In this article I would like to dispel some myths about indoor gardening as well as give some tips for simple ways to improve your harvest.

Myth #1: You can grow in any room indoors.

Growing indoors even in the best circumstances is more difficult than you would think at first, and depends a lot on “what” you are trying to grow. For this article I will focus on food bearing plants such as tomatoes and cucumbers, and other succulent garden plants, as well as herbs and fresh flowers and orchids. Plants such as garlic and carrots that create bulbs are even more challenging and will not be discussed at this time.

Tip #1: No matter what plants you decide to grow indoors, you will still need to meet its basic requirements for growth.

Mainly, good ventilation from the outside, Light, and fertilizer as well as a exhaust for the heat from the lights and built up oxygen that the plants cannot eat. Plants Breath CO2, but with global warming and all there is plenty of that in regular air, so just make sure your ventilation is good into and throughout the room. Light and fertilizer depend more on what you are trying to grow. Be sure that water is nearby unless you like to carry heavy things a lot. Even long hoses only go so far.

Myth #2: Indoor gardening doesn’t involve getting down and dirty.

Cleanliness is close to godliness. Growing indoors can be a messy job. Weather you decide to use hydroponics or soil, there is usually some sort of spills involved.

Tip#2: Plan for the worst! Enclose the growing area in a cheap and easy home-made reserve reservoir to prevent run-off and spills from damaging your home.

Create a wooden frame of 2×4s that sits flat on the ground and lay a giant plastic sheet (available at home depot) that tucks over the board on all sides. Be sure to measure before hand, but often you can get 12 x 30 ft or more. The idea is to create a giant tub below the plants in case of emergency. This is especially important for hydroponic systems that are not on the ground floor.

I glance over my shoulder to see the snow capped ruggedness of Pike’s Peak against the cerulean sky filled with puffy white clouds. As I look down I see my tulips in yellow and flame finally blooming in spite of the weather forecast. Contrasting with the tulips are the brilliant purple hyacinths and the two tones yellow daffodils.

Then I see what I have been fearing since we live trapped one of our two rabbits a day ago. Nimrod, the hunter I am married to humored me and bought a “live trap”. We caught one of the bunnies and transplanted him about five miles away in a lush field with some rocks and a culvert for hiding places. With one down and one to go, I could only dream they were both boy bunnies. As I get ready to water my flower beds I now realize my grave mistake. There is a tiny little heather gray little one looking at me with great brown eyes. It is the size of my open palm. I am thinking kitten only this is no feline. This is an iris munching herbivore with huge front teeth. Oh, no, maybe both of our “guests” are female.

Some things I consider vermin. It doesn’t bother me in the least to dispatch them with a shot gun. Now before you have a tizzy, let me remind you I am referring to the Richardson ground squirrels better known as “picket pins” because they stand straight like a picket fence. They also were digging tunnels under the concrete which supported our propane tank – a couple more holes and splat-boom the propane tank would hit the ground and possibly blow up. These squirrels have carried bubonic plague in nearby Colorado Springs. They are so prevalent that they run all over our roadways. You see them flattened every few feet this time of year. They eat their own buddies who have been run over and look like rats. OK?

Growing tomatoes is such a popular summertime activity that it could possibly be considered the American pastime, perhaps second only to baseball. Every spring, millions of home gardeners find at least some small space in their yard or garden, or even a spot on their deck or patio, for growing a tomato plant or two. In this article, we are going to explore the idea of growing tomatoes on trellises, and how this unique alternative to staking or caging can lead to bigger and better harvests.

The question of whether gardeners should provide support for tomato plants is one that has been hotly debated in the gardening world. Some purists believe that tomato plants should be left to sprawl on the ground naturally. While it is true that allowing plants to lie on the ground will usually lead to bigger plants, it doesn’t typically mean that you’ll get a larger harvest. This is because tomato plants in contact with the ground run a much higher risk of blight and other diseases, as well as pest infestations. Furthermore, when fruit is touching the ground it tends to rot easily and will often become infested with bugs before the gardener has a chance to harvest. Heavily mulching the ground with wood mulch or straw can help provide some protective barrier, but tomato plants left to sprawl will still experience a much higher rate of fruit rot and blight.

Most typically, gardeners use tomato cages as a way of staking their plants. These small wire cages can be round or square, and are installed at the time of planting, providing support for the growing stems and heavy fruit as the plant gets bigger. The primary problem with cages is that the plants often outgrow them by mid to late summer, leaving gardeners with overgrown foliage that droops down to the ground. Another issue may be that the cages begin falling or blowing over because they aren’t sturdy enough to support the weight of a fully grown plant and all its fruit.

One interesting alternative to cages is the tomato trellis. Trellises can provide excellent support for a large plant, because they allow it to continually grow up rather than out. If the trellis is well supported at both the top and bottom (for example, if you can attach the top to the side of your house, garage, or shed), it will easily hold the full weight of a tomato plant at summer’s end.

Tomato trellises also afford gardeners the ability to grow more plants in a smaller space. Typically, one tomato plant would require a plot of ground about three to four foot square, so as to leave enough room to walk around and harvest the fruit all summer long. With a trellis, each plant may only require a one to two foot square area, meaning you can double, or possibly even triple, the number of plants you grow in one small area.

Last but not least, because a tomato trellis keeps the stems and foliage at a higher reach, maintaining the plants and harvesting the fruit is much easier on the gardener because less stooping and bending is required. Trellises are an excellent solution for older gardener afflicted by arthritis or disabled persons constrained to a wheelchair.

So if you count yourself among the many gardeners who enjoy raising homegrown tomatoes in the summer months, consider trellises this year as an alternative to cages. You may find that it leads to an easier gardening experience and a bigger harvest of tomatoes than you’ve ever had in the past!

Home Products ‘N’ More offers free shipping on vegetable trellis and tomato trellis kits. Visit us today at http://www.homeproductsnmore.com/Skyscraper_Garden_p/wrf5555.htm

One of the biggest problems you are going to encounter when you are landscaping small spaces if the amount of light available and how well the ground drains. In larger spaces this is much less of a problem because you can always vary the design according to the conditions, moving a particular idea into another section if required. This is one luxury you don’t have in smaller gardens. Landscaping small spaces doesn’t have to be about growing plants. Where there is little natural light you could still landscape – but without using any plants or just a few of those plants that thrive of poor lighting conditions. Just fill the area to be landscaped with gravel and then place a bench in a strategic position and dot around some garden statues and sculptures – perhaps a bird-bath or an ornamental birdhouse for feeding birds off the ground and away from predators.

You could, of course, lay a crazed paving walk, lined with the many varieties of shade-loving plants. If you are landscaping small spaces you could let your eye move skywards: install some frames and train some climbing plants over them – perhaps variegated ivy or Virginia creeper, both of which are lovers of poor lighting conditions. Try Oakleaf hydrangea and, perhaps, a deciduous shrub such as one of the varieties of tree holly or, if you really have green fingers, try growing an azalea or two – I am told they are a bit tricky to grow but some people seem to have the knack! For ground cover try coleus, a plant that comes with some beautiful variegated leaves, and other ground covering plants such as the various Erica species.

Landscaping small spaces can be particularly effective if you look around you and carefully take stock of the whole space at your disposal. Part of the key is to look up. You are bound to have a perimeter fence or wall around your property and these can be ideal to support climbing plants against – not just the Leylandii that everybody loves to hate, but honeysuckle, passion fruit and climbing roses – to name just a few. There are literally hundreds of varieties of climbing plants you could use. You could even plant fruit trees – yes, honest! Even the smallest patio space has sufficient room to grow a couple of espalier apple trees or pear trees which are trained horizontally along a wall rather than allowed to grow into their natural state.

Once your actual landscaping has been implemented you could finish off with some night-time lamps dotted alongside your crazed paving path. Nowadays you can get those solar lamps that absorb sunlight during the day and then use that energy to light up at night. I think they are a brilliant idea. Landscaping small spaces really can be quite fun if done properly with plenty of research up front: you could end up with a beautiful complement to the rest of your house and a delightful place to relax in the evenings – especially if you plant some night-scented stocks and other plants whose aroma tends to waft out during the late evening.

Learn how to decorate Small Spaces . Also enjoy, furnishing tips, photos of small spaces and projects for the DIYer.

The types of soil which suit individual fruits are referred to in the text; where the soil is not of a type likely to be suitable, efforts should be made to improve it when the ground is first dug and prepared, but no manure should be in contact with the roots at planting.

Digging one spit deep. This consists of breaking up the soil to the depth of a spade or a fork. A trench is taken out and the soil from the next strip is turned over into the trench.

If manure is to be applied it is a good plan to spread it over the ground to be dug to ensure even distribution, leaving the breadth of the first spade-cut clear of manure. When the strip has been dug and the soil removed, the manure from the next strip to the width of a spade should be placed in the trench, laying it on the sloping surface. Then the next strip of soil should be turned over into the trench, burying the manure, which is evenly distributed in the soil from the bottom of the trench almost to the surface.

Double-digging cultivated ground. Divide the plot into two, and mark out the boundary and dividing lines with a spade; then take out a trench, 2 feet (60 cm.) wide, and with vertical sides, to the depth of the spade at the end of one half of the plot. The soil should be placed at the same end of the plot, but opposite the other half, where it will be ready to fill in the last trench. Then break up the bottom of the trench to the full depth of a fork. Take care to break up the soil in the middle and the sides of the trench. Next, a second strip of exactly the same width should be marked off, and for this purpose it is a good plan to keep a stick cut to the right length at each side of the ground which is being trenched. Put the line across at the end of your sticks to mark how broad the next trench is to be. Then take out the second trench, placing the soil from it on to the broken-up bottom of the first trench. A trench 2 feet (60 cm.) wide can be conveniently worked in three spits. Each time the first of the three spits to be moved should be the one farthest from the trench which is being filled in, and it should be placed so that it forms a good wall to the second trench. Then the second and third spits may be removed. The second trench, like the first, should be to the full depth of a spade before the bottom is broken up. To do this, it will be necessary to remove the ‘crumbs’ from the second trench with a shovel. When this has been done, the bottom of the second trench is broken up with a fork, and filled with the soil from the third and so on.

When manure is to be applied in double-digging, it should be spread over the broken-up bottom of the trench, and forked into the loose soil there. The manure may be spread over the ground in the same way as for single-digging, but each time before a top strip of soil is moved into the trench the manure is transferred to the broken-up bottom of the trench.