Conserve: Water in the Garden

So now that you've got your shower bucket catching all the water that you were wasting before, and you have your nifty container garden started, it's time to talk about how you can use the water your saving more effectively.

• This little snippet talks about conserving water in your container garden. It's important to keep in mind that your container plants have limited root systems, which means that they don't get watered as much as plants in the ground do.
  
• Watering in the morning means that more of your water will be absorbed in the soil instead of evaporating into the air. Watering at night can invite pests into your garden, which is not something that you do not want to do.
• Adding some organic matter, like compost or peat moss, is almost like adding a sponge to your soil. It will help retain water, which means that you can water less often.
• Water by the roots. It's where the water is needed and it avoids getting the leaves wet, which can lead to fungal diseases.
• Be sure not to over water your veggie plants! Looking for signs that your plants need water, like wilted leaves, is a good sign that it's time to water.
• This fact sheet from the University of Georgia is quite helpful and easy to read and neatly summarizes everything I've read about how to conserve water in the garden.
• Here are a few last tips from eHow.com on how to save water in the garden. I found their idea on how to clean your garden tools without water quite helpful.

Container Gardening - Part 1

If you're like me and live in an apartment without a yard, we face the same problem when it comes to gardening. If you want to grow some veggies at home to help offset your grocery bill and to help conserve our food sources, what are you going to do if you don't have anywhere to plant your plants? Have no fear, you can garden in containers just as well as you can in a yard!

This article I found on the benefits of container gardening from West Virgina University. It even has a table that tells you all about which veggies are best suited for growing in your garden. It is very informative article that is really easy to read and understand. They also offer some ideas for planting arrangements of flowers as well as other useful information.

If you are more into being organic and want to bring that to your container garden, I found this article on the Gaiam Life website all about it. It has a nice organic soil recipe (1 part soil, 1part compost - better get that box started- and 1 part sand) and other tips on how to avoid using synthetic media, fertilizer, and insecticides in your container garden.

Another great article I found was this one courtesy of Texas A&M. It is another great article, although there is some overlap of information with the West Virginia article, with another good media recipe and ideas for treating some common problems that you might encounter in your container garden. Best of all, it has fun little pictures! I love the tables at the bottom of the page which tell you which types of veggies do well in containers, when you can transplant the seeds if you're germinating them yourself, and lists common problems that you might find in your container garden as well as an explanation and solutions to the problem.

Part 2: Going to the garden store to talk to them about container gardening and possibly picking out some seeds.