Welcome back gardening lovers. I don’t know if you lot have noticed it recently, but those of you living in the UK who like myself have a passion for gardening will have noticed that the weather has now started to turn a little bit on the cool side over the last few days. With this in mind it is very important to consider how best to extend our growing season. Personally, I have planted my tomatoes a little late this year, and while they have grown exceedingly well up to this point, now the weather has turned and the temperatures are dropping I’m a little concerned that my toms just wont have time to ripen before Autumn (or fall) really kicks in. For this reason, its time to acknowledge the usefulness of green house growing to help try and take advantage of any remaining sun we have and speed up the growing process. Those greenhouse panels can really give your garden a good push and help you get the most out of your tomatoes so take advantage now before its too late!
Filed under: Tools, gardening | Tags: gardening, gardens, soil, topsoil, topsoil calculator
Hello DIY blog fans, I’ve just stumbled upon a really useful tool on the internet which may be extremely useful for all you gardening fanatics out there that have very large garden areas with large allotment areas for growing flowers or vegetables. I can imagine that if your garden fits this description you have a great amount of difficulty in accurately determining the overall volume of good quality topsoil you will need to import into your garden in order to produce the best results fro your vegetable plots and flower beds. Luckily, this handy free online topsoil calculator can do the hard work for you by providing a reasonably accurate estimate of how much topsoil you will need. The tool gives you a result in cubic yards so you will have a rough idea of exactly how much you will need to order in from a specialist. Again, there are many good online companies that can help you out with delivery, so for those of you lucky enough to have a nice large garden area, have a look today and start making the most of it now!
Filed under: gardening | Tags: Garden, gardening, herbs, paver patio, vegetables
Well I am delighted to say that the UK finally looks set to move swiftly away from the cold and drearyness that we experience during winter year upon year (including some very heavy snow in 2009). Yes ladies and Gentleman, spring has made its first attempts at being sprung and that means its time to get back into the garden and think about my landscaping plans for the forthcoming year. I really do love having a backgarden – not only is it a great supply of fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs courtesy of the simple irrigation system I installed last summer, but it is also for me a great place to sit out on those long summer evenings and relax in the fading sunlight – mind you, if you want to sit out at night at this time of year I suggest you check out a paver patio or you could be getting a rapid burst of hypophermia before you know it! So roll on spring proper and then summer and we can leave the bed memories of being snowed in our homes behind us!
Filed under: gardening | Tags: Garden, gardening, grass, lawn, lawn care, tree and shrub care
UK readers of this home and garden blog will no doubt agree with me when I say that at this time of year, it is far too easy for us to forget about – and even completely neglect our gardens because of the low temperatures and heavy snowfall. However, in my own experience I have always found that a bit of careful tree and shrub care and of course the essential winter lawn care can help yield some fantastic results for when those warm summer months once again finally come around. Even at this time of year, I find that some straightforward weeding and fertilization can maintain the quality of your green grass verges in preparation for those lazy summer nights outside with the BBQ. Drawing on the advice of your local professional landscaping services can be extremely helpful in producing the best results for your gardens, so check what is available online now.
Filed under: gardening | Tags: Compost, Garden, gardening, organic gardening
I must admit it has been some time since I last blogged about my efforts to produce some high quality home made Compost in my very own back garden as I have been very busy with a number of other gardening jobs, but this has been ideal in many ways, as compost naturally needs time to rot down and develop. I can however now tell you that a few months of decomposition time has allowed the compost at the bottom of my storage bin to start rotting down nicely. Hopefully, it will be fully ready to use at the start of next year once we are out of the cold season in the UK and I will have a nice bin full of organic compost ready to pass nutrients into my soil and flower beds. If you don’t have time to produce your own compost – remember it can be quickly and easily ordered online, or through your local garden centre.
Filed under: gardening | Tags: flowers, Garden, gardening, organic gardening, organic rose tips, winter
I am sat here writing my latest entry to my DIY blog from the confines of my bedroom as the snow has fallen on the North of the UK today, preventing me from going out into the garden as I had originally planned to do today. I had been reading various online resources on organic gardening over the last few days and soon learned that it is important to get your plants into the warm before its too late if you want to keep them alive over the colder months. I had planned to sort this out during the morning, in the vain hope of getting a few more flowers and vegetables moved from the cold garden into the newly purchased heated propagators before winters frosty bit had a chance to kill off my beautiful organic rose tips and my other precious plants with snow. However, there seems little chance of achieving this now 
Filed under: Home Improvement, gardening | Tags: articles, Garden, gardening, Home Improvement, research
Hey hey everyone. Its been a while since my last DIY blog post because I’ve been spending quite a lot of my spare time online looking for new home improvement ideas and also some greater inspiration for what to do with the back garden this winter. While browsing through the many thousands of home and garden themed websites that the internet has to offer, I have managed to find a number of useful websites listing some relevant gardening articles and home improvement articles which I think has some very interesting and creative ideas to share. Hopefully if we get some decent weather this weekend (not that there’s much chance of that happening) I’ll be able to put some of these new ideas into practise and finally get back on the road to DIY perfection!
As you may have read in my previous home improvement post, I’ve been in the back garden recently doing a few general odd jobs, in addition to planting a range of fresh herbs and giving the new place a bit of atmosphere with some solar powered garden lights. I was kind of begining to actually get into my stride a little bit, especially when considering my limited experience in actually having, nevermind having to look after a back garden of any note. Inevitibly though, the great British summer once again expressed itself in some style. Rain poured down pretty much all afternoon, thus doing some DIY in the back garden seemed more like a polar exhibition than a lazy slouch around out the back of the house. Not much solar power for those new garden lights then eh? 
An apparent UK monsoon season has forced me to take my DIY excursions out of the garden and back into the house
