It’s often overlooked that Container Gardening can be a life long passion, a creative and artist hobby, and a simple and effective way to create a stylish, clean and inviting home, a great way to eat healthy organic foods, and an amazing way to connect with nature.

So if you’ve got itchy green fingers, and want an amazing collection of plants and flowers, fruits, vegetables and herbs – just simply follow these key Container Gardening Tips!

The 7 Steps Process to Great Container Gardening

1. Get Your Lighting Right

2. Choose Your Soil

3. Monitor humidity levels

4. Water as required

5. Check temperature

6. How to Choose the right container

7. Food & Nutrients

Lighting

Via photosynthesis, plants absorb sunlight and carbon dioxide to create food. As such light is a very important factor. Try and keep your container plants and flowers near a natural source of light during the day. If you have a dark corner at home or your home does not receive much natural light, use a 150 watt incandescent bulb about 4 – 5 feet away during the day. An even easier way to get some light is to buy a plant stand equipped with a built in lighting system. This is a great way to keep container gardens anywhere around the home. And remember light is only important during the day!

Humidity

The humidity required depends on the nature of the plant. Jungle plants need about 90% humidity, sub-tropical about 50%, temperate zone plants (such as North America and Europe) require 30 – 40% and desert / cacti about 5 %.

Cheap humidity indicators are great at monitoring moisture in the air, however obvious signs of low humidity levels are dry topsoil and wilting leaves. Excess humidity is not often a problem except for desert plants such as cacti. Low humidity levels can be quickly rectified by a spray on the leaves once or twice a day, and by placing a pot on a shallow try of water and small pebbles.

Temperature

Jungle plants thrive at higher temperatures, temperate zone plants thrive at between 90 – 100 F. Container plants, flowers and edibles are able to handle relative lower temperatures at night, as long as they are not too low i.e. near freezing. Tropical plants can handle a minimum of 65 F at night, sub-tropical plants about 55-60 F and temperate zone plants about 45 F.The exception to this are the desert plants such as cacti, which have adapted to the plunging evening temperatures of the desert.

Soil

The vibrant organic environment of jungle plants makes them more conducive to leaf mold and moss, and therefore a more acidic environment. A ph of 5.5 is ideal. A good potting ratio for jungle plants is :

25% organically enriched garden loam
50% leaf mold
25% coarse sand or compost

Temperate zone plants have less organic material to cope with, and a therefore more comfortable with a ph of near neutral i.e. 7.0.

Desert plants prefer a slightly more alkaline soil.

Containers

The material from which the container is made – will affect the rate at which water is sucked out of the soil. Some container gardening enthusiasts can’t stop raving about clay pots, as they remove water at a generally faster rate, preventing water clogging of the roots, and keeping the pot cool. What ever the material , just make sure that their are water holes at the bottom, or material at the base which raises the pot and allows excess water to drain.

Get creative and indulge those container gardening ideas. Choose a variety of container colours, materials and styles to add a bit of sophistication and pizazz to your home.

Water

The amount of water required by a container plant, flower or edible will depend on it’s make up and size, and environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, and type of soil, as well as the nature of the container it’s self.

Always check the surface of the soil, and about 1 – 2 inches deep to determine moisture levels and top up as required. Too much water will drown your roots, and too little will dehydrate your plant.

To prevent excess moisture loss, keep a layer of rich top soil or moss on the surface of the soil.

A useful container gardening tip is to never use cold water! This may be too much of a shock to a delicate system. Go with room temperature or slightly above.

Food & Nutrients

Slow release plant-food granules can be added to the compost or potting mix in the recommended quantity before filling the container, or at the sprinkled on the surface of the soil. Pelleted granules can be added about 1 -2 inches under the soil surface. If the soil is nutrient rich, additional food may not be required, however a little extra will go a long way!

Now that you have the 7 key tips to great Container Gardening you are on your way to growing great plants, flowers, fruits, and vegetables.

For More Container Gardening Ideas visit http://www.containergardeningexpert.com

I’m Eric Samms and I’m here to share my passion for Container Gardening with you all. After years of starting, maintaining and developing my own Container Gardens for the last 11 years – it’s time to give away my secrets. Now it’s your turn to learn all about Container Gardening and it’s many amazing benefits in your life! Visit http://www.containergardeningexpert.com today for more great container gardening tips!

Vegetable gardening is a rewarding experience, because you end up with a delicious plant harvest. The question is whether you should start a land garden or Vegetable garden container. Vegetable gardening home grown vegetables are tastier then long season crops. Vegetable gardening is fun when you and your family can enjoy the goodness of farm fresh vegetable and herb at your doorstep.

Vegetable garden seeds, roots, or bulbs, such fertilizers as 24-24, 12-18, and 16 or equivalent are satisfactory growing healthy, productive plants in the vegetable garden. Vegetable gardening is proven to lower blood pressure and clear the mind. Also, the act of nurturing plants and watching them grow is rather soothing. Vegetable gardeners to give star ratings to plans of plan garden users this fun option allows people to give kudos to interesting and creative garden layouts. Find vegetable gardening books from the library show the endless variety of vegetable gardening for the “modern homeowner” by the garden columnist.

Aphids are common to almost all vegetable garden can imagine, so if you are growing vegetables, which are more likely to find these bodies sticky. Cabbage Worm oil is cabbage worms “worst enemy”, so if you spray them with him, will be out of your garden in a Jiffy. Some people have been slowly figuring out ways to start work, and decided to go ahead and start a vegetable garden. While the garden is for our own vegetable production, some think that it would be a good way to spark the community’s interest in home gardens. By August and September, you can see what has and hasn’t worked out in your vegetable garden so far this growing season. If there is a crop that’s already finished or hasn’t done well, it’s not too late to replace it with a late-season harvest.

Article by Andre B

Vegetable garden

A lot of people seem to think that an organic garden is just for hippies and vegetarians. They think it is a difficult and hard way to grow vegetables and flowers while in fact they could not have been further from the truth. Having an organic garden is not difficult at all and it certainly is not just for hippies and vegetarians. When you know that most organic fertilizers are made from animal products you will understand that vegetarians need to be very careful with organic gardening.

Owning a organic garden is not hard at all the only thing where you should be aware of is that you do not use synthesized products. You can use normal seeds and plants they do not need to be organic at all. The only seeds you can not use are genetically modified seeds.

The same people who think that having an organic garden makes you a hippie also often think that your organic garden needs to be animal friendly. Well most gardeners also those who have an organic garden are not always the greatest friends of the local wildlife. And be honest would you be, when your carefully grown crops are being eaten by some rabbits?

There are all kind of gardeners and those that have a organic garden will never use chemicals or pesticides but some are known to shoot a rabbit occasionally, to scare it away or to eat it. A more natural meal is hard to find.

Is an organic garden the same as a natural garden?

A natural garden does not exist, every garden is in fact artificial when you are the one that decides what to grow and at what place in contrary to nature where nothing is planned. a organic garden is not a natural garden if we have land where we let nature do its thing we usually do not call it a garden we call it wasteland. In our gardens we like to decide what are considered weeds and what we consider to be plants or flowers and a organic garden is no different. If our organic garden is suffering from drought you would be crazy not to water those carefully planted flowers and vegetables. As you can see an organic garden also takes some unnatural growing methods.

Vegetarians who own a organic garden should be aware that many of the fertilizers and other organic garden products contain animal products like fish oil, leather and bone. They need to read all the ingredients on these products.

Although it is not necessary to call your garden an organic garden a very good and “natural” way to control bugs and pest is to mix specific plants together, if you do some research you learn that by placing for example onions and carrots together you will reduce pests and insects. Sometimes you can even use certain weeds to repel bugs and pests. You can also use insects like ladybugs to reduce louse, the ladybugs eat the louse and your organically grown roses will be more beautiful then ever.

Hank Gordon has a passion for gardening and wants the world to know how relaxing and rewarding it can be. On his website he talks about front yard landscaping and landscape ideas