The success of next year’s garden depends on proper preparation of your vegetable beds this fall. Clearing out dead plants, turning in some nice old compost for soil regeneration, and even planting some early spring crops is the perfect way to ensure the success of next year’s garden.
photo credit: mcmorgan08

Insect Free: Taking all old leaves and plant debris off of your garden is the best way to prevent insects from overwintering in your garden. Old leaves on the soil surface provide a nice hiding place for insects, such as squash bugs, grasshoppers, and aphids. If you clear out old leaves and stems and compost them, insects have nowhere to hide. Freezing temperatures will help control next year’s insect population, and reduced debris on the soil surface will ensure freezing temperatures for insects on the sol surface.

Disease Free: Leaf and vegetable litter provides a place for other problems to reside also, such as tomato wilt. Collecting and throwing away diseased plants in the garbage or landfill will help keep diseases from reestablishing themselves next season. Many gardeners had difficulty with tomato blight, or wilt this past year. If this was the case in your garden, it is especially important to clear off all plants and fruits from this past season. Most spores from the tomato wilt will be thrown away with the plants and fruit.

Organisms in the soil will have time over the winter to decompose and distribute nutrients to the soil from compost for next year’s vegetables. Spread one to two inches of well-decomposed compost on the surface of your garden bed and turn into the soil well. Soil microorganisms will do the rest.

You can plant some early spring vegetables for early harvest in the spring after preparing your soil bed. These seeds will not germinate until soil temperatures warm enough for them to grow. Sowing spinach seeds, and planting your first couple rows of peas will allow for the earliest harvest. Garlic should be planted in the late fall, also, and should be planted in a drier bed than your peas and spinach.

You can finally sit back and enjoy that cup of tea after your fall beds are tilled and prepared for next season. Then you can start planning for next spring.

Betsy Woodworth gives help on greenhouses and on garden tips.

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Have you ever thought about getting into hydroponic indoor gardening as a hobby or money making scheme?

photo credit: Ryan Somma

Below is a list of advantages to hydroponic indoor gardening when compared to traditional soil based gardening:

1. Once you have made your initial set-up costs, hydroponic gardening is around 20% less expensive to run.

2. You can plant more hydroponic plants in a smaller area. This is because the roots do not need to grow as large as they have easier access to nutrients. This is despite your plants actually growing larger too!

3. Maintenance time is greatly reduced! There is of course no need to water hydroponic plants and weeding doesn’t exist either! All you’ll ever need to do is pick the plants once they are ready!

4. The yield is year round and permanent as you have full control over growing conditions and you will have made them optimum for whatever you are growing. This is great for when it’s off season as you can sell them for higher prices.

5. You can grow them anywhere; basement, living room, bedroom, corridor, attic, greenhouse, garage or rooftop.

6. Your hydroponic indoor gardening will result in a crop that is on average 40% larger. This is because you have created the ideal environment for them and they have constant access to nutrients.

7. As you will not be watering them, there is no danger of them being over or under watered. This is a common mistake with many novice gardeners.

8. For the reasons listed above, your plants will grow up to 50% faster. This is great if you have a large family to feed or you’re planning on selling them.

9. There is no need to have a garden for hydroponic indoor gardening. So if you live in the arctic or the desert you’re fine! More realistically, if you live in a high rise apartment block you can still do it!

Hydroponic Indoor Gardening is a fun and exciting hobby which you can realistically make a lot of money from! If you’re interested then you should learn more about Hydroponic Indoor Gardening!

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Normally, when individuals decide to begin hydroponic gardening, they will set up a system wherever they have some additional space, such as the basement. Obviously, though, most folks aren’t interested in letting their hydroponic garden invade their homes!

photo credit: _foam

That’s why many individuals who are committed to hydroponics will look into purchasing or constructing a greenhouse.

Growing your plants in a greenhouse is preferable in many ways to just setting them up in an unused area of your home. You’ll find that if you have your garden inside a greenhouse it’s much simpler to create an environment which will permit it to thrive.

Temperature, ventilation and lighting are all easier to control. As well, you need lots of room in order to install the irrigation and lighting systems that are needed for hydroponic gardening. You can install this equipment precisely where you need it in a greenhouse. Controlling the water and lighting are more imperative in a hydroponics garden compared to a normal garden.

Lighting is in fact the main reason why a greenhouse is so ideal for a hydroponic garden. When you grow plants hydroponically, it is vital that they get adequate amounts of light. But it is also important to remember that too much direct light allows algae to grow and that is not useful.

In a greenhouse setting, daylight is filtered and diffused naturally. It’s even possible to regulate the lighting level and angle of sunlight with blinds or shutters. Less energy consumption is another advantage as you won’t need to continually run the hydroponic lights.

When you have a greenhouse, you’ll see that the system for providing nutrients to your plants is less difficult to set up and maintain. This is vital to how well your hydroponic specimens grow and thrive. When plants grow in solution rather than the ground, the pH content can change more rapidly.

There will be great variations in alkaline and acid levels because it’s all dependent on the water. With a greenhouse, it’s not difficult to implement an automated system of pH control, which gives you a break from forever checking the levels.

The temperature reading is also imperative in terms of hydroponic gardening. You’ll be able to keep heaters at bay when a greenhouse is well built as it does a decent job at maintaining the temperature.

This is particularly useful if you live somewhere that gets cold but has plenty of sun. You can also install air vents and fans to regulate the temperature in your greenhouse even more exactly.

There is a good selection of greenhouses kits to be found, however you can also build one yourself from scratch. The scope of the available models and sizes is quite large. Should your hydroponic garden become larger you can add on to a number of the greenhouse packages that are available. As you can see, many worthwhile factors exist for using a greenhouse for hydroponic gardening.

Hydroponics is an increasingly popular technique for year-round, indoor gardening. Find out more at Hydroponic Gardening.

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