Fresh homegrown tomatoes! Sound like summer? Your tomato garden will provide this summertime treat for you.

As noted by singer-songwriter Guy Clark, “There’s only two things money can’t buy. That’s true love and homegrown tomatoes”. Anyone who has had the good fortune of tasting a tomato fresh from the vine will surely agree with Clark. Not only do homegrown tomatoes taste scrumptious, they offer many health benefits as well. Your tomato garden will be an excellent source of

Vitamin C ( strengthens immunity, oral health, aids in collagen production for stronger muscle and bone, also a superb antioxidant).

Vitamin A ( promotes eye health, prevents skin and tissue damage, excellent lubricant – provides moisture where needed).

Lycopene-Tomatoes are the richest source of lycopene in the US diet (shown to be beneficial in reducing the risk of prostate cancer, ongoing research suggests that lycopene may be heart protective and may aid in blood pressure and bone health).

Studies have shown that the more tomatoes people ate, the lower their risks of many different kinds of cancer. Your tomato garden will produce much more succulent tomatoes than those available at your local grocer. This is largely due to the fact that the juiciest varieties cannot be shipped without damaging the fruit.

Fruit? Botanically speaking, tomatoes are a fruit. A fruit is the mature reproductive body, or ovary, of a plant (a bloom that develops into a fruit and contains seeds). A vegetable is the edible part of a plant such as a root, stem or leaf. Therefore the tomato is technically a fruit. But in 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that tomatoes are a vegetable, not a fruit.

The tomato has a heritage of misunderstanding. The tomato plant itself is a perennial. However, tomatoes are grown as annuals in most of the United States since they cannot endure fall frosts. A member of the nightshade family, their origins have been traced to South America. Early European explorers’ notion that tomatoes were poisonous subjected them to mere decorative use. Thomas Jefferson was one of the first Americans to discover the delectable possibilities. Now, on average, every American consumes roughly 90 lbs of tomatoes per year.

Since modest beginnings, tomatoes have become the most popularly grown garden plant in America. Easy to care for, good for your health, and great to eat, tomatoes make a wonderful contribution to any garden.

Have you ever tried to plant and maintain a garden without a tractor? If your garden has any size to it at all, then you know first hand that growing a garden is a lot of hard work. Now throw a tractor into the equation and you just turned your full time gardening job into a hobby. With the right garden tractor implements you can grow and maintain a wide variety of vegetables.

Tractors provide two different ways to attach farm implements and are standard features on most compact and full sized tractors. The 3pt. Hitch system allows a garden farmer to connect a seemingly endless array of tractor equipment to the rear of a compact tractor. Many of these will also need to be powered by what is known as the Power Take Off or PTO, and a good example of garden tractor attachments that would need to be powered by the tractor is a tractor rotary tiller and if you were putting up a fence around your garden, a post hole digger.

The other way to get more from your tractor is to have a front end loader. Utilizing your tractors hydraulics to power a universal quick attach grapple bucket attachment that connects to the loader arms is beneficial. Although these are not normally used for gardening, it is worth mentioning because if you purchase a tractor most people want to get as much use out of them as possible.

So, you may be asking yourself, what implements should I consider owning to create the best garden possible without having to pick up a hoe? There is a basic set of attachments take help to produce a healthy crop, so keep on reading. If you are planting a garden, a garden tractor plow is almost a necessity. A plow allows you to turn the earth and prepare the soil for planting your garden. If you have a smaller compact tractor then it is usually a good idea to use a One Bottom Plow. For larger tractors, a farm plow or two bottom plow is the better choice. This will allow you to plow your garden or field faster if your tractor has the horsepower to pull it.

Once you have used your turning plow on your garden, the very next move is to go ahead and eliminate the large hard dirt clods. For this next step you will need either a disc harrow, or a rotary tiller. Depending on the size of disc harrow your tractor can pull, the disc harrow is normally the cheaper of the two, but requires more work in the form of several passes to get the soil prepared to plant in. It is simply connected to the 3pt. hitch and pulled behind the tractor and lowered so that the discs are slicing the dirt clods into smaller pieces.

Using a rototiller instead of a disc harrow is sure to save you time when getting your fields ready to plant. You can adjust the rear gate open or closed to fine tune to coarseness of your gardens soil. If you set it open, then you will have larger pieces of dirt that will not be broken up. If you close the rear gate, the tiller literally chops up the ground, then busts the remaining clods against the gate producing very loose soil for planting. One pass with a tractor tiller over your garden and you are ready for the next step in creating a beautiful garden your plants will love.

Now that the soil ready to plant, the next step is to create a raised garden bed to plant your crop in. A great tool for this is known as a garden hiller or garden bedders. You can find a 3 in 1 tool that will allow you to complete the next couple steps with a single farm tractor attachment. Everything Attachments offers a garden cultivator with a bolt on bedder, furrowing attachment, and cultivator all in one. Once you have created you raised beds, many garden farmers tend to make a pass over each row with a furrowing attachment to make a small V into each row. This creates a place for the gardener to place their seed and easily cover it up with the soil on either side.

Now comes the not so fun part of a garden . . . taking care of the weeds that can strangle your crop. You basically have two choices in this area, hoe your garden (don’t recommend it if you have a large garden and enjoy standing upright) or you can attach a garden cultivator to your tractor. While your garden plants are young and still fighting against any unwanted competitors for sunlight, water, and minerals you will want to get rid of the competition. The premise is to stradle your plants with your tractor, and the cultivator will pull up the weeds growing in your garden. Be careful not to get your cultivator shanks too close to your crop so you do not disturb the roots, but get close enough to pull out your weeds. Once your crop is big enough to shade the area on either side of your row, you are pretty much in the clear.

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Bonsai trees, similar to every other living things, require food for survival. In contrast to the roots of ordinary trees that develop for long distances seeking nutrition, the roots of bonsai trees are controlled to grow within the container & thus theyll be able to obtain simply whatever nutrition is obtainable in the soil within the pot. So, the soil inside the container must be often replenished with the precise quantity of nutrients.

The procedure of adding nutrients to the soil in which plants grow is termed Fertilizing & it is an essential segment of bonsai tree care. The nutrients existing in the manure will help the bonsai tree to manufacture its own food by a method called Photosynthesis. The quantity & type of manure to be provided for bonsai tree care is mostly based on factors namely: – Type of bonsai tree – Maturity level of the bonsai tree – Moment of the year in which the bonsai is fertilized

The fundamental nutrients in fertilizers are Nitrogen, Phosphorous & Potassium, available in various amounts for different fertilizers. You should apply fertilizer all through the growth period of the tree; commencing early spring till mid autumn. Indoor trees nevertheless can be fertilized around the year. It is recommended to apply higher quantity of fertilizer regularly (like once in two weeks) for young trees, and continue reducing the quantity & frequency as the tree grows old.

So as to offer apt bonsai tree care, by no means over-fertilize. Excess fertilizer results in burning of roots & leaves. Burned roots are not competent enough for drawing water from the soil and passing it on to the other parts of the bonsai tree. In case of over-fertilizing, continue watering the plant until the water comes outside the drain hole and allow it to deplete. Then re-water it. This procedure is known as leaching & assists to discard excess fertilizers.

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Things to remember: – At all times water the bonsai tree previous to mixing the fertilizer. – Endeavor to use a water soluble fertilizer. – Never fertilize a sick plant till it has recovered. – Although if its a growth season, dont add fertilizer to a dormant outdoor bonsai until it demonstrates signal of development. In case it is indoors, you can provide fertilizer less frequently, like once in a month.

With proper bonsai tree care, by providing the correct quantity of fertilizer at the proper time, you will be able to develop & uphold a healthy bonsai tree.

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The corner of your garage is not a good place to store all your important “stuff”, like tools. But, you can’t just get rid of it. A better solution is to build a wooden shed in your backyard. And the best part – it can be easily done in a matter of only two day (assuming you already have all the materials purchased from the local supply store.) Here’s how:

Day 1 – Floor and Frame

The first thing you’ll need to do is prepare the site. It doesn’t have to be level, in fact its better if the ground is slightly pitched down towards the back of the shed for water runoff. Remove any large rocks and/or debris. Because this is a one weekend project, you’ll have to build the shed with a wood floor instead of a concrete one. If you really want to have a concrete foundation, this will stretch the project into another week to allow for drying. But building a wood (or skid) floor is not only faster, its easier, less expensive and even somewhat portable. For this shed, use cinder (or patio) blocks to set the floor on. Make sure the blocks are level.

Now, lets get started on the actual building. Once you have the first floor joist cut, use it as a template for the rest ” its way easier and faster. Here’s another tip, for strength, use deck screws instead of nails. A power drill makes screwing boards together very quick work. Once the frame of the floor is finished, make sure its square by measuring two corners diagonally, then the other two. The measurements should be the same. If not, take one of the corners with the longer measurement and adjust it by pushing in towards the opposing corner. Make small adjustments at a time. Nail on the plywood subfloor by staggering the boards (much like bricks). You don’t want four corners of four different pieces of plywood to end up in the middle of your shed.

Building the walls is pretty much the same process as building the skid for the floor. If you want any windows on the shed, frame them accordingly. To cover the sides, use T1-11 plywood. T1-11 has vertical grooves cut into it to give the appearance of tongue and groove siding but since it comes in sheets, the amount of time to put on the siding is cut way down. Take one of the wall frames and place the T1-11 on top (outside facing down). Use the same method to make the walls square that you used for the floor. Now nail the siding to the frame. If possible, buy, borrow or rent a router to use to trim the siding to the studs all the way around the walls. Once you have the walls put together, you can now attach them to the floor. Use temporary braces to hold the walls up until you have them screwed together. Make sure you use a level to plumb the walls (they should be perfectly vertical). This is a good place to stop for the day.

Day 2 – A Roof Overhead And A Door To Pass Through

Today, you’ll start off by building the trusses. Assemble all the pieces of the first truss by following the plans but don’t nail it together at this time. If all the pieces are fitting together correctly, use the pieces as templates for the rest of the trusses. You can now go back and screw (or nail) all the trusses together and attach each of the trusses to the top of the shed walls. Now you can cut and attach plywood sheeting for the roof. Next comes the installation of the asphalt shingles which is done exactly as they are on a house. Start by rolling down roofing felt. Place the first row on the bottom and overlap the rows as you work up to the top. Apply a second layer across the top ridge for extra strength. When you apply the shingles, make sure to offset the seams and work your way from the bottom to the top. Now all you have left is the ridge cap which is made by cutting down single shingles. Shingles are usually made with slits on the bottom half to look like three shingles on a single sheet. Overlap these single pieces of shingles to form the ridge cap.

A prefabricated door should be used on your shed to save on time. Attach it to the shed with hinges. And now finish the door and window with trim.

A few details have been omitted from this short article as it is simply intended to show you how possible and simple it is to build a wooden shed in only one weekend.

Remodeling and landscaping have become more popular than ever before since people want to create a living space inside and out that is unique and complements their personalities. Sad to say, it is also a pricey endeavor.

As the bad economy continues to affect our pockets, people have become even more creative with their patio and backyard revamping by choosing key pieces to make their space more inviting. Oftentimes even a simple garden fountain can change a person’s mood.

Garden fountains and waterfalls are designed from various materials like stone, fiber glass, wood, copper, porcelain, ceramic and concrete. Water fountains first emerged in the Middle East as hieroglyphics on ancient Egyptian tombs reveal. These pictures emphasized the use of garden fountains in home courtyards. The Mesopotamians used plenty of fountains to decorate their formal gardens.

Romans utilized lots of outdoor fountains since they were religious about their bathing rituals and preferred gardens with public baths. Fountains have always been a place for wishing and have enabled persons to rest since the sound of running water calms the senses.

When landscaping or revamping a yard or patio, there are many options to choose from depending on the size of the space and the available budget. Flowers, paths, new grass, wood chips, pebbles, sculptures, decorative lanterns and outdoor fireplaces all create a more inviting atmosphere.

Patio water features can be placed anywhere around the home and come in a wide range of styles and prices. The sound of moving water is inviting for guests and provides a place to relax after a long day. Besides the relaxation and beauty, having a garden fountain inside or outside has been found to improve health since it releases negative ions into the air which naturally purify and increase energy as well as helps relieve stress and depression.