Installing a Drip Irrigation System

Installing a Drip Irrigation System

If you’re looking for ways to keep your garden watered without wasting too much time and money, you’ve probably gone through a lot of options in your mind. Maybe you’ve considered a sprinkler, a hose, or a good old-fashioned watering can. All of these methods might be convenient, but most of the time you will end up wasting water on plants that don’t need any more. If you live in a drought stricken area like I do, you know that every bit of water counts. I ended up getting a drip irrigation system. I haven’t regretted this decision at all.

When you install a drip irrigation system, you can choose one of two varieties: above ground and below ground. The above ground version drips small amounts of water continuously onto the ground, and allows it to soak in. It is all regulated from a pressure controller, which ensures that the water just comes out at a drip instead of a spray or a stream. These pressure regulators are very inexpensive. The whole drip system can be set up with a pressure regulator and a garden hose with holes poked in it (although it is ideal for you to get a pipe designed for this type of use, I’ve found that the hose method works acceptably).

The underground system is a bit more of a pain to install and maintain. But if you’re really into the aesthetic aspect of your garden and don’t want any visible watering system, then you might consider it worth it. It’s essentially the same as the above ground version, only a small trench is dug for the hose or pipe prior to any planting. This allows the water direct access to the roots for the most watering efficiency. Plus, you can impress your neighbors by having a beautiful garden without ever going outside to water it! They’ll be baffled.

To choose between the two systems, you need to take several things into account. Do you have the same plant layout year round? If it is always changing, you probably won’t want to bury your hose. It can be a pain to dig it up and re-align it with all your new plants every year or so. Even if your plant layout never changes, you need to consider how much you really mind seeing a hose in your garden. If it really bothers you to the extent that you’re willing to work for a few hours to get rid of it, then by all means bury it. But otherwise I would suggest staying above ground if for nothing else than the convenience of repairing and rearranging.

One of the main advantages of the drip irrigation system is its efficiency. Instead of spraying large amounts of water willy-nilly like a hose does, it makes the most of your precious water by putting it exactly where it is needed. It can also provide your garden with constant watering, instead of just having to go thirsty whenever you’re not around to water it.

So if you’re looking for an easy, cheap, convenient, and efficient alternative watering method, you should go out to the gardening store today and purchase the necessary items to install a drip irrigation system. I think you’ll be surprised at how much easier it is to maintain a garden after you have it.

What You Should Know About Tomatoes

What You Should Know About Tomatoes

There are some facts about tomatoes that you should know before growing one of them. It could be depend on their varieties or their descents.

1.      Determinate vs. Indeterminate

 

Determinate tomatoes are varieties that grow to a fixed mature size and ripen all their fruit in a short period, usually about 2 weeks. Once this first flush of fruit has ripened, the plant will begin to diminish in vigor and will set little to no new fruit. It’s also called as “bush” tomato. If you’d like to make tomato sauce, you’d probably choose this kind of tomato because it produces large amount of fruit.

Indeterminate varieties tend to grow longer vines and will require more support in terms of staking or caging over the course of a season. Determinate varieties often (but not always) tend to be more compact and manageable. Indeterminate tomatoes need pruning action to make the growth better.

What variety would you choose for your garden?

If you have a large garden, and would like to have heavy crops of tomatoes, you might want to plant some varieties of indeterminate tomatoes. If you want to grow it in pots or containers, you'll probably want to stick with a few different determinate varieties. They are more well-behaved and better suited to container culture. You can certainly grow indeterminate tomatoes in containers, but be prepared to be vigilant about staking or caging, as well as pruning the suckers to maintain compact growth.

Growing Tomatoes from Cuttings

Growing Tomatoes from Cuttings

My tomato from cutting

Gardeners may be not familiar with started veggies from cuttings. The tomato plant, in particular, lends itself easily to cutting propagation because even the cells in its stems can become roots.

Starting tomato plants from cutting is not difficult. First time I did it because I was late to prune my tomato suckers and feel sad to dispose it. Then I started thinking about, how if grow another tomato plants from cuttings?

One of the advantages of propagating tomato plants by stem cuttings is that it can take tomato seedlings (started from seed) 6 to 8 weeks before they reach transplanting size. If you keep tomato cuttings warm, the transplanting time frame is cut down to a mere 10 – 14 days.

Even if you’ve never tried propagating plants with cuttings before, you’re practically guaranteed success. Tomato cuttings are such incredibly easy rooters, they will even root in a cup of water. That being said, the plants are stronger if they are rooted in soil.

What you’ll need:

-         Tomato cuttings about 6 inch long

-         New pots and soil with good drainage

-         A pencil

How to do it:

Growing Zucchini from Seeds

Zucchini 

Zucchini is a member of the squash and pumpkin (or cucurbita) family of vegetables. It’s also called as courgette. It is perhaps the best known, and most joked about of the many varieties of squash. Zucchini is indeed a prolific producer.

Like all summer squash, zucchini can trace their ancestry back to the American continent, however the varieties of squash typically known as ‘zucchini’ were actually developed in Italy - many generations after their introduction from their country of origin. The first records of courgettes in the United States date back to the early 1920s - almost certainly brought over by Italian immigrants.

First time I got the zucchini seed from a friend in an Internet forum . I planted it because it's not a kind of the other squash who needs a lot of space to grow and spread. This is not a hard vegetable to grow. It's easy. Too easy, perhaps. I just need 4 days before it was sprout. I planted the seed in seedling cup, it's mostly like a drinking cup. 

My Zucchini's Sprout

 A week after, i repotted the baby zucchini to a larger pot, because i don't have large soil to plant it. It need full sun and more watering.

Another Kitty in Town : Lulu

My Kitty: Lulu

I found her in front of my office in the morning, hunger and noisy. Many people throw away their kitten because adult cat could give birth some new baby in a year. It’s complicated, actually, when you had more kitten in your home than you expected, then you have to give them away to the other people or throw them away. But the wisest way to do it is when the kitten doesn’t need their mommy anymore, so they could find their own food for living.

I brought the kitten home, while, I had 4 adult cats in my house. But I couldn’t just let the kitten roam the streets. I gave her name Lulu, and treated her in my room, gave her foods, prepared litter box, and warm place to sleep. I love to play with her, and she’s sleeping with me lately. Sometimes I talk to her like a friend. It’s a pleasure, we could share to a cat even though maybe she couldn’t understand and giving solutions like human, but it could reduce the level of stress for us.