Well as seen in the recent purchase, we picked up a number of items last night to start work on the flower garden that surrounds the outside of our townhome. One of these days when rain isn't in the forcast I need to get out and spray round up on everything. There is a lot of crab grass in the garden area. We attempted to start weeding, but it was nearly impossible to get the roots. If you did get one all the way, it was over a foot long root, so I've decided I will kill them off completely with round-up then pull them up. The plan then will be to plant the flowers, get some wood chips or something laid down over the rest to deter weed growth.
Most of our garden faces south and west, so we planted a lot of seeds for high sunlight/heat flowers. We did plant one packet of impatiens which are a shade loving plant, as there is a bit on the north side of our deck that will not get much direct light.
To start the plants we have a large planter that has 72 compartments. Each had a little tablet of "stuff" in it which we added 1 oz. of water to. This tablet then expands into seed starting soil that fills the compartment. Kinda crazy actually, considering the size of the tablet and the size of the compartment it expanded to fill. Once done you plant the seeds and there is a clear lid to place over it (green house effect). The nicest thing though is that each compartment has hole in the bottom. Commonly you would have a large plastic tray that these seeding compartments went into and exess water would drain out of these holes. With this thing, the tray on the bottom is filled with water, then a stand sits in the water and a piece of fabric goes over the stand, draping down into the water. On top of this fabric sits the planted seeds in their compartments. The cloth soaks up water and the soil can soak up the water as needed from the cloth as needed. Nice to just worry about the amount of water in the tray and not have to individually water everything.
Most of our garden faces south and west, so we planted a lot of seeds for high sunlight/heat flowers. We did plant one packet of impatiens which are a shade loving plant, as there is a bit on the north side of our deck that will not get much direct light.
To start the plants we have a large planter that has 72 compartments. Each had a little tablet of "stuff" in it which we added 1 oz. of water to. This tablet then expands into seed starting soil that fills the compartment. Kinda crazy actually, considering the size of the tablet and the size of the compartment it expanded to fill. Once done you plant the seeds and there is a clear lid to place over it (green house effect). The nicest thing though is that each compartment has hole in the bottom. Commonly you would have a large plastic tray that these seeding compartments went into and exess water would drain out of these holes. With this thing, the tray on the bottom is filled with water, then a stand sits in the water and a piece of fabric goes over the stand, draping down into the water. On top of this fabric sits the planted seeds in their compartments. The cloth soaks up water and the soil can soak up the water as needed from the cloth as needed. Nice to just worry about the amount of water in the tray and not have to individually water everything.
