Mother's Day Gifts

Mother's Day is almost upon us. What better gift to give to a gardening-loving mom than something to enhance their gardening experience.

In choosing the type of gardening gift, consider your budget. When your budget is holding you back from buying the best gardening gift, don’t fret. There are garden accessories and gardening wear that would suit your fund.

Gardening gloves, footwear and kneepads, may be bought in a variety of colors, texture, and material.

If you have prepared a bigger budget, specialized gardening tools may steal the spotlight. Before choosing which tool to purchase, make sure to check which tool is missing from your mother's inventory. To prevent duplication, you may even stealthily ask her which gardening tool she dreams of having.

Of course, you shouldn't forget about a card. Great ideas for mother's day cards can be found at The Right Card.

Organic food

The food we eat should be tasty, nutritious and healthy. The way it is grown should help, not harm our environment. But can we really be confident that the fruit and vegetables bought from a supermarket meet these two simple criteria? Are we sure the levels of pesticides, insecticides and fungicides our food has been treated with will do us no harm?

Organically grown foods are not sprayed with these chemicals. They may not look as colorful and well presented as shop produce, but they are nutritious and full of taste.

Growing your own fruit and vegetables is easy. You just need to learn some general principles, familiarize yourself with the plants you intend to grow and get started.

In The Veggie Patch (April - Southern Hemisphere)

This is the time of year when you get the last of your warm season fruit and veggies. You'll get tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, cucumber and corn if they're in a warm sheltered position. Continue to harvest and store pumpkins and potatoes. I'm actually getting capsicum and pumpkins from the compost I laid down last spring and they're great. I've had a particularly hard time with fruit fly this year so crops of tomatoes are down, however. This is a rewarding time to bask in the success of your spring and summer labour, so enjoy it!!

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Xeriscape

xeriscape
Originally uploaded by flicka23.

Living in an arid or semi-arid region that habitually receives scarce rainfall does not mean that you are automatically destined to a dry dusty garden. The term "xeriscape" refers to the designing of a garden that employs seven water-conserving methods. This type of garden works well for areas that are prone to mild drought conditions. Of course, those who just wish to conserve water will certainly appreciate that it is an ecologically friendly method of gardening. It may also prove beneficial for people who do not choose to be bothered with the time and expense of traditional water-consuming gardens during the summer season.

In the Veggie Patch (April - Northern Hemisphere)

If you've worked hard last Fall then you'll have plenty of cabbages, Brussels sprouts and broccoli now. So too, cauliflower, celery, beetroot, lettuce, silverbeet, English spinach, capsicum and snow peas are still in abundance.

In the same way, what you plant now will reward you through Summer and Fall. April is another big month in the garden, so get cracking now and you'll be sitting back during summer to enjoy the harvest.

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