BRICK FIELD STUDIOS

With the great trends toward using your yard as part of your house, more and more people are discovering how to best utilise their patios, decks, and gardens as dining or living rooms. These outdoor living spaces can be usable all year long in many areas. One of the challenges to using your outdoor spaces in this manner is lighting them.

There are many elements in a well designed outdoor living space. A good arrangement of furniture, clear access to the inside of your house, noise levels from surrounding streets or properties, all of these things help determine how useable your outdoor space will be. But, even the best designed outdoor living space can be ruined if there isn’t appropriate lighting.

There are myriad types of lighting that you can use in your garden depending on the effect that you want to achieve.

You can use spotlights directed at particular areas of the garden that you want to highlight to give the area a magical feel. Hanging lanterns are a nice option to string across a space or between trees. Strings of lights can be wrapped around tree trunks to create a unique effect. Pathways can be lit with lights that you spike into the ground alongside your walkways. Even ponds can be lit with submersible lights if your fish don’t mind.

The other major choice in backyard lighting is that of energy sources. If you want your lights to come on automatically when darkness falls and you don’t want to have to pay for the electricity to run the lights, solar lighting may be just what you need. Most solar systems work well even when the days are overcast as well.

Another method for outdoor lighting is using candles or groups of candles to provide a warm flickering glow. The downside to using candles is that they need to be supervised as they can be a fire hazard, especially in the hot dry summer months. The nice thing about candles is that you can set them out single in jars or cluster them for more intense light. There are many kinds of lanterns available for myriad different looks.

If you have well-placed electrical sockets in your backyard then you may want to opt for electrical lighting. Most strings of lights require a plug in, though some types are available with battery power. There are even outdoor lamps akin to living room lamps that are designed for outdoor use.

Take a good look at the parts of your garden that you might like to highlight with your lighting and also how much lighting that you will need to best utilise your outdoor living space. If you make your lighting decisions based on your needs, then you will end up with a space that is usable instead of a dim uninviting space.

Organic vegetable gardening has been done for centuries before the introduction of pesticides. This type of gardening requires that no artificial means be used to kill pests. So what is a garden of this type, how to create one and what to plant are some questions that need to be answered? This type of a garden is done without pesticides. This type of a garden is also nourished organically from a compost heap that consists of table scraps, egg shells, coffee grounds, ect. This not only enriches the soil, it also allows for healthier plants.

So how do you create an organic vegetable garden? It is simple really. For organic vegetable gardening, you will need the following. A sunny location with soil that is well drained is the first step. You also need to measure a length and size that will be convenient for your garden and these beds should be about 30 inches. You will need to either build a frame that is between 10-12 inches high or stake out the bed. Before planting, you will need to mix your compost at least three weeks in advance. This can be either plant material or manure.

The next step in your organic vegetable gardening is to choose the varieties of vegetables that will not only be resistant to pests and disease, they also need to be well adapted for the region in question. The next step in your gardening should be to plant usually when the soil thaws in spring or in the fall. Your first idea may be to start planting broccoli, spinach and peas first. Corn, squash, tomatoes and peppers can be planted when the soil is warmer and after the danger of frost has passed. This will get the garden started quite nicely.

Now there are several things that you can add to your gardening in order to help your organic vegetable gardening. The introduction of beneficial insects such as ladybugs will keep your garden free of pests and help keep the garden growing. Another thing to do is to rotate your crops and keep the garden well weeded so that disease and pests cannot get a foot hold in your garden. Remember to water and mulch as needed. You can also cover susceptible crops with lightweight fabric to discourage pests. When you are speaking about beneficial bugs, remember to plant the plants that nourish these bugs as well.

So this, in a nut shell is how you do a vegetable garden of this type. It isn’t that hard to do and the fruits and vegetables will nourish your body without the fear of pesticides. This is a win-win situation for all involved and will lead to a much healthier lifestyle for you and your family. It may take time and effort, but you will be well rewarded for your hard work with healthy fruits and vegetables that will nourish your body and be good for you as well. So an organic garden of this type is well worth investing the time and money in.

Green Thumbs are Not Necessary

Seeds will grow if planted and taken care of. All you need is a little water, lots of sun and a decent soil. This is the simple fact about gardening and life itself. There are no sure fire ways to ensure that you will have a garden worthy of a blue ribbon award, but there are definite ways to ensure that your plants will grow nicely. Plants will not care if you have prior experience in gardening or not, all they need are the basic necessities to live and they will do the rest. What most people fail to realize about gardening is that plants wish to grow for their own selves, not for the benefit of the garden owners. Owning a garden is taking on the responsibility of ensuring that your plants are growing well, it is not for the aesthetic approval of your neighbors. If your plants grow beautifully and your house looks nicer, that is a fringe benefit.

Appreciating Your Plants

One thing garden owners should realize is that plants are living things. Humans, animals and plants all possess life and that life should be nurtured and cherished. Owning a garden is a testament to human being’s capability to take care of all other living things on this planet. This is why owning a garden is not just a hobby; it is a way of life. While we may not mourn the passing of a shrub or can easily ignore the death of a tree, it is an undeniable fact that every plant in our garden is a living thing and we should take care of it.

Taking on this responsibility, while important is an actually quite simple. Plants, as living things, have the will and capacity to live; as long as they receive the right amount of resources needed, they will flourish on their own without the need for special care and attention. But when it is not given, plants will naturally wither and die. This is the conundrum for all gardens.

Understanding the Benefits of Having a Garden

What will give you the best drive and motivation to properly take care of your garden is by identifying the many benefits that a garden gives to a home. A lawn alone gives you space to breathe and appreciate your house more. The effect that a lawn gives to a household are plenty and quite beneficial. Health wise, having a garden will give you a supply of fresh clean air when you leave the house in the morning and when you arrive at home at night. Clean air is very important when it comes to relieving stress and many respiratory problems. Also, if you have a garden at the back of your home where you might hang laundry, the clean air will keep your clothes and other fabrics smelling fresh and clean.

Gardens give you a place to relax, have fun and play, either on your own or with your family. The garden can be your own personal place of restful solitude, away from the hustle and bustle of the busy city life. GP

There are lots of parts of the World where the climate for long periods of time throughout the year are simply not conducive to growing plants and flowers. As we all know one of the many things which encourage plants to grow is sunlight but another thing to consider is warmth. It is the warmth generated by the sun’s rays that start to warm the Earth in Springtime and it is this that triggers many flowers and plants to begin to grow. However, if the climate where you live doesn’t get or stay warm for long enough then it can be frustrating for someone interested in gardening. If this sounds like your situation then the time might be right to add a greenhouse to your garden.

You might be thinking that you don’t have the room for a greenhouse in your garden but in actual fact there are many shapes and sizes of greenhouse available and there are some which are small enough that they will suit almost any outside space as well as most budgets. Even one of these small greenhouses erected in a small sunny corner of your garden will give you a new lease of life and a new sense of purpose in your garden as it gives you more scope to do things with certain types of plants and flowers that you couldn’t previously consider.

Greenhouses bring with them other benefits too. Their very nature means that you are much more able to control damage caused by birds and insects as well as damage caused by heavy rain and other weather that mother nature might throw at you. Because your gardening efforts will be more efficient and productive with a greenhouse, there will be less wastage as well, which will save you money.

To add interest and colour etc to your garden you may be in the habit of descending upon the garden centre every Spring and Summer to buy new plants and flowers for the garden. You can save money here too as with a greenhouse you now have the possibility of growing many plants and flowers from the seeds created by last year’s batch. Once you get into this process and become good at it, you may never have to buy certain types of plant or flower again! The greenhouse also effectively makes the Summer last longer by providing warmth and shelter for plants that may have otherwise succumbed to the environmental conditions.

Where you position your greenhouse in your garden is quite important as sunlight is one of those resources that is difficult and expensive to create. Try and make sure that you place your greenhouse in an area of your garden that receives maximum sunlight exposure during the day. Depending on your needs, you may also want to consider how you will get electrical power and water to the greenhouse as well because this will make things even easier to manage. Having said that, electrical power and ready access to water are not absolutely necessary in order to get advantages from having a greenhouse. There is nothing to stop you continuing to water your plants by hand for example.

The final thing to consider is ventilation. Warmth is a good thing for plant life but there is the concept of having too much of a good thing. You need the ability to let some of that heat escape if it simply become too hot. Most greenhouses that you go out and buy will have a built in ability to ventilate them. If you are planning on building your own greenhouse, you simply need to remember to allow for ventilation. The ability to open roof panels for example is one of the most efficient ways to ventilate a greenhouse. As heat rises then it is natural for it to find its way out of an open roof panel rather than an open door.

So, if you are frustrated with your gardening efforts because you simply don’t have a climate or other conditions which help you to be productive in the garden then you really should consider investing in a greenhouse. Once you do so, you will never look back.