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Gardening Shoe: Clog

Clog have become hot selling these days simple because although they look clunky, they are comfortable to wear. They are a sandal like shoe worn casually.

Clog have many uses for example, you can wear clogs when watering your lawn, working in your yard or when you are talking a walk with your dog.
Clog
They are comfortable for walking because you don’t feel the gravel underfoot when you are walking. Furthermore, you can slip in and out of it easily as you can wear it without socks.

They usually have tiny holes for aeration purpose. The holes have different functions too. If your clog get dirty, say you stepped on muddy place, you can easily wash the mud by splashing them away using water hose.

Clogs are also very lightweight. If you are traveling somewhere distance and you may need to use sandals, clogs are recommended as they are light and easy to be carried around.

Depending to the quality of material used, some clogs get slippery in the long run. There are two types of clogs. One that is made of the plastic and another from rubber.

I have not tried the plastic clogs but the rubber clogs can get slippery after using it for sometime. I guess, cheap stuff always ends up like that.

So if you are intending to buy a clog, make sure it quality enough and wont make you slip when walking on slippery places.
Clog

Women Garden Hat

There are many types of garden hat that exist in the market today from one that is made to look beautiful to one that is made to be more comfortable and useful.

garden hat

Among those there is this large sized field and garden hat is a great gardening product for women. It is so lightweight (4 ounces) that you can forget you are wearing the garden hat when you are wearing it.

This particular garden hat has a 4 inch brim and a spacious enough crown to ensure the wearer is comfortable while wearing it. The wide brim protect the wearer from sunlight away from the face while doing the gardening work under the sun.

It has a handy chinstrap you can use to keep the hat sit tightly on the head on a windy day. In fact it has a build in adjustable sizing band that allows you to custom fit.

This garden sun hat is not just for gardening use. You can use it for any other purpose. It really looks like a casual hat and it is.

You can read more about Garden Hat

Women Bionic Gardening Glove

The woman’s bionic gardening glove is a great gardening glove you can use.
bionic-women-gardening-glove1
Women’s Elite Bionic Gardening Gloves

The cool part of using this glove is that it’s safety feature. For example, when you have to deal with thorny plants like the rose plants, you can touch, pick do whatever with them without fear of getting your hand or fingers hurt as the bionic gardening glove protects you from harms of the thorns.

They are also very soft to wear. Picking up stuffs are easy but they are not so useful when it comes to planting seeds or pulling away tiny weeds. Other than that the bionic glove is just great to use.

Hydroponic Nutrient Solutions

Hydroponic nutrient solutions are mixtures that contain natural minerals that soil possess. These types of ready made solutions are used by gardeners because they don’t have to worry about the quality of nutrient solution and the quantity they have to provide for their hydroponic plants or vegetables.

Although there are many good brands of hydroponic nutrient solutions such as the miracle grow, buying such products can be costly for small scale hydroponic gardeners. Although these nutrient formulas are kept secret for commercial purpose, it is not hard for home gardeners to create their own nutrient solutions.

You can buy the chemical compounds that makes Hydroponic nutrient solutions individually and mix them together to make hydroponic fertilizer. However, you must have the exact calculation of how much these compounds need to be mixed together and what to do with them. In hydroponic terms, nutrient solutions are divided into two categories; the macro nutrients and the micro nutrients.

Macro Hydroponic Nutrients are the most important nutritional element required by plants. They are mainly Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K), Oxygen, Hydrogen, Calcium, Magnesium and sulfur. Each of these elements have different roles in keeping the plant healthy. For example nitrogen helps plant in making Chlorophyll, amino acids and proteins synthesis.

Micro Hydroponic Nutrients on the other hand is used to make the plant grow to its optimum level. These elements that makes micro nutrients includes Boron, Chlorine, Copper, Iron, Manganese, Sodium, Zinc, Molybdenum, Nickel, Cobalt and silicon. Each of these components have their own role to play in helping the plant grow. For example, chlorine is used to help the root of the plant grow.

The following is a hydroponic nutrient solution formulations and how to mix/dissolve them.

MACRO nutrient solutions;
Minerals ——— gram / 1000 liter solution (fertilizer solution)
Phosphate (P) —————— 18
Potassium (K) —————— 30
Nitrate (N) ———————- 60
Magnesium (Mg) ———————– 31

All these minerals must be diluted separately in hot water and be added inside the solution tank. Use chemical grade items for better dilution.

The MICRO elements are needed only in small quantity.

MICRO nutrient solutions;
Minerals ——— gram / 1000 liter solution (fertilizer solution)
Boron ———————- 1.7
Manganese —————– 3.2
Zinc ————————– 0.45
Copper ———————— 0.28
Iron —————————— 30
Molybdenum ——————- 0.13

All these minerals must be diluted separately and be added inside the solution tank. Use chemical grade items for better dilutions.

Hydroponic System

Hydroponic is a system of growing vegetables or flowers without using soils. The word hydroponic is said to be originated from Greek language which means ‘water (hydro) that works(ponos)’.

According to the history hydroponic system have long been practiced since 16th century. It is also believed that Babylonians were using hydroponic gardening system in the Hanging Garden of Babylon.

It was commercially introduced in 1937 by W.F. Gericke of California Agricultural Research Center. Since then the hydroponic system have grown and many new types of techniques have been developed for the purpose of commercial hydroponic farming.

In the hydroponic system the entire nutritional need of a plant is given directly to the root of the plant in the form of liquid soluble. This hydroponic system is possible because plants does not use soils to live but it uses the nutrient or vitamins hidden in the soil. The purpose of using hydroponic system for gardening or farming is to enable the roots of the plant to take these vitamins or nutrients directly from the solubles.

For a home gardening, hydroponic system can be practiced by using basic hydroponic system tools which includes equipments such as the hydroponic container, hydroponic container cover, fertilizer measuring cup, media basket, seeds, fertilizers and water.

One can grow just about any plants with hydroponic system from vegetables such as Broccoli, Cabbage, Tomatoes, Chinese Kale, Spinach, Mustards, to flower plants such as the Lilies or Chrysanthemum.

There are a lot of benefits for using hydroponic system for gardening such as hydroponic system is much more practical and easier to implement. It does not require large area of land because hydroponic system does not use soil. One only need to properly plan a systematic use of small area for preparing the hydroponic system.

Hydroponic system can be grown indoor or outdoor alike. Can be grown even in apartments. Minimum care needed for plant. Does not require a lot of workers or hand. Heavy works can be reduced such as using tillers, etc.

By using hydroponic system we can minimize the use of fertilizer as nutrients can be recycled. We save money in buying fertilizer. No more weed problems. Pesticide problems can be reduced or no pesticide problems at all if hydroponic system done in greenhouses.

Since no poisonous pesticides are used, consumer does not have to worry about getting poisoned.
Because the pre-used solutions can be recycled; water can be saved. Controlled fertilization by using proper fertilizer solutions ensures quality control and quality produce.

Plants can be grown in hydroponic system anytime of the year, even during winter as soil is not required. However, using hydroponic system during winter requires greenhouse and proper lighting for better success.

Can harvest in shorter period of time compared to conventional growing or gardening system. Anyone can use the hydroponic system. It only takes little research to get the working knowledge. Environmentally friendly.

Planting Annual Flowers

Annual flower plants are plants that lives or completes its life cycle in a year. It means the plant go through a life if germination, flowering, seed production and dying all in a year.

Annual flowers comes in many varieties of colors from white, red, pink, yellow, green, or mixtures of all these colors. Common annual flower plant includes Ageratum, Sweet Alyssum, Begonia and the Celosia.

Wide number of reasons exist why gardeners love to plant annuals in their garden. For one, it gives the gardener to change different types of flowers every year which gives fresh new look for the garden every year.

Annual flowers are not hard to grown. Once you know the type of annual flower you want to grow and have the seeds in hand, you can begin by locating proper place or spot to plant the seeds. Annuals are good in growing under the sun but recognizing the type of annual seeds you are planting is important as some annuals does not grow well under direct sun.

You can determine the type of annual seeds by reading the label of the seed packet your have bought or by simply asking your seed supplier.

Choose the best location for your annual seeds. The best location will usually be the area where soil drains well because annual seeds thrive badly under wet soil. You can measure your soil drainage by making a 10 inch hole and pouring water in it.

If the soil drains too quickly it wont have enough for water retention for your seedling or plant roots to rely. If it drains by overnight it means the soil retains too much water, which can soak the root to die. Good or properly drained soil means the water on the soil will drain between one hour to two hours.

Locate such soil area within your garden and prepare the seed bed. It will be good if you can raise the bed by mixing the soil with organic fertilizers. Ensure the bed is free from unwanted leafs, waste, clods or stones. Wet the soil with water and let it drain. Leave the soil for few days.

Than make the seed bed smooth and begin sowing the seeds directly into the soil in a straight line about half inch deep. Some gardeners just leave the seeds on the soil and leave to germinate by itself. It is better to grow your seeds on a container indoor or in a greenhouse and transfer the seedling to the raised bed outside later.

After sowing the seeds or planting the seedlings in a straight row on the raised seed bed, water the seeds or seedlings with high phosphorous fertilizer that has been well diluted with water. Do not put the fertilizer near the seeds, seedlings or its roots as it can kill the plant because the fertilizers will be too hot for them to handle.

However, you can do this if you are using organic fertilizer such as the cow dung. Cow dungs are excellent natural fertilizer.

Water your annual flower plant regularly till they grow and produce flowers.

Amaryllis Flower Guide

Amaryllis (also sometimes called ‘naked lady’) is a beautiful flower plant that has its origin from the southern part of Africa. It looks like the lily flower and comes in many variety of colors from red, pink, crimson, purple, purplish white, pinkish white, white, greenish white, orange red and so on.

The amaryllis flower blossoms on a leafless stem that reaches up to 60 centimeter tall. The amaryllis flower on top of these stems can grow up to 10 centimeter in diameters which makes the plant very beautiful to be planted along long fencings. The amaryllis flower also looks good if they are taken with the full stems and placed in a transparent flower vase.

The Danger Of Amaryllis
Despite being beautiful, the amaryllis flower plant contain toxins such as lycorine. Accidental or intentional ingestion of amaryllis have been reported to cause stress, pain in abdomen, diarrhea, tremors, depression, anorexia, vomiting and on going hypersalivation. It is advised to keep the amaryllis bulbs away from children or pets like dogs and cats.

How To Grow Amaryllis
Amaryllis can be grown through seeds. You can get amaryllis flower seeds by pollinating (pollination) it. You can do this by collecting the pollens on the flower and leaving them on the stigma of the flower. An easy way to do this is through using soft brush that can collect the pollens easily.

You can see the pods opening within few days after pollination. Wait until the seed is black in color. It means it has dried and matured. Wait for the pod to burst open by itself which means it is ready to release the seeds. Don’t worry about the stalk as it will wither away gradually.

Now you need germinated the seeds you have collected. Some try to germinate the seed by directly leaving them on a pot of fertilized soil. The easiest way though, is by floating them on fresh water and plant them once you see the seeds have roots.

Once planted, you need to care for the amaryllis by constantly watching over it such as watering it when necessary etc. It will take about between three and five years for amaryllis to grow into mature plant and bloom. But that is okay, because this flower is beautiful, the thrill of waiting for it to bloom is worth it.

amaryllis_flower

Garden Tool: Weeder

When we mention ‘weeder’ there are two ways to define it. First, a weeder is considered as a farmhand who is hired by farm owner to remove weeds in the farm. Second, a weeder is considered as a farming or gardening product that is used to remove garden weeds or unwanted grasses.

The weeder is also called hand weeder by gardeners as it used with hand. In fact, there are many types of hand weeders in the market today. For example, the angle weeder, dandelion weeder, flame weeder, precision weeder, winged weeder, fulcrum weeder, cape cod weeder and the crack weeder.

All these different types of weeders are either long handled weeders or short handled weeders. Some weeders have a split tip or point which looks like a snake’s tongue, some has a head which looks like a spoon or scoop, and some weeders are even in curved shape. All these shapes and design of weeders have their own functions.

Some gardeners may prefer using weed control liquids like roundup instead of using weeder but using a weeder is less dangerous and much more environmentally friendly compared to the pesticides. Think about the danger a roundup or pesticide can bring to your children.

Some old folks may be concerned with backache and thus sort of decide to use roundup or pesticide, but there are many types of long handled ergonomic weeders in the market today where you can protect not just your back, but at the same time take care of your other parts of the body.

Using weeder is far more greater than using a pesticide or roundup to control weeds for the gardener. Of course, this is not very practical for large farms. But for the small gardener or home gardener, pulling out or removing weed can be a great activity to do with children in the evening or morning.

Garden Tool: The String Trimmer

String trimmer is a gardening product (hand tool) that is used to trim the grasses or weeds. The string trimmer uses a thick line that looks like a nylon monofilament line that spins in a high speed and acts like a blade to cut off or trim the grasses or weeds.

There are three main parts to a string trimmer. 1) The handle 2) The engine 3) The string.

The handle of a string trimmer can be either a standard long handle or a telescopic handle. The engine or motor that makes the machine run can either be a gas powered or electric powered motor. The string trimmer’s string is made of a monofilament nylon.

A number of popular brands like Black & Decker, Worx, Poulan, Weed Eater, Ryobi, American Gardener and Troy-Bilt are leading manufacturer of this string trimmer.

Gardening Tool: Shovel And Spade

A shovel is a gardening product used to loosen or move materials like snows, soils or sands. It is also used for digging purposes. The shovel is used widely in construction field. However it is also a useful tool for the gardener.

The shovel consist of a long handle made from either steel or wood and a broad shaped pointed blade made from either iron or strong steels.

Shovel does not only refers to shovels as we understand generally. A shovel can also refer to large excavating tractors or machines such as the power shovels.

The spade is also a gardening product that looks like a shovel. However, the spade looks more flat with a square type end without pointed tip. Similar to shovel, the spade is also used for working with soils, snows or sands. You can use the spade to break up clumps in the soil or snow.

The spade is also made like the shovel that is with a wooden handle and a steel blade that acts like a scoop.

Garden Row Cover

A row cover is a gardening product that refers to anything that is used as protective cover to shield any type of plants. This is especially true for vegetable plants. It is used mainly to protect the plant from unwanted risk from cold, wind, sun or insects.

Many types of row covers are available commercially. They are often made from lightweight synthetic material like polyethylene plastics.

The row covers are placed directly on top of rows of plants or vegetables that are growing on soil. They are placed on usually a c-shaped supporting frames made from wires. This creates a protective tunnel for crops planted in a row protecting it from predators like insects or deers that loves vegetables.

The row covers are placed at least until the plants are strongly established. In some cases, the row covers are placed until the time of reaping the fruit or vegetables.

Rotary Tiller

Rotary tiller is a motorized cultivator that is used to work the soil through a rotating tines or blades. The rotary tiller is either self propelled or drawn as an attachment from behind through either a two wheel or four wheel tractor.

Sometimes the rotary tiller is also called rototiller or Rotavator. They both are rotary tillers except that they are two different brand from two different company. These rotary tillers are more popular among gardeners who have larger farms.

The purpose of a rotary tiller is to till the soil before actual planting take place.

If you are a small gardener a hand pushed mini gasoline or diesel rotary tiller will do the job.

Gardening Product: Rake

A rake is a gardening product used to pull and gather hay, leaves, dead grass or anything unwanted like the debris to one place.

Sometimes garden owners also use the rake to loosen the soil or use it for leveling the soil.

The rake looks like a pitchfork or a fork with bended tooth with a long handle. They have a toothed bar fixed at the end of the handle (also called tines).

They can be either made up of steel or wrought iron. The handle can be either made of bamboo, wood or metal. Some rakes are square toothed and some are crescent toothed.

Either way, the rake is much more lighter than a pitchfork. The rake is not made for heavy duty pulling. It is just used to remove fallen leaves, grasses or rubbish. If you want to work with living grasses, you might consider a hoe or a pitchfork instead.

Gardening Products: Pruner

Pruner is a gardening product used to remove the twigs or little branches from plants, trees and shrubs. At a glance the pruner might look like a scissor but there is a difference.

The pruner is made so strong that it can cut hard branches easily. The smallest pruner can cut a branch of a centimeter easily.

If for pruning lager branches, the pruner is called loppers. They are bigger, two handed and looks a little like a plier.

In todays market, you can find three types of pruner design. The anvil pruner, bypass pruner and the parrot-beak pruner.

The anvil pruner have one blade that can crush the stem as it is slightly blunt. The bypass pruner functions similar to a scissor. It has two blades that slides each other when a cut is made.

The parrot-beak pruner on the other hand has two concave blades that passes each other that holds stems in them when a cut is attempted.

These pruners often comes with short handles and used with only one hand. They have a spring attached in between the handles that makes it close and open. It is often attached with a safety string to hold the handles closely when not in use.

Garden Plow (Plough)

The plow (plough) is a gardening product used in the garden for cultivating and preparing the soil for planting plants or vegetables.

The reason a gardener might use the plow is usually to turn the upper part of the soil to bring the bottom layer healthy soil up. In this way the newly layered soil on top will have more nutrients.

At the same time the older weeds which are placed at the bottom of the soil that has been brought upward, will decompose and become organically fertilized soil.

The act of using a plow and plowing the soil also creates more aeration to the soil. The airways created will be able to hold water and make the soil become moist. This means the semi wet soil will be able to germinate seeds faster.

In the olden days where technology is unheard of, plows are usually used to be pulled by cows or oxen. Later when civilization begin to advance more, steam powered engines were made for plowing purposes.

Modern day plowing (ploughing) are done through advance tractors. Plowing are done through hydraulic system that controls the plows mounted to the tractor.

Garden Hand Tool: Pitchfork

A pitchfork is a gardening product that is made of a long handle with a pointed tines that looks like a fork. The pitchfork is used to lift or pitch the garden’s waste materials such has fallen leaves, hays or dungs.

A typical pitchfork will have at least four tines separated by spaces it between them like the fork. However there are also pitchforks with more tines and different types of spacing between the tines.

The pitchfork’s tine is usually made up of steel or hard metals and the handles are made from woods, wrought iron or bamboo. If you have used the short garden fork, that is how this long handled pitchfork looks like.

Garden Hand Tool: Pickaxe

A pickaxe is a gardening product (gardening hand tool) made of a hard head attached in perpendicular manner to a long handle.

It looks like an axe and a hoe’s end combined together but the pickaxe is distinguished with one side head which has a flat end and a pick that has a sharper or pointed end.

Generally the head of the pickaxe is made of metal or highly engineered steel and the long handle of the pickaxe is made of solid wood or fiberglass.

Sometimes the head with the sharper pointed ending looks like a spike with a little curve. Often this pointed edge is used to break up rocky soils, hardened or compact soil. Some gardener use the pickaxe on the soil for aeration purpose before planting their plants.

Although the mattock have taken over the pickaxe, it is still used by many gardener or farmer.

Mini Garden Tractor

A Garden Tractor (commonly called mini tractor) is a small easy to use tractor made for small gardens. The garden tractor is often made to cut grasses. They are sturdily build with strong frames and transmission system.

The garden tractor has horizontally mounted engine with belt drive with a trans-axle type transmission up to at least 4 speed. Sometimes 5 speed. The engines are generally a 1 or 2 petrol engine.

Apart from using it cut grasses, the mini tractor function similar to a towing truck when connected with a hitch or a lawn cart which provide space to carry things like the garden produce like vegetables.

Gardening Tool: Mattock

Mattock is a gardening product or tool that looks like a pickaxe or a hoe. In fact, t is said that a mattock has evolved from pickaxe.

What differentiate mattock and pickaxe is that it is differentiated by its more broader head that is more suitable for digging purposes that looks like a hoe fitted with an opposite end that looks like a pickaxe end used for breaking up hard soils, digging Out Roots Or Cultivating.

This hand tool, the mattock is made of broad chisel-like blade that is perpendicular to the handle. This broad bladed end (hoe blade) is what makes it usable like a hoe too. The reverse end that looks like an Axe (pick point) is used as cutter and for this reason it is called cutter mattock..

The mattock is usually weight anywhere between 1 kg to 4kg and is normally attached with a handle about 36 inch long. The handle is either made of wood or Heavy Duty Fiberglass. The head of the mattock may be drop forged high carbon steel.

For the gardener, the mattock will be a useful gardening product to break hard soils or rocky soils.

Garden Lopper

A lopper is a scissor like gardening product used for pruning twigs or small branches of plants or trees. There are many types of loppers in the market today. For example, there are garden lopper, pruning loppers, alligator loppers, electric loppers, long reach loppers or telescopic handle loppers etc.

Large loppers such as the alligator loppers are used to cut difficult tree branches manually. The loppers are held with both hands and pressed after placing the branches in between the lopper’s cutter to cut it off. A large lopper may have a telescopic handle that can reach up to two meter long.

There are curved jawed lopper or sharp straight edged lopper. The curved jaw loppers are often called bypass loppers while the straight and sharp edge loppers are called anvil lopper. If you are looking for buying a lopper, think about the use of the lopper for your garden.

If your have the need to cut small branches that you can reach easily that a general lopper may do the job but if you have a long and hard branches to cut or trim, you may want to get a telescopic lopper or an anvil lopper.

Both the anvil or bypass lopper have their own pro and cons. Anvil loppers are reported to crush branches instead of cutting them although they are more stronger and resilient to hard branches. On the other hand a bypass lopper levers the branches or twigs apart. Choose one that fits your garden requirement.

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Garden Leaf Blower

Leaf blower is a gardening product used to make your lawn, yard or driveway free from debris or clutters. The leaf blower will propel air out of a nozzle at a high speed and blows the unwanted debris to the area you want them to be where you can collect them easily and throw them away.

Generally, leaf blowers are electric motor powered but there are also two-stroke or four-stroke engine leaf blowers. Leaf blowers are considered to contribute to high environmental pollution but modern leaf blower is more environmental conscious and ergonomic.

Often the leaf blower is a self contained handhold unit with a backpack. The newer leaf blower designs are able to function like a vacuum by sucking smaller twigs or debris and transfer them into a bag for throwing away.

However, since their introduction, there have been many states in the US which have banned it’s use due to the pollution concern. If you are thinking of buying a leaf blower, check your state or district legal restrictions first; whether they can be used legally or not.

Garden Lawn Sweeper

A lawn sweeper is a gardening product that is used to sweep away the fallen leafs, grass clippings or removing debris.

A lawn sweeper functions through a rotating brush that sweeps and catches the debris own the lawn. It works like a comb that collects all the debris into a hopper bag made of vinyl.

There are two types of lawn sweepers. The hand powered lawn sweepers and gasoline or electric powered lawn sweepers.

Both looks almost the same only one is man powered while the other lawn sweeper is made of electrical motor.

The push lawn sweepers requires it to be pushed in oder to put power into the lawn sweepers so that it can start brushing and collecting the debris.

Lawn debris can also be collected by using leaf blowers or garden vacuum cleaner but the lawn sweeper is the most effective of all as it easily pulls in all the debris.

Also, lawn sweepers are less hazardous and is a non pollutant compared to leaf blower. It is a quiet and ecologically friendly gardening product. In fact, pushing lawn sweepers such can be a way to exercise too.

The lawn sweeper is also usually very lightweight that anyone can use it.

Garden Lawn Mover

A lawn mover is gardening machine (product) used to cut lawn grasses in a orderly and even sizes. The lawn mover has one or more revolving blade spinning at a high speed that cuts the grass. There are rotary lawn movers as well as cylindrical or reel lawn movers.

In the market, one can find many types of brand and design of lawn mover. There are the ride one mini tractor type of lawn movers as well as a simple human pushed lawn mover.

For the small lawn owner it is recommended to use small lawn movers but for the large lawn a ride on lawn mover are preferred as it makes the lawn working process faster and less tiring. However, if you are the kind that wouldn’t mind sweating a little, you can go for the hand pushed lawn movers.

Whether you choose, hand push type of lawn mover, electric or gasoline powered, ride on lawn movers or the tractor lawn mover, the type that suits you largely depends to your situation. Determine afford ability and the size of your lawn.

Gardening Lawn Edger

A lawn edger is a gardening product (tool) used to cut or trim lawn grasses that grows overhanging thickly affecting walkways or sidewalks.

People use lawn edgers to trim lawn grasses to ensure the lawn grasses and the walkway have a neat appearance. Cutting them with other types or gardening products may not give a fine finishing. That is why a lawn edger was created.

There are two types of lawn edgers; the electric powered lawn edgers and the gas powered lawn edgers. These powered lawn edgers functions in many ways. For example by using rotating blades or thrashing wheels.

Basically a gas powered lawn edger is made of an engine, a belt tensioner, pulleys and a blade. Electric lawn edger on the other hand may incorporate a trimmer together.

Usually the electric lawn edger have a powerful motor with a head that can be turned horizontally or vertically to convert from being a trimmer to an edger.

The electric lawn edger often uses small motor that spins in high speed a nylon line to cut or trim the grasses.

Some of the popular brands manufacturing lawn edgers includes Black & Decker, Electrolux, King O’Lawn, Poulan, Ryobi, and Tanaka.

Garden Lawn Aerator

Lawn aerator is a gardening product made to aerate the soil where plants or grasses are grown. The reason why anyone wants to use lawn aerator is to aerate the soil is because it enhances soil drainage and oxygen in the soil.

Lawn aerator is used when the lawn owner feels the lawn has problem with soil fertilization or the lawn soil such as ‘low soil compaction’ which affects soil irrigation or habitat such as the earthworms living under the lawn that can make the soil fertilized.

Although there are no scientific evidence to show that aeration makes any changes to the health of a lawn, many gardeners or farmers believe lawn aeration improves the quality of soil which improves plant or grass growth and health.

Mainly, there are two types of lawn aerators. The spike lawn aerator and the core lawn aerator. The spike aerator is uses solid spikes to punch holes in the soul while the core aerator have hollow spikes and it is used to pull out plugs of soul.

Spike aerator creates path for the air to contact with deeper soil. It does not pull out plugs of soil like the core aerators whereby it reduces compaction of soil directly by pulling out plugs of soil. Many garden owners prefer core aerators for this reason.

Some gardeners uses spiked aerator shoes to aerate the lawn. This is not recommended because the spike shoes actually compact the soil when one steps on a soil using it. For small lawn, a spading fork can be used but for lager lawn, it is better to use powered lawn aerator.

Gardening Hoe Products

A hoe is a gardening product (gardening tool) that has many uses. A hoe can be used to remove weeds, agitate soil around plants, hilling, create raised bed with sands, create trenches, digging of soil, removing soils, chopping weeds or moving debris or residues etc.

Generally there are two types of hoe; a hoe with long handle and a hoe with short handle such as the Korean plow hoe. The long handle hoe comes in many types of blade; either a square type, delta shaped, flat edged or a swan necked blade. Its type of blade determines the hoe’s various usage.

A hoe is more popular among eastern farmers in their day to day farming activities. Also known as Manveti in south India. In Indonesia it is known as Pacul while in Malaysia it is known as Cangkul.

Garden Hedge Trimmer Products

Hedge trimmer is a gardening product made for trimming garden hedges. In the olden days , garden hedges were trimmed or cut with knife or with the pruning shears. This is replaced with powered hedge trimmers which makes the gardeners life easier as trimming takes less time and is more effective.

There are two types of hedge trimmer products in the market. The stand alone trimmer and the tractor mounted trimmer. The stand alone trimmer can be without power or with power such as gasoline or the electricity.

Human powered hedge trimmer only need human power to operate it and is usually very light. The gasoline powered or electrical hedge trimmer are more heavier depending to the type whether it is short handled hedge trimmer or long handled hedge trimmer.

Unlike gasoline hedge trimmer, the electrical hedge trimmer has become the popular choice of hedge trimmer among environmental conscious gardener as it is less polluting.

It is also designed in such a way that is safe to use (such as placing control switch near at finger tip to one or off the trimmer anytime) by any inexperienced individuals.

The tractor mounted hedge trimmer is a used more by a larger farm or garden owner. It is not necessarily for the small scale gardeners.

Garden Greenhouse

A greenhouse is a building made to protect plants against excessive cold or heat or as simply a place where plants are cultivated.

The greenhouse is usually made with plastic walls and roofs or the greenhouse is made with glass and plastic roof top.

Thus the greenhouse can be divided into two category the glass type greenhouse or the plastic type greenhouse.

Inside the glass greenhouse one can find many high tech equipments such as watering, heating, cooling and lighting controlled automatically by computerized system.

The plastic greenhouse are similar to glass greenhouse but the structure is made either by PEfilms or multi wall sheet such as the PMMA.

You can use a greenhouse to grow flowers, vegetables or fruit plants. However, growing such plants in greenhouse can be costly. For example, the greenhouse must have irrigation as it is prevented by rain or natural flow of streams to be used as natural watering process.

One must also place correct heat or lighting equipments to provide necessary light for the plant to grow. Although greenhouse gardening or farming reduces pesticide problem considerably, some useful habitats needed for healthy growing of certain plants may be affected thus effecting plant quality.

These however are worries for big farmers. For the small gardener, this is not an issue as planting is on a small scale for one’s own or family use only.

Gardening Grass Shear Product

The grass shear is a gardening product or tool used to cut grass from a standing position. Unlike the usual pruning shears, it has a long handle with the handles located at the right side of the shearing blades.

Generally there are two types of grass shear – the vertical bladed and horizontal bladed grass shears. Each have their own uses.

The horizontal bladed grass shears are used to remove the grass that are missed by the lawn movers while the vertical bladed grass shears are used to trim the edges of grasses on lawn.

The grass shears can be obtained as either an electric grass shears, short handle or long handled grass shears or as a cordless grass shears.

Garden Fork Or Spading Fork

Gardening forks such as the spading fork or the digging fork is a gardening hand tool product with handle and some short sturdy tines up to at least four tines.

The purpose of the gardening fork is for using it to loosen the soil by pushing it back and forward. It is handled similar to handling a spade but gardening fork is more useful to the gardener compared to the spade.

Gardening fork can easily pull stones, rocks, weeds. It can also be used to break up the clods as well.

Modern gardening forks are made of either carbon steel or stainless steel.

However, one must not be confused the gardening fork with the pitchfork. Pitchforks are used for moving the hay, compost or manures.

Notice that the gardening fork is a little short and normally comes with wooden handles and are made of either carbon steel or stainless steel. Their tines are shorter, thicker and nearly spaced.

An example would be the Ames True Temper Gardener Spading Fork with Ergo D-Grip Lacquered Handle.

Gardening Hose Product

Garden hose is a long synthetic rubber (Polyurethane) or PVC tube that is very flexible made to carry water for irrigation purposes.

A garden hose can be attached with a sprayer or sprinkler nozzle to concentrate water for mild or high speed spraying or sprinkling.

It is important for a gardener to get the right type of garden hose. With the right type of gardening hose the gardener can spray or sprinkle water on the gardens plant accordingly. The suitable hose should be one that is movable type.

Meaning the garden hose should be able to be pulled easily to the location where the gardener wants to use the water. For example, being able to move the hose around or behind garden plants.

The garden hose also should be able to be rolled back in circular easily. For this a reel type or rewindable type of garden hose are more suitable.

Gardening Product: The Garden Weasel

A garden weasel is a gardening product that comes with usually three sets of tines that rotates and used for loosing soil similar to the gardening fork.

The difference is the garden weasel tines rotates and the gardening fork tines does not rotates. The garden weasels tines are also removable and replaceable.

The gardening weasel is also sometimes called as rotary cultivator.

The gardening weasel is easy to use. One just need to place the garden weasel on the soil and cultivate the soil by pushing the garden weasel back and forth.

It is recommended that one wets the soil mildly to make the cultivation easier.

When using the garden weasel on a narrow rows of the garden, it is advised to use the garden weasel with either one or only two tines.

The benefit of using the garden weasel is that it helps aerate the soil and make the soil absorb water easily too.

Garden Soil Cultivator Products

Garden cultivator is a gardening product (small cultivator tractor) used for stirring as well as pulverizing the soil of the garden before planting. The garden cultivator is also used to remove weeds as well as to aerate and ease the soil once the crop has started to grow.

Unlike the harrow which is used for similar function, the garden cultivator is motor powered that makes it able to stir soil to a deeper depth length. This motor powered garden cultivators are controlled by the gardener (the operator of garden cultivator) pushing it from behind it.

The garden cultivator can also be used to mix all the soils with manures and the fertilizers as a preparation for planting purposes. The garden cultivator can till the soil until it becomes a tilth. The garden cultivator blades can be changed as well which determines either for the use of plowing or cutting vegetation.

Gardening Products: Dibble

A dibble is a pointed gardening product or tool used to make holes in the cultivated soil area of a garden. The holes are made to plant seeds, seedlings or bulbs.

There are many types of dibbles. There are straight dibble, T-handled dibble, trowel dibble and the L-shaped dibble.

The straight dibble is the first kind of dibble ever used. This type of dibble can be self made. For example you can use a sharpened stick to use it as a dibble. Modern straight dibbles are more complex. Sometimes they come with curved handles or made of steel rod with pointed end.

The T-handled dibble is a dibble that comes with a t-grip. The t-grip is the handle that can be held fully with either one palm or both our palms. The reason for this is that it makes it easier to put strength on the dibble to work on harder soils.

The Trowel dibble is a combination of dibble and trowel together. They are usually made from aluminum or other kind of lightweight materials.

Gardening Compost Bin

Garden Compost Bin is a gardening product used to make compost. The compost bins are usually made of hard plastic in a cylindrical shape that looks like a container to hold rubbish. You can easily find these compost bins in urban or suburban gardening stores.

A very good reason to use compost bin for your garden is to reduce waste stream. Owning a compost bin also reduce your cost of buying compost materials for your garden as you can make your own compost from your own garden or home wastes.

For small garden owners who are concerned about spending money buying compost bin, can find other ways to compost the waste products from their home and garden. One such way is to bury the waste materials into earth soils for a period of time for it to biodegrade.

Once it has biodegraded, you can dig up the soil in that area and use it as mixed soil with high minerals which requires less fertilizers for your small garden. Doing this saves money on buying too much fertilizers. Furthermore this method equals organic fertilizing.

However you should only bury materials that only takes only one to a few weeks to biodegrade such as food waste (kitchen waste). Plastics, bottles, batteries or aluminum cans will never get decomposed in your lifetime. It is better to send such materials for recycling.

It is suggested however, you decide to own a compost bin as it makes decomposition much more rapid and keeps your garden environment cleaner. Furthermore, compost bin are obtainable as the prices are considerably cheap.

An example would be the tumbleweed composter.

Garden Vegetable And Flower Bulb Planter

A bulb planter is a gardening product or tool that is used to dig holes for planting bulbs one by one. It makes planting bulb in the garden easy.

There are two types of bulb planters; the Short-handled bulb planter and the Long-handled bulb planter. Both these short and long handled bulb planters have their own advantages.

The short handled bulb planter is good when planting bulbs by the borders or bare soils while the long handled bulb planter is good when planting on lawns where the area is broader. Simply push the bulb planter into the soil with your foot. In fact, long handled bulb planters are good for folks having back pain.

How to use bulb planter? It is very easy. All you need to do is press or push it into the soil and pull it out. You will see a hole on the ground. Remove the plug of soil out. Now place the bulb into the hole and replace or cover the holes back with the soil you took out from the bulb planter.

If you have never used a bulb planter before, you should try using it and see for your self how tidy your bulb planting work will be. You can get a bulb planter for anywhere between USD5.00 to USD40.00. For example the Garden Auger Bulb Planter.

Gardening Products: Brush Hook

A brush hook is a gardening product or tool that looks like an Axe. However, the blade of the brush hook is a curved blade. It is called brush hook because the blade looks like a hook that is attached to a long handle.

The brush hook’s curved blade is generally made about 12 inch wide with a handle about 36 inch. The brush hook is used when clearing a land by cutting off weeds or wild plants. It is also used by the firefighters to clear heavy undergrowth in the trails.

Using a brush hook can be dangerous because a brush hook is used like an Axe. When using a brush hook make sure no one is standing beside you where you are going to sway the brush hook. It is advised that you hold the brush hook firmly because if you let it go when you swung it can fly and hit something or someone.

It is advised that one wears eye gloves as many particles may spark when cutting branches of trees. Some blades of a brush hook is not molded together with the handle which may get loose and come out. So don’t make an overhead swing as it may fall on your head.

The safest way is to make sure you hold the brush hook in the front of you where you can see it all the time.

Gardening Products: Broadfork

A broadfork (also known as the U-fork) is a gardening product (tool) used to break up compact or hard soils for the purpose of improving the aeration or the drainage of the soil.

The broadfork is a hand and leg tool and it is used manually without any machines or motor power. It is usually made of sharp metal tines like the fork placed on a wide steel bar. The tines are about eight inches long and is spaced a few inches apart.

The broadfork has two hand handle that extends up to shoulder length in a short curve shape. When using the broadfork, the handler have to step on the wide bar that holds the tines and put the pressure of bodyweight to press the tines enter the soil.

Than the operator steps off the broadfork’s wide steel bar and rocks the handle pulling it backward that cause the soil to break when the tines are levered up. This tool isn’t necessary for small gardener but for big garden about one to two acres, this tool might come handy.

Gardening Products: What Is A Billhook

A billhook is a cutting gardening product used for cutting small wood materials like the branches or the shrubs. The bill hook is generally about 25 centimeter long cutter. It has a short handle that is made from wood and a blade made from either steel or medium carbon steel.

The blade of a billhook is attached to a handle has a sudden curve at the end almost looking like a L-shape. The blade shape looks almost similar to the brush hook. In order to sharpen the blade the gardener’s have to sharpen it from the inside of the curve as that is where the most cutting takes place.

The handle of a bill hook can be comfortable and secure depending to the quality of the brand. The good handle of a billhook should give you the ability to grip the handle firmly and comfortably even if it is lubricated.

All in all the billhook is a solid tool for cutting small woods and branches. It doesn’t work good with hard and thicker woods as the blade may get stuck in the wood when you try to cut it. You might want to use an Axe if you are working with larger woods.

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