High Line Park: New York’s floating green railway park

For gardening lovers, there is a amazing structured park located in New York City; the name of the park is High Line Park. The 2,3 km park was built on an old section for elevated freight railroad called West Side Line which situated in the lower west side of Manhattan.

History of High Line Park

The railway highline was initially built in 1934 for facilitate transport to factories and warehouses. In 1990 the railway became unused and full wild grasses, shrubs, and trees that had sprung along the abandoned railway. In 1999, New York’s Mayor at that time Rudy Giuliani had planned to demolish the railway. However, two neighborhood residences Robert Hammond and Joshua David were against the demolition of the famous railway. Instead, they created a community of friends living in that neighborhood to push the idea to turn railway into a green railway park inspired by Paris “promenade plantée”.

Promenade Plantée, Paris

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The benefit of egg shells and coffee grounds for your garden

I’ve heard about this story that egg shells and coffee ground could be very nutritious to soil, but I didn’t believe them until I tried it myself. Actually eggshell can be very healthy for plants because it contains much calcium while coffee ground provide high amount of nitrogen that allows your plant to grow faster and healthier. These two elements represent two basic sources of nutrients which plants need.

How to use them in your garden?

You need the egg shells completely crushed into small pieces first before plant them in the soil near the plants. Uncrushed egg shells will be difficult to be absorbed by the soil. As soon as they are crushed, put them in the bottom of your plant’s pot or put them in the ground surface around your plant such as Tomato, peppers, cabbage etc. The soil will absorb the crushed egg shell and the plant will consume the calcium of the egg to avoid blossom end rot.

Coffee ground is also an important thing that we can use while growing plants. You can even mix them with compost. How to put this coffee ground is easy:

• Spread coffee ground around plants before watering.
• Add compost piles to increase nitrogen balance.
• Encircle the base of the plant with coffee grounds and egg shells to avoid pests.
• Water the soil to facilitate the absorb process.

The coffee ground and egg shells can also be used to feed earthworms for vermin-posting process.

-P-

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Simple tips to build a solid tree house

First thing first, choose strong and solid tree to build such as: oak, beech, maple and hemlock. If you don’t have a big tree in your backyard, don’t force it! You can only build a three house if your tree has a thick branch and strong enough to support the weight of the tree house

Oak Tree Wood

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“Gardyn” a peaceful garden song..

Gardyn, that’s the name of the song that really captured my attention when I accidentally found the clip in Youtube. The song is a little mother’s day present from a son to her mother. The music elements were taken from “real world” sounds that he collected from their garden. He collected real world vocal samples, in the same time he filmed different scenes in the garden (including interview scene with her mother) to make the video.

He mixed all of this and formed it into a very blissful and natural clip. Very inspiring video for all gardening lovers…To watch the video clic here

– P –

Source: Pogomix.net

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Recycle grey water for garden

Gardeners can actually use waste water to water your plant. Domestic grey water is the domestic waste water coming from baths, showers, dishwater, washing machines and also kitchen sink.

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Frozen food is healthier than fresh?

So many people think that vegetables in the supermarket are fresh and nutritious. This is not exactly the case. Some of them were already picked as long as 10 days before they reach supermarkets. These vegetables have already lost 45 per cent of their nutrients in the process. Although most of buyer thought the vegetables they bought were less than 4 days old.

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Gardening with your kids! It’s interesting..

Summer time? Gardening with your children is a good idea

Considering that all kids normally love to play with dirt in our garden, so why not teach them gardening? While the summer is approaching, try to teach them gardening in a fun way, get these youngsters to be enthused about having their own special garden.

Encourage them to pick what type of plant they want to grow. Take them to gardening store and show them different sort of seed packet that can tempt them with the pictures. For starters, it’s better to point them towards quick growing plants like peas, radishes, cucumbers, corn, beans, etc. These are the plants that require less effort to make it grow.

Here are the steps:

Choosing the right Plants

In most cases, kids would prefer to grow vegetables they like to eat. They want to see their creation grow fast and produce fast like vegetables. However, remind them to have some varieties in the garden including having flowers to illuminate your garden with bright colors. Try sunflowers or roses for example, kids love them.

Plant the seeds

Help your kids on how to put the seeds in the soil. Some seeds may be too small for their little fingers, but try to teach them how to cover the seeds in the soil in the best manner.

Encourage them to make a garden journal

In order to be more organized in planting the seeds, teach them to start a garden journal while waiting until the plants come up. Creating pictures and making notes about when they planted the seeds and when they first saw a sprout pushing up or even when there is a bug that visits. This will stimulate their curiosity and will let their interest grow more and more intense.

Find the right place for your kids

Choose the right spot for the kids. To start the garden picks a sunny spot in your backyard near where the kids usually play. The more they see the garden, the more they will notice changes.

Let them own their own garden

Try to mark each plant with tag or seed packet that mention your child’s name so everybody will notice that the garden is theirs. This will create the feel of proudness for you’re the kids and it will encourage them to plan the garden as beautiful as possible for anyone to see.

Remind your kids to watch over the plants regularly

Some kids tend to forget or ignore the plants as they find other fun things to do like playing in the living room with their toys. So this is our job to remind them to water them regularly and give them a sense of responsibility to take care of their own garden. Lead them to visit their garden at least once a day just in case they are busy with other things.

Provide information about the whole environment

Teach your children about mulching and composting, by leading them to spread grass clipping and shredded leaves around the plants to conserve additional water and to feed the plants. They also have to be informed with the existence of interesting insects. Educate them to distinguish harmless/interesting insects to plants from the pests that can menace the plants.

Let them discover by themselves the progress of their plants

Kids tend to be impatient about  the result of their plants. They may try to pull up the radishes just to see if they are ready. Inform them about the right timing for pulling up the radishes and remind them to note the progress in their journal garden to make them know better their own garden.

Let them learn from their own mistakes Let the kids have a total control of their own garden

If it’s messy, it’s their mess. Let them enjoy it and take pride in their own piece of land.

P

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Organic Gardening, what’s in it for us?

What does organic gardening mean? What’s the difference with the normal gardening? This is one of the questions that enter your mind when you hear the combination of the words “organic” and “gardening”.

Basically, “organic gardening” is a form of gardening method that utilizes an natural pest control to reduce the poisonous and negative effects on the environment. Moreover, in order to have a natural organic garden, you need to provide a lot of fertilizers from natural resources rather than the ones that integrates chemicals form it. This type is friendlier for plants and animals especially earthworms, insects, bacteria and fungi that use organic matter for food which prepares it for live vegetation.

Adding chemicals into fertilizer are prone to harm and endanger living organism in the soil. Therefore, a proper program of recycling the soil by utilizing more natural fertilizer will help it to recuperate the same ingredient that was coming originally from the soil itself. Thus, the soil will maintain its originality and will continuing the cycle to help other living vegetations to grow healthier.

In order to be able to have an “organic garden” what should one do?  You need to know a little bit  more about composting your soil. Basically, it is a way to help the soil to create new soil through decomposition of natural plant materials. This type doesn’t cost a lot and is very easy to do. You can use different sorts of organic scraps like  vegetable and fruit wastes, leaves, weeds, etc. These types of wastes are very easy to absorb and fertilize by the soil. Thus, when buried under ground with a proper condition, it will make it easier for the bacteria to decompose into humus.

All of this is for our own benefits, if we threat the nature right; she too will take care of us. It’s all about the cycle, as long as you don’t destroy the chain, the whole mechanism will live harmoniously. The result, these living vegetations that we consume from our own vegetable garden will be fresher and more nutritious.

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