Gardening Chores for May

For those of you in the southeast, you may want to consider visiting the May Page of Southeast: Organic Gardening's Monthly Garden Calendar. Even if your garden isn't organic many of the tips on that blog can apply to what you need to be doing this time of year. Such as:

• Clearing out your compost bin.
• Filling in bald spots.
• Sow and transplant.
• Crop care.
• Plant flowers.
• Take your spring annuals to the compost bin and replace with summer flowers.
• Pruning
• Fertilizing certain plants.
• Monitor for bugs in your vegetables.
• Getting rid of invasive pest plants.

 There's lots of things to be doing this month! Good luck and we hope to hear about some of your gardening adventures.

May is here! Are you Gardening yet?

May is not only here, but we are already 5 days in. Which means many of you are getting ready to start (or already have been) doing some major planting, transplanting, etc. as the average last frosting date here in the mountains of Virginia is between May 10th and 15th.

While browsing the internet, we came across a planting calender that Virginia Tech has on their website (it is in .pdf format) We hope that you find the information there helpful.

With all the rain that we've been having lately it might be a good time to start thinking about rain barrels. It is hard to determine whether a summer is going to be a rainy or dry one, but by storing water from times of plenty for use in times of drought you can save yourself a lot of heartache of your gardening dying from not enough water.

We hope that everyone has gotten a great start to their gardens and we would love to hear about your experiences with your gardens this year!

Read up on Gardening Chores For May.

Attracting Birds to Your Yard

Birds are definitely a creature that humans have found fascinating for years. Perhaps it is their simple beauty, the gorgeous songs they trill so happily, or the intrigue that humans have with animals of flight. Watching these magnificent creatures is a past time that many people share. And there are a few things that you can do to bring birds to your backyard so that you can enjoy watching these carefree, playful little creatures of the air.

For the main part, if you have food and a source of water in your backyard for your little feathered friends, then you are already off to a good start.

For attracting certain birds you will need certain types of food. As each breed has its own preference.

Depending on the type of food you will need a proper bird feeder, if you are using bird seed, then you will need a tube feeder or hanging feeder. For Suet Cakes, you will need a suet feeder, and for that sweet syrupy stuff that hummingbirds love you will need a humming bird feeder. (My personal favorite is the strawberry hummingbird feeder.)

A few types of Bird Seed and a few of the birds that each attracts (each different seed attracts more birds than we have listed, but we will give you at least 3 birds that are attracted to each):

Sunflower Seeds:
-Cardinals
-Juncos
-Woodpeckers

Peanut Hearts:
-Chicadees
-Titmice
-Grosbeaks

Cracked Corn:
-Jays
-Sparrows
-Doves

Nyger:
-Finches
-Pine Siskins
-Buntings


At Red Hill General Store we carry several varieties of Bird Food including seeds and suet cakes, each blend attracts a variety of birds to your yard.

And a photo a Red Hill Employee got of a Woodpecker on her backporch:

Have fruit trees that you'd rather not have birds in? Read How to keep birds out of fruit trees.

Gardening Poll

On Red Hill General Store's Facebook Page, we asked our fans this question:

We want to know how many of you are planning on gardening this year:

And the results of the 30 answers that we received were quite encouraging.

50% of those polled said: I am definitely having a garden.
36% said: I might have a small garden.
13% replied: No garden this year, maybe next year.
and
0% said I do not garden.

So it seems that here at Red Hill General Store around 86% of our customers and fans lean towards some sort of gardening, whether it is container gardening, flower gardening, or vegetable gardening. That is more people than we had thought. Which is a great thing, especially since we offer a variety of gardening equipment, supplies, and decor.

So to our readers are you planning on gardening this year? If so what are your plans for that garden? Need help starting a garden? Read our blog on how to start a garden.

Urban Container Gardens

We have discussed gardening for people who have larger yards or some land. But what about those of you who do not have the luxury of living out in the country, but want a garden of your own? Well today we are going to go over a few basics of Urban Gardening to try to help you out.

Today we will focus on container gardens; these are great if you have a balcony, sunny window, roof, or patio area where you don't have any usable dirt, but have space to keep containers.

You will want to plan your container garden, just as someone who uses land needs to plan their plot. You will need to look up your USDA zone so that you know which plants grow the best in your region. After discovering which plants grow best, you will need to decide which of those plants are ones that you want to grow.

With a little practice, experimenting, and hard work nearly any plant that grows in the ground can thrive in a container. However, if this is your first try you might want to stick with plants that are easier to get going until you gain more practice and skill with gardening.

Nearly any container that has holes in the bottom for drainage can be used for your container garden. You can easily use a galvanized bucket or tub as a planter for your container garden, just drill some holes in the bottom. Now keep in mind if you are going to have your container inside near a sunny window, you will want something underneath your container in order to catch the excess water that will run out.

When filling your container with soil keep in mind the needs of the plants that you will be growing so that you can be sure you have the proper soil pH. You might also want to go ahead and purchase fertilizers etc that are recommended for your plants so that you will have them on hand if needed.

Watering is a tricky aspect to container gardening. You will want to water them thoroughly when you water them, but you will not want to water them too much. As you can kill a plant by over and under watering.

Now, there will be the occasional failure, even the most experienced container gardener experiences these. But as you get more experienced the failures will become further between, and you will learn ways to recognize when a plant is failing and how to bring it back from the brink.

And as always, we love to hear from YOU! So please let us know about your experiences with container gardening, which plants worked the best, what tricks have you learned?

View one of our employees first container garden attempt.

Composting

Composting is a wonderful way to naturally give your garden the fuel it needs to thrive.  Composting is also environmentally responsible, as it is using things that ordinarily would find their way into the landfills which are already full enough. It can also save you money on buying compost in the store, and by lessening the garbage that you need to haul off each week, if you also recycle your metals, papers, and plastics, adding composting to your routine can save you quite a bundle in what you are paying to the landfills (if you live in an area that charges for garbage pick up or drop off).

Just what is so great about composting anyway? Well, composting is great for many things; it is good for your garden and the environment. Compost is good for the soil in your garden as it gives your plants a slow, steady, nearly continuous stream of nutrients that they need while they are growing.  In addition to the reasons that we already mentioned that composting is good for the environment (less waste going to landfills) it also improves it due to creating less of a need for chemical fertilizers. And less chemicals is almost always a good thing.

Well, we’ve been convinced that composting is a good, no a GREAT thing. So how does one get started composting?

To make compost you need to bring together items that are mainly green and moist, such as grass clippings, weeds, kitchen scraps, etc. Also you will need to add in some brown ingredients like dead leaves, hay, wood shavings, saw dust, hay, and so forth. Make sure that your items stay moist and turn every few days to make sure oxygen is getting reintroduced to the pile. You can do this with a pitchfork or a compost aerator. However, if you are using a spinning compost container, the action of spinning it will aerate your compost for you. 

Now, you might want to reduce the size of your compost ingredients by chopping them up, or in the case of leaves you can use a lawn mower or mulcher to decrease their size. This will help your compost break down more quickly.

When you add your ingredients together you will want to layer them in 3 to 4 inch think layers (however if using a spinning container you can just chuck them all in there together). The ratio you will want to stay close to is between a 5:1 and 8:1 by volume of brown materials to green materials. However, if the ratio is off then there are ways to tell how to get back on track.

If after 24 hours your compost pile has not heated up you most likely need more green material. The best way to gauge whether or not your pile is getting warmer is by using a thermometer, or more particularly a compost thermometer. 150-160 degrees Fahrenheit is where you want the temperature of the middle of your compost heap to be. Now on the other end of things, if your compost smells like ammonia then you need some more brown materials. Once these are added and mixed into your compost then that smell should dissipate.

Your compost mixture should remain moist throughout the process (not sopping wet however). Between the moistness and the oxygen that the compost is getting from you aerating it your mixture will soon become compost. The more frequently you aerate your mixture the quicker your compost will be ready.

Now, once your compost is done there are several uses for it. You can add it to garden soil, container mixes, or use it as mulch. If there are still coarse pieces in the compost you may want to sift your compost through a “riddle” or garden sieve. Any large pieces that are left can be added to your ingredients for your next composting adventure.

Composting ingredients: (a few ingredient ideas to get you started)

Brown Ingredients:

Leaves

Paper

Cardboard

Hay

Woody Prunings

Straw

Eggshells

Tea Bags

Corn Cobs

Saw Dust

Green Ingredients:

Vegetables

Fruit

Grass Clippings

Fresh Manure

Coffee Grounds

Young Hedge Trimmings

Seaweed

Feathers

Plant Cuttings

Hair

More Composting Info

Seeding Your Garden

Planting the seeds in your garden can be a time consuming task, even in a smaller garden. If gardening is something that you practice yearly, you might find yourself wondering if there is something that can make this task just a little bit easier.  If this a question that has been weighing on your mind, then you are in luck as there are definitely items out there that are made specifically for this task.  One of those items we are going to be talking about today.

The item that we mentioned above is none other than the Earthway Precision Garden Seeder.  This neat little machine is one that can ease many of the troubles that come with seeding your garden by hand, one of those troubles being back pain with frequent bending and stooping, using a Garden Seeder can help to alleviate this problem. As with any product, you should always read all the instructions that come with the garden seeder before using it. If you want to know how to properly work a garden seeder before making the investment in one, the instructions for the Earthway Precision Garden Seeder can be found on our earthway-outlet.com Web site.

But we are going to give a few pointers here for your convenience:

• You will want to be sure that your seeds are dry before putting them into the seeder, as damp or wet seeds can clog the garden seeder up.
• Also, you will want to be sure that the seeds you are using will properly fit with the seed plate that you are using (there are many different seed plates available for the Earthway Precision Garden Seeder)
• The hopper needs to be kept clean so that the seeds will be evenly distributed during the seeding process. 
• There is an attachment for the Earthway Precision Garden Seeder that is used for fertilizing. If you decide to purchase this item with your garden seeder, keep in mind that you cannot seed and fertilize at the same time. However, even using the garden seeder twice still saves time over doing both of these things by hand.

We hope that you have a wonderful experience in your garden this coming year. If there are any blogs that you want to see about gardening please let us know either in the comments or by emailing us at crystal@redhillgeneralstore.com 

  Did you know that you don't have to have a lot of space for a garden? Read Urban Container Gardening for more info.