Win A Garden Makeover Consultation from Organic Gardening
Tuesday October 25, 2005
Organic Gardening is sponsoring an Acre Makeover Sweepstakes where one lucky gardener will win a garden consultation from Organic Gardening editor Scott Meyer, plus $500 in garden accessories (hand tools, work savers, and gear). You get great garden advice, a personalized garden design and tools to execute it. There's no long questionnaire to fill out. Just go to the Entry Instructions page and submit your name and address. Don't worry. While there is an option to subscribe to Organic Gardening, you can win even if you opt not to. Be sure to let us know if you win!
Comments
i have a big yard and no clue to what to do, i love gardens bushes trees ect , can you help i would love to have a makeover.
We have recently moved into a lovely home, the one downside to it, is the garden - it is 70ft long and in desperate need of a makeover, we have no idea where to start! Help please!
Unfortunately this contest ended in 2005. That’s the problem with the web, it’s hard to differentiate archived articles from new ones.
I don’t have the resources to offer anyone a garden makeover. I’d recommend you look into the Master Gardener program at your local Cooperative Extension. This is the time of year they give free or low cost classes and they always have lots of advice for new homeowners, targeted to the specific area you’d be growing in.
My general advice for Gail would be to tackle one step at a time. Take a season to see what you have in the garden. Make it look tidier with a clean edge, dark mulch and a good pruning of any shrubs or trees. Add a focal point, like a bird bath or a gazing ball, to give it a color theme and some order. Then watch what plants you like and plant more of them. Dig out the plants you don’t and give them away.
Sandra, start small and learn as you go. Pick a spot on view close to the house and begin your first garden bed. It can be a simple 3 x 5′ border. Then start looking around locally at what plants catch your eye and begin planting and learning about them.
We moved house in May and can’t get out in the garden. We have 36 ant hills (our garden is only 30ft square)and now we have a swimming pool (not the good kind) as we have clay soil. I have a ant infested swamp - please help!!! It would be so good to have somewhere for my two year old to go out to, instead of pressing her nose against the window looking longingly!
Hope to hear from you. Kindest regards, Sarah
Whenever you start an organic garden you have a choice between improving the existing soil, or building new soil.
Lime makes clay more granular.
Or you can level your anthills, then spread newspapars about four sheets thick over the entire area. Get some truckloads of stable manure (not from racehorses because of the drugs in the manure) and spread it a couple of feet deep over the entire area.
If you think that having friable soil on top of the marsh won’t be good enough, you can install drainage first, but the lime should make your clay easier to drain.
Once the stable manure rots down to about six inches deep, get some truckloads of free-draining soil mixture with plenty of compost in it and spread it two inches deep.
Now you can start planting your organic garden in the soil mix layer. Each time you see a nasty weed (most weeds are either harmless or good for the garden) cover it up with hay - preferably lucerne (alfalfa) or clover for the high nitrogen. If you are quick enough the nasty weed won’t see the sun long enough to build up any reserves, and will die.
I go a step further. I use permaculture, which means that whenever possible I use perrennials, or self-sowing vegetables, so that I don’t have to keep planting every year, but that’s another subject.