Best Baby Shops Best Baby Shops

27Jan/120

The Best Ways Of Extending The Life Of Your Summer Garden

The overwhelming majority of gardens look their best in the summer whether they produce flowers, fruit or vegetables, the same is probably true of your garden. When the garden looks so good and the weather is fine, it is nice to spend more time outside.

There are two means of approaching this: you can endeavour to extend the growing life of your garden by say a few weeks or a month or / and you can extend the number of hours you can sit in the garden every day. By taking both routes you will get the utmost pleasure from your summer garden.

The first thing you can do to extend the life of your summer garden is construct some raised growing beds. Raised growing beds heat up more rapidly and cool down more slowly than a growing bed in the soil. This is because the brick walls of the raised beds will absorb and hold the sun's heat, warming the soil faster and retaining it.

It will also cool down more slowly as winter draws on because frost comes up from the ground and your raised beds will be that much higher so the chill will have to travel further. You can also strive to heat these raised beds artificially if the first frost has not yet arrived. Apply the heat to the walls of the beds.

You may think that the cost of heating the flower beds is not worth the money, but if you have a special function on just at that time of the year when the weather normally takes a change for the worse, you may think the cost worth it to have a beautiful floral display for that special day.

Raised growing beds are definitely the best route to take, but if for some reason you cannot construct some raised beds, you could give your plants a head start by planting them in pots ahead of when the first frost is predicted for. if you have a greenhouse, you will be able to get even flowers commenced in this manner. Then, you could transplant more mature plants outside when the weather allows. This will extend the life of your summer garden to the fore a little.

Another way of extending the garden's summer life a little is to cover the plants over at night. However, you must keep an eye on the plants, because these covers are very effective. You have to be able to remove them before the sun warms up or your plants may swelter. You cannot go to work in the morning and leave your plants covered over all day.

The second way to get more enjoyment from your summer garden is to extend the number of hours per day that you can sit outside. This is easily achieved with exterior lighting. You can either run electric wiring to your garden and have lighting installed or you can use solar powered lighting, which will save you money on installation and electricity costs.

Once you have enough lighting, the only other things you might have to have to extend the life of your summer garden are a mosquito trap and a patio heater.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on quite a few subjects, but is at present concerned with exterior lighting fixtures. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.

27Jul/110

Caring For Your Koi Carp Pond After A Storm

A storm can be distressing for your outdoor fish, especially for large koi carp, which, being large, possibly do not have many places to hide. However, if you have designed your koi fish pond well, you will have taken this into account when your built the pond. Similarly, the pond must be deep enough for your fish to be able to get well below the choppy surface layer.

If you prepared for the storm, you possibly put a net over the fish pond, so the first thing you need to do after the storm is clear up any fallen debris and remove the net, so that you can get a good look at your fish and what occurred to them. They may be a bit stressed, so move slowly and try hard not to frighten them. Stress is a killer in the animal world as well as in ours.

Did you take the added safeguard of sand-bagging the rim of your pond to stop it over-flowing and the fish swimming away? If so, take away the sand bags, so that you can get a better look.

Now you can get a good look at the upheaval, if there is any. Use a net to quietly skim off any leaves that have blown under the netting and into the pond. If any plants have been uprooted, put them back where they should be. In general, put the pond back as it used to be, so that the fish feel at home. Again, move slowly and try not to put your fish under any more stress.

If you need to carry out major structural repairs, you could place your koi in a child's plastic paddling pool until you can sort the issue out. Put the pool in a shaded area and fold the netting over it several times so that the fish can not get out and cats and birds cannot get in. If you can aerate the water with a pump so much the better.

Put a few plants in there with them for cover and feed in moderation. if the repairs will take a long time, you could ask your local pet store to take them away for a week or whatever. You will need to pay board and lodgings, but it is preferable to losing your prized koi carp.

Once any repairs have been carried out, you ought to check the water quality, which could have been changed by debris falling into the pond or by your repairs. Rain, especially acid rain, can have quite an effect, especially if it rained for a long time.

First check the water for nitrates. If the levels are unacceptable (see the testing kit for details), you should stabilize them. If the levels are very high, first remove the plants from the water.

Then analyze the KH levels. If they are low, say, below 100, then you could add a cup of baking soda per 1,000 gallons of water and check again. Whatever you do, the quickest way to de-stress your fish is to reinstate their environment to what it used to be with sparkling water to swim in.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is now involved with water garden pumps. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for a special deal.

18Jul/110

Your Backyard Pond

If you have a backyard or back garden, you can have a fish pond. They are not costly to build and if you make it yourself it is clearly even cheaper. You can make your own pond pretty easily, you just have to bear a few things in mind when you plan where you are going to situate it and how big it will be.

A backyard fish pond is fantastic for all kinds of households. Looking after a backyard fish pond is not difficult and the gentle exercise will be good for you. it is also soothing to watch the fish and other pond life going about their routine business and children will learn a bit more about nature,

It is important to plan your pond before you pick up your spade and the first thing to think about is where you are going to place it. Try not to put it under a tree or you will be dredging leaves out of your pond every day in autumn. Do not put the pond at the lowest point in your garden or it may overflow when it rains and your fish may swim away which means that you will need to sandbag it before it rains every time..

The noon sun can be very hot, so it would help if the pond had at least partial shade between 11 AM and 2 PM. If your locale is subject to freezing then the pond should be 30-45 inches deep for at least 4 m2 or 36 ft2, although if the winter can be really severe, it is best to seek advice from a neighbourhood pet shop. Have a look at the pre-formed fish ponds in a garden or pond centre to see if you like those shapes and sizes. If you do not, then you can buy a butyl pond liner (a sheet of rubber) and design your own pond.

After you have dug out your backyard fish pond and put your pre-formed or butyl liner into the hole, you should finish off the pond's edge with either brick, block or stone. Use similar materials to build a few caves in the pond itself for the fish to take cover in. You could also anchor the fountain and any under-water lighting. Fill the pond with water, but do not place any living thing into it yet. Put the rest of your equipment in.

You will need a general purpose pump to send water to the pond filter, which should be two or three feet above the water level. The water will then have to pass through a filter to take out plant debris and faeces and under a UV light to kill bacteria. It can return to the pond via a waterfall, which will help aerate the water as will the fountain.

After a week, the water will have lost the chemicals like chlorine which the water company puts into it and you can buy plants and fish, but do not rush into it. You may want to build a few shelves to put flower pots on for the aquatic plants that need them.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with fish pond accessories. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for some special deals.