Category Archives: Garden Tools & Tips

Garden Tools & Tips, Innovative Solutions, Storage Solutions

Make Your Garden Beautiful While Making a Difference

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Cedar Fence PlanterCedar Storage BoxCedar Dollies

Cedar accessories can make a beautiful statement in your garden while serving a sturdy and long-lasting function. Beautiful cedar planter boxes are perfect for people with limited space who want to grow delicious fruits, vegetable, and herbs. Because cedar is naturally weather and insect resistant, the planters will last for many years to come. Cedar plant dollies have casters that make them a perfect solution for moving heavy plants or providing versatile plant stands. They offer stylish and functional support for a little price. If additional storage space is your goal, cedar storage boxes make the perfect place to keep all of your lawn and garden tools, garden hoses, or whatever else you have in mind. The beautiful red wood color will no only give you stylish design, it will also last for many years to come.

The best part about the products mentioned above is the source from which they come. Cedar Creek Illinois, Inc, or CCI, is a subsidiary of Knox County Council for Developmental Disabilities, Inc. (www.kccdd.com). CCI specializes in work and career opportunities for individuals with disabilities. This wonderful program allows the disabled to become self-supporting citizens who can contribute their talents, skills and labor to the communities in which they live. All of the fine cedar products listed above were made in the United States by disabled Americans working through this company. Your purchase not only gives you a beautiful addition to porch, patio, or garden; it also gives someone a chance at employment that they might have never gotten otherwise. What could be better than that?

Garden Tools & Tips

Snap and Grow Greenhouses Get Spring Started in One Day!

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Greenhouse Kit
The first day of spring is just over a week away. With spring comes milder weather, lots of sunshine, and plants in full bloom. If you are a gardener, now is the time to get a jump-start on the spring growing season with a greenhouse. If you are ready to get started right away, I have the perfect solution. A Snap & Grow Greenhouse offers a beautiful, function greenhouse that offers easy assembly that can be completed in just one day. Very little hardware is needed to set up this 8×8 greenhouse because of the patented Smartlock™ connector system. The window and door are delivered pre-assembled and the clear panels slide and lock easily into place. Large split doors and an adjustable roof vent (both pictured below) provide the perfect amount of ventilation for your precious plants and can be adjusted as needed. Many options allow you to customize the greenhouse kit to make it perfect for your needs. Plant clips are available for your hanging potted plants. Large shelving units can be added to create extra work space. You can even add extensions to your greenhouse as your plant output grows. If you are looking for something slightly smaller, there is also a 6 x 8 Snap & Grow Greenhouse kit that has all the same great features of the larger version. Happy gardening!

 

Roof VentsSplit Door

 

 

Environmentally Friendly Ideas, Garden Tools & Tips

How to Thrill the Thrifty and Excite the Environmentalist at Home

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photographs,puddles,raindrops,rains,weather

Thanks to a furry little friend, I happen to know that spring is coming a little early this year.  The coming of spring means the coming of rain…and lots of it, depending on your locale.  You don’t have to be a gardener or conservationist like me to see the benefits of capturing some of that impending rainfall in a rain barrel and using it for watering garden beds, container plants, and lawns.  You just have to like saving money.

Sure, using collected rain that falls from the sky to sprinkle our plants saves water, which is a resource thatGarden Rain Barrel - 60 Gallon is becoming more and more scarce.   For many people, though — like my thrifty spouse — the only real requirement for owning and using rain barrels is the desire to save money.  Saving money is a big motivator for many homeowners, especially for those of us who work harder than we’d care to in order make sure those monthly bills are paid on time.  Rain barrels are one of the easiest ways to save on those monthly bills.  Set up a rain barrel or two near your home’s downspouts, and let Mother Nature fill them up for free.

Home maintenance practices that combine money savings with conservation are my absolute favorite because they meet the needs of both my spouse and myself in one package.  Have you adopted other practices at home that save money and help the environment at the same time?

Garden Tools & Tips

Easy DIY Storage Shed Has Gardeners Seeing Green

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Storage Building with Cover

So many gardeners have yet to dabble in the exciting world of greenhouse gardening because the initial amount of labor and the cost of setting up a hobby greenhouse can feel daunting.  Without knowing for sure if greenhouse gardening is going to suit them, gardeners often choose not to take the risk.  Very little labor, money, or risk is involved with an Easy Up Storage Shed, though, which can function very well as a temporary greenhouse.

Easy Up Storage Shed products are ideal for novice do-it-yourself enthusiasts.  Each kit comes with special stud andEasy Up Frame Storage Sheds angle brackets that allow homeowners to put together the frame of the storage shed with nothing more than a screwdriver and saw.  Once assembled, the storage shed frame is covered with either a silver, multi-use cover or a clear cover — perfect for greenhouse gardening.

For a small amount of initial labor and a very small initial cost, gardeners wanting to give greenhouse gardening a try can do so with an Easy Up Storage Shed and its clear cover.  If the greenhouse experiment is a success, then gardeners can choose to upgrade to a more permanent structure over the next few years.  If greenhouse gardening is a bust, on the other hand, the Easy Up Storage Shed can still be useful for storing gardening supplies or other outdoor gear.

Environmentally Friendly Ideas, Garden Tools & Tips

3 Money Saving Gardening Practices

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Garden Rain Barrel - 60 Gallon  Earthmaker Aerobic Composter Is The Fast Green Way To Deal With Organic Waste  Square Cedar Planter Box

Gardens enhance the beauty of any home, but more and more homeowners choose to garden as a way to save money on grocery expenses.  Home-grown vegetables, herbs, and fruits not only taste better and provide greater nutrition than store-bought varieties, they cost less.

Keeping costs low when maintaining a garden, no matter what kind of garden you have, can be as easy as adopting three easy money-saving practices:

  1. Collect Rainwater — There’s no point in paying the local water department when you water your gardens if you can simply use the free stuff that falls from the sky.  According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average homeowner “uses at least 30 percent of their water outdoors for irrigation,” and some studies suggest that “more than 50 percent of landscape water used goes to waste due to evaporation or runoff caused by overwatering.” Collecting rainwater in rain barrels and using it to water gardens is one way to save big on your water bill, and it plays an important part in water conservation.
  2. Make Your Own Compost — Compost enriches the soil and makes for happy, healthy plants.  Sure, you can buy compost from your local garden center or nursery, but you can also make it yourself for free in the backyard.  With the right compost bin, making compost can be easy and somewhat hands-off.  In addition to saving money by making your own compost, you also reduce the amount of lawn and kitchen wastes that go into local landfills.  Not everything can be composted, though.  For a handy listing of what you can and cannot put into your compost bin, take a look at this brief article on Composting Basics.
  3. Use Raised Containers — If you frequently lose your plants to nibbling rabbits, deer, or other garden-invading critters, you should consider planting your more delicious plants in a raised container.  Raised containers allow gardeners to keep plants safe from animals, thereby saving money that would have to be spent replacing those plants.  Raised containers also make it easy to relocate the plants as necessary, and they prevent sore backs and joints that sometimes come with tending a garden at ground level.