Tomato Gardening - Must Know Tomato Gardening Tips For Beginners

Tomato gardening is a great way for you to get started with vegetable gardening if you want to test the waters or trying to fool around with gardening. Tomatoes grow easily, there will be no problems growing them indoors or outdoors and if you are planning to plant something that you can serve during meals, tomatoes is the most popular vegetable that appear on most recipes.

Before we move deeper into tomato gardening, you must know the two types of tomato that you can grow and the one that are more suitable for outdoors is called indeterminate tomatoes. This type of tomatoes will grow throughout the period prior to harvest and they are also known as vining tomatoes. Indeterminate tomato will continue to grow and bear fruits for a few harvest seasons before they are killed off either by diseases, pests or bad weather conditions.

We call the second type of tomatoes determinate tomatoes. They will stop growing after reaching a certain size and all of them will bear fruit at the same time, which is only for a short period of two weeks. You might consider replanting determinate tomatoes after each harvest season as the fruit production will start to plummet after the first flourish of fruits.

As a beginner, I would suggest you to start your tomato gardening campaign during the spring when everything is starting to warm up. During this season, you will have wider options as to whether to plant your tomato indoors or outdoors and to choose the type of planting methods you prefer.

You will then need to choose between whether to plant your tomatoes using seeds or by transplanting the plants that you can purchase from your local nurseries. If you pick the former option, you are required to start indoors using some small containers.After they are six to nine weeks old, you can transplant them from the containers to outdoors or a bigger container.

The most important thing that you have to keep in mind is to water your tomato plants every single day and make sure that they get adequate sunlight exposure. Tomato plants thrive well under an average temperature of 85ºF for the daytime. You should not be worrying about this as most vegetables have the same temperature for optimum growth.

If you prefer to start your tomato gardening efforts indoors, you will need a metal halide high intensity grow lights. These light are not the same as normal fluorescent lamp as they provide ample UV rays for your tomato plants. To ensure optimum growth, 18 hours of grow lights exposure daily is required.

By Wendy Campbell

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Using Flowering Vines to Create Privacy in Your Yard

Climbing vines can make a beautiful, not to mention useful, addition to your garden. They can help screen areas that need more privacy. If you have close neighbors, you can grow vines along a fence to block the view. This also works near the street, where flowering vines can help block some of the traffic noise, and provide you with a little privacy in your yard.

Flowering vines are also a beautiful feature for your garden. You can train them to grow up a trellis or arbor, or use the rain gutters of your home. They will grow up porch or carport supports, mailbox posts, or other vertical pots. Around your doorway, try growing beautiful trailing vines, which will add a romantic touch to your home.

There are many different climbing and flowering vines to choose from. Each creates its own display of flower blooms and colors. Some will grow to be thirty or even forty feet long, while others stay at a five or six foot height. Consider where you will be growing the vine before choosing one to suit your needs. Some grow very aggressively, and they can overwhelm your garden or topple a flimsy trellis. Others are quite content in a small area, to decide where you plant to grow the vine before choosing one.

There are both annual and perennial types of flowering vines. However, keep in mind that even the annual vines drop seeds in the fall and resprout from these seeds in the spring, so you will have beautiful vines growing year after year.

Once you plant your vines, they probably will not need much maintenance or care. Don't be surprised if they suffer from transplant shock for a week or two after you plant them, but they should recover quickly and begin climbing right away. If you're growing young vines, you may need to train them to figure out where they should be climbing. Once they begin growing, though, they should be able to figure it out on their own. You'll need to water them if you don't receive enough rainfall, and occasionally remove old flower blooms or prune the vines to get the shape you'd like. Other than that, your beautiful flowering vines do not require much from you.

If you'd like to try flowering vines in your yard, you might want to take a look at Morning Glories, Jasmine, Clematis, Hydrangea, or Bougainvillea.

By Kent Higgins

Knowledge is power it's time to learn more about planting vines. Today you too can gain from our years of experience, visit plant-care.com.

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Hydroponic Vegetable Gardening Indoors - How to Tackle This Feat

As autumn sets in, and the leaves fall, our gardens dwindle and we start to see that winter is just around the corner. We don't have to lose all the pleasures of a summer garden to the seasons, though. Hydroponic vegetable gardening indoors can bring some of the joys of a summer garden to the table throughout the year. Fresh salad with dinner and colorful spinach in the middle of December can be a reality if we follow just a few simple steps:

1. The first thing to consider when considering hydroponic vegetable gardening indoors, is its location. The ideal spot in your home would have a steady temperature of between 55 and 70 degrees. Minimal direct sunlight would be beneficial, as well as choosing somewhere that won't be harmed by frequent spills...a basement perhaps?

2. The second thing to consider would be the containers. Styrofoam boxes are said to work well, because they are cheap, available, and hold water effectively. Smaller containers are needed to hold the seeds as they start to grow. Commercial growing containers are available from web sites such hydra farm.com and interior gardens.com.

3. When preparing for hydroponic vegetable gardening indoors, the third thing to keep in mind is the lighting. There are all types of grow lights on the market, but they are expensive and really not necessary. Normal fluorescent lights in a cool white will work just fine. The plants need plenty of light, so plan to have two 4 ft. bulbs for each container..

4. The water supply is another important issue when planting an indoor garden. The water the plants are going to grow in will need to be oxygenated regularly. An aquarium pump works well for this. Set the pump up with a timer to run about an hour at a time at least 3 times a day. Water level is also important. There must be some are between the water and the plants to ensure that the roots receive an adequate air supply.

5. Lastly is fertilizer. An indoor hydroponic garden will not require any more fertilizer than an outdoor garden, so you can use the same fertilizer as you would in soil. Fertilize as directed on the package.

When planning an indoor garden, you must start small. Growing the produce inside can be a totally different experience than planting a garden in the yard, so starting small will give you the chance to see what methods work well for you. Once you get the hang of a small indoor garden, expansion will be simple. As you become comfortable with what you are growing, you can add different varieties as you go along, Edible flowers, cucumbers, and different types of lettuce are simple to grow while you get the hang of hydroponic vegetable gardening indoors. After you've got the technique down, the options are limitless!

By Ian Pennington

Ian Pennington is an accomplished niche website developer and author. To learn more about hydroponic vegetable gardening indoors, please visit Gardening Now for current articles and discussions.

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