Ramblings of Garden Tool Co.
Anne Schreck
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Posts by Anne Schreck
Growing Potatoes in Cages
411 months ago
Last year we did not have a lot of luck growing potatoes in our raised beds, so this year we decided to give cages a try. We used some leftover wire fencing and made three cages. Then we mixed up some compost and straw in each cage and put our seed potatoes into them. As the plants grow, we can just continue to add either the same mixture or just more straw. As the season progresses, we shall see if we have any better luck with this method. Hopefully we will because we are a potato loving household.
Our potato cages
The Cadillac of Crack Weeders
011 months ago
by Anne Schreck
in Garden Tools
It’s been quite some time since I wrote about weeders but with our recent month of rain, they are back on my mind because everything has been growing rampantly after all the moisture – especially the weeds. In addition to the weeds that seem to spring up everywhere, our front flowerbeds are full of Cosmos, a wonderful but prolific self-seeding flower, and they don’t limit themselves to our beds. Now both weeds and Cosmos can be found growing in every crack in the sidewalk, driveway and gutter, so I frequently find myself out front with a crack weeder.
Last year, I wrote about the bio v-groove, which is a great little hand weeder that works wonderfully on cracks, but this year I decided to try out a long handled weeder and boy is it heavenly to get to do the job standing up. What a relief to my aging knees and back to get to do this job without bending down or squatting, and the Cadillac of this type weeder has to be the Sneeboer Paver and Crack Weeder. Designed with both a healthy sized pick and a sharp straight side, I can use it both on large, tough weeds or a Cosmo and to get at that grass growing in the narrowest of cracks in our sidewalk and driveway. This baby grabs a spot high on my list of favorite weeders.
Sneeboer Paver and Crack Weeder
Share Your Love of Gardening
11 year ago
by Anne Schreck
in Gardening
I have a true passion for working in the garden – so much so – that I told my Mother that instead of a traditional funeral, I want people to plant and dance after I die. Helping something grow reenergizes me in a way that nothing else can, and for me, it has always been a form of therapy. In recent years, the popularity of gardening has surged to new heights and more people than ever are recognizing its therapeutic benefits.
Not long ago, we received some awesome pictures that showed children participating in water and dirt relay races using some garden tools that Garden Tool Company donated to their school in the Atlanta area. For the sake of the children’s privacy, we can’t post the pictures, but believe me they had a great Field Day using those garden tools in a non-traditional way.
Children at the Macneil Kids Garden
Another recent example is Taylor Paine, this year’s recipient of the Aggie Trowel. Taylor was honored by the Texas A&M Horticulture Club for her work at the school and for her intense desire to help the disabled through horticultural therapy. It thrills me to see her passion for a career that was unheard of back when I went to college. I think it would have been a great fit for me.
I found more great evidence recently in the Herald-Tribune with the story of Dolly Tomalinas and her work at the Janet Jones Group Home in Punta Gorda, where she and her helpers share the benefits of gardening with residents challenged by a variety of mental and physical issues ranging from autism to cerebral palsy. With training as both nurse and a master gardener, she uses a variety of improvised tools that make gardening possible for those with physical limitations. The article goes on the detail the work of several other gardeners in the Florida area that use everything from moon gardens to boxed gardens to bring the joys of gardening to others with limited abilities.
Accessible Table Garden Plots in Berkeley CA
And today, I read a great post by Stacie Wheeler, detailing the benefits of instilling the love of gardening in children. What a great way to get kids outside in the sun and away from computer games and television, while teaching them the rewards of patience and hard work. Respect for Mother Nature can be nurtured as children dig and plant and are rewarded with the veggies or flowers they produce.
So if you love gardening as I do, I encourage you all to find a way to share that love with others and reap even greater rewards. Whether you invite them to join you in your own garden, help them start a garden of their own or simply share the excess your garden produces with those less fortunate, the rewards will be tremendous and therapeutic, both for you and them.
Homegrown Tomatos Rule
11 year ago
When it comes to vegetable gardening, it’s hard to beat the taste of a homegrown tomato, and who doesn’t love a homemade sauce or salsa. I guess that’s why the tomato is the most talked about (or written about) vegetable when gardening time rolls around. This year, the National Gardening Bureau has named the tomato the vegetable of the year for 2011.
Here is a link to a great article from knoxnews.com that gives a bit of tomato history, information about some new varieties and some good basic explanations of tomato terminology from an expert at the University of Tennessee.
The Denver Daisy is Best of Show at the CSU Trial Garden
11 year ago
by Anne Schreck
in Gardening
Just around the corner from our house, we have a wonderful gardening resource, the Colorado State University Trail Gardens. Each year they do performance testing on numerous annual and perennial flowers. This year’s top prize winner was the Denver Daisy. Check out this article from our local paper, the Coloradoan, to learn more about all of their picks.
Denver Daisy
Oh How I Wish I Could Garden!
21 year ago
by Anne Schreck
in Gardening
I am so ready to do lots of gardening, but we live in Northern Colorado where you can hardly count on the weather at this time of the year. After all, last year we had some pretty healthy snow falls in May. So all I have been able to plant so far are the cold weather veggies and the seedlings that I am starting indoors. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t been getting the garden tools out and putting them to work preparing all the beds for those warmer days when it is safe to plant.
First out were the rakes for some needed clean up, because we leave the leaves and other debris in the beds all winter to act as mulch and insulation for the plants that have to survive those sub-zero temperatures we get during the winter. Next came the garden spade, the digging fork and that cool garden claw from Sneeboer to work the soil in the raised beds and prepare them for the addition of some good organic compost. These gardening tools were followed by the pruners and the loppers because spring is the time to take care of most pruning jobs and we always lose some tree branches from the heavy snows. And of course, the weeders soon followed because the weeds are mostly all early bloomers and as I have mentioned previously, I am a huge weed-a-phobe. We didn’t need to do any perennial separations this year, but if you do, early spring is typically the best time for that as well. There are all kinds of great specialty garden tools designed just for working on your perennials, such as the perennial planter from DeWit.
Garden Claw Cultivator from Sneeboer
Next up for me is the rake again because I am going to try to grow some nice natural grasses and wildflowers out behind the fence where we don’t get the best sun and it’s difficult to water, so I need to scratch up the soil. Yesterday, I did a lot of weeding with one of my personal favorites, my hori hori knife. I used it rather than a weeder because the weeds that grow back there have roots bigger than your thumb and longer than most of the weeders we sell and I don’t have to worry about how much of the surrounding ground that I tear up trying to get the entire things out.
So that’s our list of garden tools that we have used even though we can’t really do what I call real gardening yet. What’s been going on in your yard and garden so far this year? If you don’t have all the great garden tools that you need to get your garden going, be sure to check out our Spring Garden Tool Giveaway where you have a chance of winning several great selections of tools from Garden Tool Company.
What’s Going on in Your Raised Gardening Beds?
01 year ago
by Anne Schreck
in Gardening
Here in Northern Colorado we can get snow in May, so the planting season starts later than in the south. Just yesterday, it was over 75 and today they are predicting a rain and snow mix. Only cold crops can be planted by the first week of April and many veggies do better if you start them inside. So right now we have peas, spinach, carrots and onions in the raised gardening beds and scallions, lettuce, cabbage, cantaloupe and celery indoors under the heat light. Melons are not typically started indoors, but ours had a hard time of it last year so we decided to give them some time to get established before putting them out.
Lettuce, scallions, celery, cabbage and canteloupe
This year we are planting a few less vegetables than we did last year. The broccoli and the cauliflower took up a lot of space and the results were less than stellar, so they will not be making the cut. We will plant lettuce and spinach again this year, but we are going to do a better job of using varied start dates for the plants so that we don’t have one huge harvest and a bunch of plants that bolt. We are going to go with more carrots and potatoes and hope that they like the soil a bit better this year now that we have added more compost. We also ordered some potato bags and will probably try some in one of those as well.
We had wonderful luck with our tomatoes, radishes, cucumbers, green beans and peppers and we will go with plenty of each again, but all of those must wait until May. We will probably go with seedlings from the local nursery for all but the radishes and green beans. I also got some black eyed pea seeds but they require a soil temperature of 65 degrees, so those will come later as well. We are still pondering corn since it takes a lot of room for a pretty small yield and great corn is usually readily available at the store. Squash is also iffy because I like it but you should see the face that Blake makes when you mention it.
So that’s what’s happening in our garden beds – what’s going on in yours?
The Why, When and How of Dividing Perennials
01 year ago
by Anne Schreck
in Gardening
Many hardy perennials have the tendency to spread to a point of overwhelming the area that you have planted them, others can begin to lose their ability to produce lots of large, healthy looking flowers, some produce flowers that flop over and finally sections or parts of others begin to die. All of these symptoms are indications that it is time to divide them, whether you intend to spread them around your yard or just help the existing ones to become healthy and strong again.
Typically, plants that flower in spring should be divided in the fall and fall flowering perennials should be divided in the spring. But if you live in a colder climate with a short growing season, you can divide them all in the spring when the conditions are better for allowing the plants time and heat to get established again. For the spring bloomers, you probably want to wait until after they have bloomed to divide them if you are doing so in spring. Some plants will grow so much each season that they can be divided every year while others will take another three to four years before needing it again. The savvy gardener has a great chart for many types of hardy perennials indicating the best time to divide them, but you are the ultimate judge of the need for your plants and yard.
When you do decide it is time for a division, the first step is to take the entire plant out of the ground. Watering a few days beforehand makes it much easier and be sure to dig a large enough hole, not just width but depth, to get all the roots that you can. There are a number of smaller spades, such as the Sneeboer planting boy or the DeWit perennial spade, designed specifically to help you get in between closely planted perennials. Once you have them out, look at the roots to determine how to divide them. If the root ball is very thick and strong, you will probably want to cut it, but with many other plants you can just gently pull them apart. You may want to soak the plant and remove the dirt in order to better see what you are up against.
DeWit Perennial Spade
How you replant is equally important. Remember to enrich the soil and try to plant at the same depth as they were growing. If there is heavy foliage, cut it back some before replanting. Don’t forget to add mulch and to water adequately until the new roots are established.
So take a look at your perennials and if they are overgrown or looking less than healthy, try dividing them. You not only get more plants without buying them, you get plants that will look better and bloom more robustly.
