Plant Blog
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1. About This Blog
This blog and this website are based on personal experience and observation. The information within it is meant to be applicable and relevant regardless of the "plant zone" you live in. You know when frost is likely. You know the weather in your area. I believe that growing plants is a lot simpler that most books on the subject would make it seem.
Please see articles and other relevant websites on the main page: www.plantsandgrowingstuff.com.
2. Fallen Leaves
How to handle surplus leaves in your yard (or driveway or sidewalk):
- If you do not have too many, and you have a mulching lawn mower, you can just run over them with the lawn mower.
- If you have the space for it, compost them. The best solution is to spread them over a wide area, where having lots of leaves will not create a problem, and let them decay naturally. Rake them loosely into the soil to create a more usable substance after the leaves have decomposed.
- You may be able to find someone who wants them for mulch or to help with soil building.
- If you really must dispose of them, bag them. Many trash services will accept them for free. See blog entry number 3, below.
3. How To Bag Excess Leaves
- 30-gallon, or bigger, trash can.
- Bags to fit said trash can.
- Rake
- Square milk crate.
Needed:
- Make sure that the milk crate will fit into both the trash bag and the trash can.
- Gather the leaves with the rake and the milk crate, and empty them into the trash can.
- Tamp down the leaves with the milk crate, bottom side down.
Procedure:
Although this method seems simplistic, yet it makes it much easier to bag leaves than any other way I have encountered. The milk crate is very ergonomic and efficient as a leaves compactor, and simple enough to come by. (Try to find and buy a real milk crate, made for carrying milk jugs: it works much better and is much stronger and more durable than light and flimsy imitations.)
4. Indoor Plants—How To Keep Them Alive
- Do not over water them.
- Remove dead leaves and other dead or decaying matter from the plant containers. Indoors is no place to start composting.
- Do not go overboard on fertilizer. Remember that indoor plants are a mostly closed ecosystem—you do not want to overload it; less is better.
- Lighting: plants like light—something to do with that photosynthesis thing. But be careful—many indoor plants do not do well in direct sunlight. There is no substitute for knowing what your plants like. Search the Internet or good indoor gardening books for more information about caring for your particular plants; temper what you learn there with your own experience.