Active Gardening Posts
How To: Plant Sempervivum in a pot
Sempervivum or Houseleeks are extremely hearty breed of succulent plants that can grow in very arid areas. Sempervivum are a great plant to have because they require very little care. In this garden tutorial, Martin Fish from Garden News demonstrates how to create a simple & effective Sempervivum pot that will look good throughout the Winter.
How To: Prune tomato plants to increase production
One way to increase production in tomato plants is pruning. Pruning your tomato plants will decrease the amount of energy needed for leaf production and increase the amount of energy that goes into your tomato, which provides a a larger and better tasting tomato. Trimming off branches that are not used and are not in direct sunlight achieves more efficiency by directing sugars into the fruit and not into the other branches. Watch this time lapse how-to video, follow along with the tips, and s...
News: Teeny Tiny Winter Terrariums
Design Sponge has posted some very pretty, tiny terrariums and air plants to brighten up these cold winter months. Buy them through Etsy seller Tortoise Loves Donkey or make your own. Scroll down for Design Sponge's terrarium how-to.
How To: Make gardening tomato stakes out of cedar or redwood fence boards
Keeping your garden tomatoes free from pests and insects is no easy task. Luckily you don't have to spend a lot of money to help your tomatoes grow to be their best. Staking your tomatoes will lift them off the ground, away from pesky insects, and protecting them from pests. In this video you'll learn how to make your own garden tomato stakes with cedar or redwood fence boards, which will save you a lot of money in the long run!
How To: Propagate Plants from Cuttings
If you want to propagate plants from cuttings, this horticultural how-to will show you how. Make certain you prepare your pot with a propagating mix and make a small hole with your finger. Take the cuttings and strip your leaves. Next, dip your cutting into a hormone gel or powder before putting your cutting into your pot. For more, including complete step-by-step instructions on the propagation process, take a look.
How To: Start a Vegetable Garden
It's always a pleasure to grow your own herbs and vegetables. Start with good, healthy soil and add lots of organic material. To grow your herbs and vegetables: you can use either seeds or seedlings. Seeds are more cost effective but take longer to grow whereas with seedlings you'll have an instant garden. For more information on starting a vegetable garden, watch this friendly DIY home gardening tutorial.
News: The Wonder of Plants
Have you seen all the adorable miniature garden ideas? Containers of some sort (wood boxes, planters, drawers, wheel barrows, bird baths…) hold a little scene full of tiny living plants along with little adornments like garden benches, hardscapes and paths. They are absolutely enchanting for all ages and how fun to shop the house and find special little things to decorate your tiny garden whether indoors or out. Not only can you plant real, live tiny plants in your garden. Consider little suc...
How To: Maximize your gardening space
We all want to garden. Gardening is a great, peaceful and relaxing hobby. Unforunately we all don't have 10 acres to grow a big beautiful field of daisies on. Luckily, there are still ways. In this tutorial, learn how to garden anywhere - even without a yard at all!
How To: Grow Your Own Sweet Potatoes Year Round
Sweet potatoes are a popular side dish, especially around the holidays. Save some money and start growing sweet potatoes at home. Not only will they be cheaper, but you'll be able to enjoy them year-round.
How To: Save Your Tomatoes From Rats And Rot
Every summer my husband and I plant a tomato plant. We do this to enjoy the plump red tomatoes right off of the vine.
How To: Distinguish different types of bulbs
In this tutorial, Scott Atkinson shows us how to identify different types of bulbs. Common types of bulbs are: tulip, daffodil and lily. These are most easily identified but there are many that appear in flowers. A core looks similar to a bulb but it is a solid tissue and doesn't have an leaves, just a hard core with a protective covering. There is also tubers which are what potatoes and other foods grow from. These cause eyes to form and create different types of things to grow. You will now...
How To: Get Rid of Plant-Eating Pests Using 100% Natural Solutions from Your Home and Garden
Navigating through row after row of plants, my tiny fingers would reach into the leaves to pluck all the vile little creatures from their homes and deposit them into a can of gasoline. Potato bug duty, my least favorite gardening chore. Growing up, my family had a small garden every year. And every year, I was recruited to help plant, maintain, and eventually harvest the vegetables from it. There were some tasks I didn't mind, but the ones I hated most usually involved bugs (have you ever see...
How To: Prune a Bramley apple tree
The Bramley is a large, heavy-cropping cooking apple popular for baking, making apple sauce and other apple dishes. In this two-part how-to series, Stephen Hayes of Fruitwise Heritage Apples demonstrates how to properly prune a Bramley apple tree and other apple trees with a similar habit of growth. Watch this instructional video to learn how to prune your own triploid and tip-bearing trees.
How To: Pinch out the branches on your tomato plants
This video from the the excellent UK series Container Gardening for Food teaches you a simple technique for increasing the yield of your tomato plants. By simply pinching out the new buds your plants continues to sprout after its already fully limbed, you can keep it from expending energy making new limbs and make it focus that energy on growing larger, more delicious tomatoes. A must-watch for any at-home tomato grower.
How To: Grow pawpaws in your home garden
Pawpaws are a little-known American fruit. With their unusual texture and tropical flavor, pawpaws make a great addition to a lot of recipes. They're easy to grow at home, too, in almost any climate! Here is everything you need to know about growing pawpaws, plus a recipe for a delicious and healthy smoothie!
How To: Grow Plants With Compact Fluorescent Lights
I like to grow vegetables all year round, and I couldn't afford the big gas bulbs, or the power to run them. The big gas bulbs:
How To: Grow plants with a homemade hydroponics system
This is Hydroponics: At Home for Beginners.
HowTo: Grow Psychadelic Roses
Admittedly rainbow dyed roses are pretty tacky, but the idea of "mutation" is cool. And the HowTo behind it seems simple enough. Pick Chur explains:
How To: Create Japanese Style Landscape
So you've decided to transform your drab backyard into a Japanese Zen garden. You've made the right choice. Yes, tire swings and crab grass can slowly kill the soul. That being said, a bit of planning lies ahead. This article offers a list of How To tips, culled from the Landscape Network and other professional Japanese style landscapers, for planning an effective Japanese style landscape in your home. Step 1: Research.
How To: Install drip irrigation
Patti Moreno, the Garden Girl, from GardenGirltv, brings us this step-by-step video about how to install what's called a drip irrigation system in her urban sustainable garden with this square foot gardening technique. She illustrates this process in a very detailed way, describing all the tools and various parts you will need to create an irrigation system for your garden that will allow you to save money and water, not to mention time spent watering each plant individually, for under $200.
How To: Plant cactus in containers
Cactus can do very well in containers if attention is paid to several things. One, use terracotta, it breathes well. Also, make sure there is a hole in the bottom because the soil shouldn't be sitting in water. And importantly use a Cactus soil mix, a mix that has a lot of sand, a lot of perlite. Although most plants don't thrive in mixes with a lot of sand, because it dries too fast, Cactus requires this condition. In fact, over watering is the number one way to kill a Cactus. To place the C...
How To: Choose the Right Water Feature for Your Garden
Adding water features to your garden can help to create an enviroment that more closely resembles nature. The sound of a trickling fountain can make your garden feel more peaceful and relax. Paul Tamate, a leading landscape designer working with water features and Asian-inspired garden designs in San Francisco says, "design spectacular water features as the centerpiece of gardens that serve as retreats from modern life."
How To: Alternative Easter Eggs
How to make eggshell planters. Great fun to do with the Kids this Easter Step 1: Watch This Video Guide
How To: Grow healthy tomato plants
Follow along as we learn how to grow healthy tomato plants. -When you plant tomato plants you need to get a strip of tinfoil, about two inches wide, and wrap it around the stem.
How To: Move large trees without damaging the roots
It's been almost impossible to protect all the roots when it comes to moving large trees. This is a process that can take days to complete and can be hard for the tree. But there are ways that this can be accomplished now thanks to some new technology. This new discovery can save all the roots to a tree 30 to 40 feet tall. So check out the tutorial to find out more, and good luck!
How To: Graft eggplant and tomato plants together
Grafting plants together is the oldest and thus far most important kind of genetic engineering practiced in the world. This video features a farmer demonstrating how to graft plants together, using a tomato and a eggplant as an example. He aims to create an eggplant that will yield for longer by grafting the tomato plant into it. Learning these skills will allow you to expand the world of your gardening by creating your own plants!
How To: Build an aeroponic fogger for your hydroponic system
In this gardening tutorial, you'll find instructions for building an aeroponic fogger, or mister, for a hydroponic growing system. Nutrified fog is accepted by the roots at a much faster rate than nutrients from spray or soak system. So I modified my Aerospray system to have both nutrifog and timed sprays. To learn more about this method for constructing an aeroponic fogger, take a look!
How To: Prune Grape Vines Using the Four-Arm Kniffin System
This how-to will show you easy step-by-step instructions for pruning your grape vines for growing great grapes.
How To: Prune and propogate dogwood trees
Joe Swift demonstrates how to prune and take hardwood cuttings from dogwoods. Follow these Gardeners' World step-by-step guides to garden projects from the BBC. These lovely tutorials on gardening will grow your green thumb and make your gardens grow healthful plants. Prune and propogate dogwood trees.
How To: Construct a hydroponic growing tower with HydroHarvest
In this tutorial, learn how to set up a hydroponic tower for growing easy and healthy plants.
How To: Start Your Own Organic Seedlings Indoors
Starting your own seedlings is a great way to save money, have a wider selection of varieties and gain personal satisfaction. Here are easy to follow tips on getting your seeds off to a great start.
How To: Create a natural weed killer
Many commonly used pesticides are harmful to your family and the environment. Watch this video on how to create a natural weed killer for a greener, weed-free home.
How To: Build a hydroponic system inside of a 5-gallon bucket
Wondering how to get started with hydroponic gardening? In this video tutorial, you'll find step-by-step instructions on how to build a complete hydroponic system inside of a five-gallon bucket (with an optional fogger attachment) as well as tips for clone planting. Start gardening hydroponically with this how-to.
How To: Feed Your Soil and Read a Fertilizer Label
Don't be intimidated about plant nutrition and how to read those mysterious numbers on fertilizer labels! Watch this funny and memorable video that breaks down the basics of fertilizing and shows you how to feed your plants.
How to Kill a Slug: An Original Music Video
Slugs are the bane of a gardeners existence but they are not going to win this war! Watch this funny, short music video, YES, music video that will have you tapping your toes and memorizing tons of ways to kill a slug! It works!
How To: Select Basic Garden Tools and Learn Basic Plant Types
Gardening school is in session and Shirley is teaching the absolute basics, such as: what to wear, what tools to use, what is the difference between an annual, perennial, and biennial? What is a garden zone, and which one is yours? Class is in session, so spit out your gum and listen up. Time to learn Gardening 101.
How To: Fertilize Aquatics
Video: . this video will show you how to make organic fertilizer balls for aquatic gardening.
How To: Easily Prune Larger Branches on Trees
This video will show you how simple it is to prune large branches on trees. Video: .
How To: Plant corn
The video demonstrates the process of planting corn in a small soil-patch in your garden. The lady presenting you the video uses a 75g packet of Corn Honey & Cream Bicolor seeds from Heritage Gardens. Be aware that the corn cross pollinates very easily and hence you have to separate the different types of corn by planting time or by distance. The video says that 150 feet distance between different corn types is recommended but in smaller gardens, spacing can be achieved by different planting ...
How To: Make healthy wholemeal flat bread,chapati , tortilla
Devlopyourqi teaches viewers how to make wholemeal flat bread, chapati or tortilla. All you need for this is wholemeal flous 2.4 cups, 1 teaspoon of salt and one cup of water. Stir this all together in a large mixing bowl. Next, you should knead this for about 10 minutes. Next, leave this dough, wrapped, to rest for about an hour. Now, after an hour, divide this dough into about 16 pieces. This depends on how big you want your flat breads to be. It does not take too much dough for each though...