Posted by Bill Thomas on Tue, May 12, 2009 @ 01:37 PM
There are a lot of bad habits when it comes to indoor gardening or having indoor plants. Here are 5 bad habits that I know first hand:
1. Inconsistent watering. Most all of my outdoor plants are on an automatic watering system. They get watered regularly and consistently. Unfortunately, at my house we often forget to water the indoor plants until we notice them getting stressed. Letting the plants get stressed not only leads to uneven growth; it also makes them susceptible to pests and diseases. Plus subjecting them to so many near death experiences is kind of cruel.
2. Lack of pruning. Just as outdoor plants benefit from periodic pruning, so do many potted plants and container plants. A snip here and a cut there can improve indoor plants' health and appearance. However, not recommended for Chia pets.
3. Forgetting to walk the plants. Call me crazy, but my indoor plants and outdoor container plants seem to respond to being moved. Sometimes, I simply give them a half-turn toward the sunlight. Others, I move to different shelves or rooms. As I wrestle larger container plants across the patio, I sense they enjoy my heavy breathing.
4. Poor light management. Various indoor plants require differing amounts and types of sunlight - morning sun vs. afternoon, direct vs. indirect, etc. Unfortunately, sunlight recommendations are sometimes vague or don't factor in that we may live in Alaska. The best advice is to experiment within the general guidelines and pay attention to the results.
5. Unbalanced diet. Indoor plants live in a small, finite amount of soil. Eventually the plants will consume the trace minerals and minor nutrients in their soil. Because most popular chemical plant foods contain only the major nutrients, a steady diet of this type of fertilizer will not replenish these minor nutrients and trace elements. Unless we periodically resupply the soil with these, our plants will suffer. Not nice.
Hope you can use some of these tips to help your beloved indoor plants. After all, those darn things are expensive.
Posted by Tom Thomas on Mon, Apr 27, 2009 @ 06:13 PM
Whether one has a green thumb or is a complete gardening novice, everyone agrees that compost is a “good thing”. At the same time, very few of us are aware of the specific benefits compost provides to our garden soil. So the following is a list of compost benefits agreed upon by soil scientists and picky government regulators. Pithy explanations are courtesy of yours truly.
Compost:
1. Improves garden soil structure and porosity – creating a better plant root environment. (It’s better to have garden soil you can dig in with your bare hands than dirt compacted like a concrete slab.)
2. Increases moisture infiltration and permeability, and reduces bulk density of heavy soils – improving moisture infiltration rates and reducing erosion and runoff. (Your garden soil should absorb water better than your driveway.) 3. Improves the moisture holding capacity of light soils –reducing water loss and nutrient leaching, and improving moisture retention. (Better your garden soil is a sponge than a sieve.)
4. Improves the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of soils. (As the Buddha observed, clinging is a source of suffering.)
5. Supplies organic matter. (Without organic matter, soil is essentially gravel. Gravel as garden soil is only good for plastic, pink flamingos.)
6. Supplies beneficial microbes to soils and growing media. (Garden soil without beneficial microbes is like a factory with no workers.)
7. Aids the proliferation of soil microorganisms. (Microbes need stuff like carbon and minerals.)
8. Encourages vigorous root growth. (More roots good; less roots bad.)
9. Allows plants to more effectively utilize nutrients,while reducing nutrient loss by leaching. (Healthy soil requires far less fertilizer. Be sure to reduce your rates)
10. Enables soils to retain nutrients longer. (This is a major environmental plus. Retained nutrients get used by plants instead of leaching into the water supply.)
11. Contains humus – assisting in soil aggregation and making nutrients available for plant uptake. (Also good with pita bread and string cheese. Oh wait, maybe that’s hummus.)
12. Buffers soil pH. (Garden soil pH can determine the rate of nutrient uptake by the plant.)
Wow! That explains why so many people use and make garden compost even though it’s a pain. The good news is that with Great Big Plants we can get the benefits of compost without all the trouble, and it's organic compost too. Even better is the fact that Great Big Plants doesn’t require you to dig up trees and shrubs or re-pot container plants because it’s liquid and travels with the water to the root zone. And if we do make our own compost, the addition of Great Big Plants significantly accelerates the process.