Garden Sprouts - May 29, 2010 | Gardening on the Moon ( GOTM )

Written by Jeff
Non-GOTM pictures credited by hover notes – move cursor over image

Fine Gardening provides a very good video describing techniques to boost seed-sowing success; warm soak, scarification, cold stratification. While you are at the site, take advantage of other video offerings at the bottom of the screen such as “artificial light for seedlings” and “seed savers exchange”

http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/videos/seed-starting-pre-treat.aspx

Martha Stewart has many wondeful gardening ideas. Although she isn’t the only person to propose a planting yardstick, she does provide a good post explaining how to make and use one. I had one of these when I gardened in NJ and it was very helpful especially when planting rows of seeds/seedlings. NOTE – photo above is NOT the yardstick from the article.

http://www.marthastewart.com/good-things/planters-yardstick

In my former home, I had 3/4 of an acre of lawn. It took me three hours to cut the lawn using a walk behind, large format lawn mower. I preferred not to use a riding mower because it enabled me to get close the lawn to see if problems were developing. In addition, I didn’t have all of that extra weight traveling over my manicured lawn. I just included this as part of my exercise.

One secret I learned that proved very helpful was to keep the grass long (3.25 inches) to help shade the ground to keep it cool and moist. There are several other interesting tips included in the post at the link below. I think you will find these worth considering.

Five shortcuts to a Perfect Lawn – http://www.diylife.com/2010/05/25/5-shortcuts-to-a-perfect-lawn/

Most have heard about resistant germs caused by the overuse of anti-bacterials, etc. Well, what if there were a group of super weeds developing because of the overuse of weed killers? Read about that potential from this NYT article and ponder the consequences.

Invasion of the Superweeds – http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/invasion-of-the-superweeds/

Tomato seedlings via tiffanywashko's photostream on Flickr