material we like to dig around in - soil. You may not have cows wandering through your gardens leaving lovely manure deposits, but what about cats, dogs, raccoons and skunks? It’s all poop, people! Here’s a small excerpt from the article.

“Tetanus, also known as lockjaw because it causes muscle spasms that start in the jaw, is caused by a bacterium called Clostridium tetani, which thrives in dust and soil rich in organic matter such as animal manure.

The germs enter through skin breaks or wounds and once inside the body, produce a neurotoxin that leads to extreme muscle spasms.

That means an activity as seemingly safe as gardening can potentially be risky if a person has a small cut.

Vancouver Island public health official Dr. Richard Stanwick said people should not only get vaccinated, but should also wear gloves while digging around.”

If you are up to date with your immunizations and feel you have no need to worry over the life-saving aspect of wearing gloves, then at least wear them to save your hands!

I love rocks and stones in the garden and landscape, so when Gardening Gone Wild announced that the subject of May’s Garden Design Workshop was Stone in the Garden, I thought “what a happy coincidence” that my big spring project involves this very thing.

There were three reasons for adding a new garden with a dry creek bed. One - I’m a gardener and I just don’t know when to quit, two - the location (where the garden is now situated) needed to be re-graded to channel rain water away from the foundation of the house, and three - I wanted to include more rocks and stone in the landscape for continuity. We already have a rock garden and I’ve placed rocks in other garden beds for visual interest.

continue reading "New Garden With Dry Creek Bed"