Garden Video

My buddy Billy Goodnick put this video up - he’s the drummer and one interesting guy. You rock Billy!

I use bamboo stakes to create garden support systems for plants such as tomatoes and pole beans. You could use this kind of support for fast fences by haning netting over the support and growing Morning Glories over it.

I’ll be uploading the video of how I train my tomatoes later as I get enough video to show you this very simple technique.

When it comes to tomato care, you wouldn’t think there’d be a problem with getting a plant into the ground but I find some folks don’t understand the easy way to plant this vegetable. Nor do they understand what to do if the transplant is too long or stretched out. Here’s the way to successfully plant a tomato in your vegetable garden.

Note the tomato staking videos are here from last year and there will be updates later on this summer.

Here are the two tools I use all summer in my garden. You can get both at LeeValley.com and I recommend the company (I just bought a new Hoe-Mi as I lost the last one and that’s where I got it). Note that I don’t get paid to tell you that

When it comes to digging the garden, these simple techniques can save your feet and your back. All in one-minute

Here are my first baby steps into hydroponic gardening - more to come

The Venus Flytrap is a carnivorous plant that triggers the “trap” by the fly or other insect triggering “trap hairs” on the inner surface of the flower. As you’ll see, the flower closes quite quickly and the fly is unable to escape. This takes a bit of time on this video so you might want to slide the indicator nob across to see it (this fly is doomed).

A somewhat different and highly entertaining view of insects. Brought to us from the French National Film Board and Disney Studios.

You don’t wanna kill off these bugs.

Here’s how to build a compost bin using free recycled skids, a few coat hangers and only taking about ten minutes. It’s a pretty easy way to get a bin of the right size for compost making.

A few things the video doesn’t cover are things like appearance, animals, covers and actually how to make compost.

In my case, we had skids that weren’t the same size so the smallest was put on the “door” side to make it easier to open up when full.

Some of the skids had broken boards and I did take the time to renail these into place. You can do this before or after you build the compost bin but doing it before is much easier. On the other hand, this is a “found” bit of garden equipment so you really don’t have to fix it all that well. Simply make sure that nothing is going to “leak” out of the compost bin when it gets to the height of the broken board area (take it from me, it’s much better to fix them).

Some of the skids will have been beaten up pretty badly (hey, they’re free!) so do plan on putting the beaten up side away from the point of view. In other words face them away from where you or your guests are going to be seeing them. My worst one is facing the wall in this video. If you’re a bit compulsive about these things (or live in a city environment) it might be a great idea to paint those outer boards to hide them even more. Dark brown paint is the best color for making things like compost bins fade away into the background.

Covers. I rarely cover my compost bins but you can use a bit of plywood or plastic sheeting if you’re of a mind. Understand that the plastic will degrade in the sunlight. And yes, without a cover the animals such as raccoons and the neighbor’s cat will get into the bins. Look at this as one bit of recycling in a slightly different way.

Here’s how to prune petunias in a short video. This is an easy way to keep this annual plant producing flowers all season long and never running out of blooms. Do it this way and the plants never get leggy either.

Remember that petunias require full sunlight, adequate water and regular feeding if they are going to bloom properly. While many gardeners get the full sun and watering properly, they often scimp on the feed. This is a greedy plant and most professional gardeners and nursery people know that if you want to see these plants bloom properly, you don’t hold back on the food but rather make sure it is well-fed.

While petunias will grow nicely on compost alone, a monthly or even every second week dose of fish food emulsion will keep them looking good in the ground. In containers, they must be fed at least weekly if you want to see them keep blooming.