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9 Secrets for a Low Maintenance Easy Garden

Do you feel your garden is hard work? Too much digging, weeding, watering and fertilising? For minimal results?

The principles for doing less work, with greater rewards are simple. These are just a few of my secrets for creating an easy garden. Dig in!

Easy Garden Ideas

1. Good Design

One of the secrets to less work in your garden is thoughtful planning. You may feel overwhelmed if you aim for perfection. I spend time applying Permaculture principles to ‘design out’ potential problems. You can refine and add to your plan later.

Begin one project at a time. A simple DIY edible planter is a good place to start. Once you gain confidence, you can create the next element in your garden.

Locate your edible containers and food gardens close to your kitchen for easy access.

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Anne Gibson2018-09-07T09:40:28+10:00Categories: Clever Design Ideas, Container Gardening, Garden Maintenance, Planning & Design, Plant Selection, Problem Solving, Tips & Tricks|Tags: Clever design ideas; Tips & Tricks, Container gardening, Mulch, Problem Solving, Soil, watering, Work with Nature|7 Comments

4 Steps to Improve Pollination and Your Harvests: Part 2

Do you want an abundant harvest? If so, you can improve pollination by making your garden more attractive to pollinators.

There are easy things you can do to improve pollination so you get lots more food on the table.

In Part 1 of this series, I discussed pollination problems in depth and the FIRST STEP you can take: Eliminate ALL chemicals from your garden. There’s some critically important information to be aware of in that article, so if you missed it, check out 4 Steps to Improve Pollination and Your Harvests: Part 1.

What other ways can you improve pollination and your harvests? Read on for 3 more practical steps you can take to work with nature for mutually beneficial outcomes:

Learn to hand pollinate your crops
Provide insect hotels for pollinators
Plant bee-friendly flowers

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Anne Gibson2018-09-07T09:44:56+10:00Categories: Colour & Fragrance, Grow Your Own Food, Plant Selection, Problem Solving|Tags: Bees & Pollination, Flowers, grow your own food, Habitat, Hand pollination, Insect hotels, Problem Solving, Water|20 Comments

4 Steps to Improve Pollination & Your Harvests: Part 1

Are you ever disappointed with your harvests? Ever noticed flowers and baby fruits forming only to drop, wither and die? If so, don’t despair! There ARE solutions to help improve pollination and ensure you have an abundant harvest.

4 Steps to Improve Pollination and Your Harvests: Part 1

Picking a handful of beans is rewarding, but a bucketful is better! Especially when you add up the money this saves you.

You may be happy with your current edible yields, but you can likely improve your harvest even further. One of the secrets is about give-and-take relationships in your garden.

I work with nature to get the most from my Kitchen Garden. You may have a different climate and growing season, but the principles for a productive garden are basically the same wherever you live. I hope these tips will help boost your harvest.

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Anne Gibson2021-06-28T13:45:15+10:00Categories: Grow Your Own Food, Problem Solving|Tags: Bees & Pollination, Chemicals, Flowers, grow your own food, Neonicotinoids, Pesticides, Problem Solving|9 Comments

9 Strategies to Help Combat Common Edible Garden Problems

Having garden problems? Do you ever feel frustrated with your soil, pests or limited space? Is it too hot or windy, cold, wet or dry to grow food? If you’re having challenges growing an edible garden, it helps to have a ‘tool kit of techniques’ you can use to overcome common problems.

There are a variety of strategies you can apply to harvest from your edible garden all year round.

When the Growing Gets Tough

Here in subtropical SE Queensland, Australia, we have challenging wet and dry seasons. We often experience long months of drought. Our growing periods are not governed by a calendar with a traditional three month season like many places in the world. Spring typically only lasts a few weeks in the subtropics and summer is at least four months long! Here the hot/wet/dry months can be very challenging to grow food. Many northern hemisphere gardeners look forward to warm summers as a prime growing season but get frustrated with a long, cold period. So no climate is perfect!

“Extreme temperatures, high humidity, wild storms, hail, damaging winds, sudden heavy downpours, driving rain, drought and flooding are common weather issues to deal with. Not to mention pest insect population explosions. It’s no wonder many food gardeners throw their hands in the air and give up altogether!”

So what CAN you do when growing conditions are difficult?

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Anne Gibson2023-10-12T14:39:38+10:00Categories: Garden Maintenance, Planning & Design, Grow Your Own Food, How to Grow, Problem Solving|Tags: Benefits of container gardens, Container gardening, Crop protection, grow your own food, Indoor gardens, Pots & containers, Problem Solving, seedlings, Soil, watering, Weather|7 Comments

17 Water Saving Tips for Container Gardens

Are you trying to grow a garden with little rainfall? Struggling with a dry season, heat, drought or water restrictions? If so, it can be especially tough to grow food. You CAN grow healthy crops in pots – with the right strategies. These easy, water saving tips may help YOU achieve an abundant harvest.

One key to success is to adapt your growing techniques to keep your garden alive and thriving

Discover the best containers to choose; how to improve your growing medium; suitable plants; where to position your pots; and how to maintain them to save water.

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Anne Gibson2022-11-25T11:04:47+10:00Categories: Container Gardening, Garden Maintenance, Planning & Design, Grow Your Own Food, Plant Selection, Problem Solving|Tags: Container gardening, Problem Solving, watering|3 Comments

Design Tips for a Productive Kitchen Garden

Do you ever feel frustrated when pest insects damage your plants? Wish your kitchen garden was more productive? You’re not alone! Even the healthiest gardens struggle with a few ‘unwelcome visitors’ at times.

If you have limited space for your food garden, then losing precious crops, can be even more disheartening.

The good news is there are design strategies you can use to:

Maximise your space;
Minimise pest insects;
Enhance the beauty; and
Even improve some of your harvests.

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Anne Gibson2020-10-29T16:52:21+10:00Categories: Clever Design Ideas, Garden Maintenance, Planning & Design, Grow Your Own Food, Plant Selection, Problem Solving, Tips & Tricks, Vegetables & Herbs|Tags: Clever design ideas; Tips & Tricks, Companion plants, grow your own food, how to grow, Pest management, Problem Solving, small garden design ideas, Small kitchen garden, vegetable & herb gardens|17 Comments

20 Reasons Why You Should Mulch Your Garden

Are you sick of weeding or watering your garden all the time? Losing plants to hot summers and freezing winters? There may be a simple solution to minimize the impact of these challenges – Mulch!

20 Reasons Why You Should Mulch Your Garden

What is Mulch?

Mulch is a material that is spread around a plant or over the soil surface as a protective layer. If you think of soil as a ‘cake,’ the mulch is simply the ‘icing’ or ‘topping’. It provides a huge range of benefits for you and your garden. Mulch comes from a wide variety of organic or inorganic materials. Mulch ranges in cost from free to expensive.

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Anne Gibson2023-05-04T18:46:32+10:00Categories: Frugal Gardening, Garden Maintenance, Planning & Design, Problem Solving|Tags: Frugal gardening, Healthy soil, Mulch, Problem Solving|20 Comments

What do you do with a Broken Pot?

I don’t know how these accidents happen, but I’m left to pick up the pieces (literally). I’m ‘shattered’ by the number of broken pots around this place! I hope my dilemma and discoveries will help inspire what you too can do with broken pots.

To put you in the picture, there have been multiple casualties here lately. I’m not talking about my bruised hubby falling off the ladder – his ego not his body! … No, these accidents have happened to my precious pot collections.

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Anne Gibson2018-04-19T11:48:30+10:00Categories: Gardens & Projects for Kids, How To DIY Projects & Recipes, Repurposed Planters|Tags: Cachepot, Container gardening, DIY, Drainage, Frugal gardening, Micro gardening, Miniature gardens, Pots & containers, Problem Solving, repurposed planters, Upcycling|12 Comments

Herb Spiral Design

Do you have limited sun, space or time to garden? Want a highly productive, energy efficient way to grow food? Then consider a herb spiral design in your garden. Creating a Herb Spiral close to your kitchen might be your perfect solution.

The Herb Spiral design is easily accessible from all sides: to plant, water, fertilise and harvest. This large long herb spiral has a dry microclimate at the top and a moist zone at the bottom.

What is a Herb Spiral?

The Herb Spiral is a highly productive and energy efficient, vertical garden design. You can stack plants horizontally AND vertically to maximise space. It’s a practical and attractive solution for urban gardeners. A herb spiral design is typically 1.5 – 2m (5 – 6.5ft) wide in diameter at the base and rises to 1.0 – 1.3m (3.2 – 4.2ft). The centre of the spiral is at the highest point. The spiral ramp provides a planting area large enough to fit in all your common culinary herbs.
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Anne Gibson2023-02-07T16:59:56+10:00Categories: Clever Design Ideas, Herb Gardens, Problem Solving, Vegetables & Herbs, Vertical Gardens|Tags: Beautiful gardens, Clever design ideas; Tips & Tricks, Drainage, Herbs, Micro gardening, Problem Solving, small garden design ideas, Vertical gardens|10 Comments

Get Hundreds of Free Workers AND an Abundant Harvest!

Want less pests in your garden? To help achieve a balance between pests and predators, I’ve found that imitating natural ecosystems can be a useful pest management strategy to use.

Facilitating natural predator-pest relationships in your garden is a way to harness hundreds of free workers to help manage insect imbalances. An example is the ‘aphid banquet’ on the menu for this ladybird’s lunch!

How to Work with and Imitate Nature

Whilst ‘having a relationship’ with birds, lizards, frogs and insects may not be on your To Do List, seeking a ‘win-win’ outcome by working with these creatures in your garden can help you:

Achieve a higher crop yield (by encouraging more Pollinators); and
Minimise insect damage to your edibles (by creating an unwritten ‘Workplace Agreement’ of sorts with Pest Predators – one that offers the kind of job perks that are an incentive for them to get to work in your garden)!

I’ve learned the benefits of ’employing’ hundreds of workers in my garden. Even though I don’t know them all by name, they still turn up regularly for work, never ask for a raise, are reliable in undertaking their jobs and save me hours of hard labour. In this article, I’ll share with you what my end of the agreement entails and how you can negotiate a similar arrangement at your place.

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Anne Gibson2022-11-25T12:07:02+10:00Categories: Garden Maintenance, Planning & Design, Pests and Diseases, Problem Solving|Tags: Permaculture, Pest management, Problem Solving, Working with nature|6 Comments

Previous 123 Next

Easy Garden Ideas

1. Good Design

When the Growing Gets Tough

What is Mulch?

What do you do with a Broken Pot?

Herb Spiral Design

What is a Herb Spiral?

Get Hundreds of Free Workers AND an Abundant Harvest!

How to Work with and Imitate Nature

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