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July 3, 2011

Garden Pests

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 4:26 pm

Gardening would be a great deal simpler without interference from garden pests. Most garden pests are small, but they sure are a big hassle. The the majority of common garden pests are insects, of course and it is a curious thing that these insects tend to prosper in circumstances that are not quite right for flowers. Most garden pests do not actually live on the plants themselves, they live in rotting rubbish nearby or in saturated soil and go to the plant to feed. Some insects live in the roots if the earth is too wet.

So, one of the first things to do is to try to reduce the number of destructive insects in your garden. You can go a long way down this route by clearing away any old rotting rubbish and decayed wood. Make sure that your soil is well drained and keep cats out of your garden by squirting them with a water pistol until they get the idea. Cats frighten birds and many birds feed on insects.

You should also encourage insects and other animals that eat garden pests. Ants can be a pain, but they do eat a lot of insects. Ladybirds do too and so do spiders. Larger animals such as frogs, toads and lizards eat loads of insects, so a small open-ended garden pond could be used to breed frogs and toads. Lizards will appear on their own, if the conditions are perfect.

It is worth taking active steps to encourage the right sort of garden animals. Never use powerful insecticides on your garden as you will destroy all the insects that are on your side as well and the spray may poison the earthworms that are helping to aerate and dry out your soil.

A small pond will encourage birds, frogs and toads, but frogs and toads also like a nice rock to shelter under during the day. Place a few rocks the size of a loaf of bread around your garden in the shadow of trees or bushes. Erect a bird table. Birds that eat bread and nuts do not usually feed on insects, but some do. However, the sight of other birds in your garden may encourage insectivores to come in and have a look.

There are basically two types of garden pests: the ones that actually eat the plant and the ones that extract the sap out of it. Caterpillars can be picked off and destroyed of or you can spray the leaves that are being eaten with a poison for the caterpillars to feed on. Many of the sap-suckers can be seen with no trouble, others cannot. A solution of washing-up liquid and water such as you use to wash dishes will kill the majority of of these including greenfly (aphids).

Slugs and snails do a lot of damage, but some birds including chickens and thrushes find them a delicacy. Chickens can be helpful partners in a garden, but they can be detrimental too with all their scratching. Otherwise, you can reduce the population of slugs and snails by destroying their eggs.

They are apt to lay their eggs in decomposing leaves or rotting compost, but not in compost heaps which are normally too hot for them, so a good clean up will eradicate a lot of the next generation.

You can exterminate the adults by placing a few low containers of beer near your plants. The slugs will drink the beer and drown. It is extremely efficient. Slug pellets should kill the t-totallers off. Taking these measures will greatly reduce the number of garden pests attacking your plants.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on quite a few subjects, but is at present concerned with exterior wall lighting. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.

June 30, 2011

How To Keep Cats Out Of Your Garden

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 5:06 pm

It is very difficult to keep cats out of your garden, but do not give up, it can be managed. Cat owners may not understand why gardeners want to prevent cats gaining access to their gardens, but there are justifiable reasons, it is not always that gardeners hate cats. Cats are ferocious hunters and can also be very destructive.

For example, my next door neighbour had a cat, but felt lonely when her daughter moved away, so she permitted the cat to to have young. Now she has six cats. But cats are not like dogs. My dog stays in my garden not upsetting anyone apart from by barking if a stranger walks past the gate However, that is his job and he is not only telling me but the neighbours as well. These six cats do not stay in their own garden though, so we have all acquired six cats whether we want them or not.

The first problem I became aware of was that birds stopped coming to pick my dog’s bowl clean in the afternoon. Then I saw a cat eating a lizard, a beautiful nine inch adult and then I remembered not seeing a lot of lizards lately. There is one lizard, the Tokay, that they have totally wiped out – I used to listen to them calling at night, but no more.

Cats also dig up flowers when they defecate and use furniture as scratching boards, so I do not want these destructive animals in my garden. But how do you keep cats out of your garden?

Walls are rarely protection against cats, but cats will often prowl along the bottom of walls and if they come across a hole, they will probably go in out of curiosity, so repair all low-level gaps in your fences. There is not much you can do about the top of your wall short of putting broken glass or electrified wiring up there, but that is not a good idea.

Some dogs are good at keeping cats out, but not all. My dog got a nasty and completely unanticipated swipe of claws across his nose one day. He used to run after them when they were kittens, but now they have grown up, he only growls to inform me a cat is on the premises. I cannot blame him.

In Australia, many gardeners believe that transparent bottles full of water confuse cats, so they stay away, but in my experience, only Australian cats react in that manner.

A row of prickly bushes or flowers along the base of a wall where cats frequently come in helps. At the base of high walls too, where the cat cannot see them until he is on top of the wall. I often see cats mewing (in frustration, I hope) on the top of one of my walls. The only route down is to go back.

If you still cannot keep cats out, then you will need to train them not to come in. This is easiest accomplished by using a few methods. If cats are using your flower pots are conveniences, try smearing the pots with pepper, lavender, lemon, mustard, or tobacco. Or you could leave a mothball in each pot. Some of these will have the desired result for you, others will not.

Then there are industrial repellents, but I do not want to resort to them. However, if you have a big garden and a big problem, it might be the only way. There are also high frequency sound emitters. Humans cannot hear them, but almost all animals can, so I think that that is deplorable as well.

At night, motion-activated exterior lighting is a great shock to cats. Cats have very sensitive night vision so a sudden flash from a floodlamp really puts them off a garden.

The best deterrent is water. You can buy motion-activated sprinklers, which are excellent at keeping cats out of your garden, but I like to sit in my office or in the garden with a powerful water pistol and squirt them by hand. The lizards have not come back yet, but neither do the cats quite so frequently either.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on a number of subjects, but is at present concerned with visual comfort lighting. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.

June 6, 2011

Choosing Your Garden Furniture

Once you have finished making your patio, your deck or your lawn, you will unquestionably start thinking about how you can enjoy more time out of doors. Therefore, you will need some garden furniture. Many shops stock garden furniture. You can try home improvement centres, large department stores and garden centres. There are also businesses on line that will deliver. The hard job is picking your garden furniture.

There is a very broad choice of designs of garden furniture – a style to suit every person and complement every garden. So, before rushing down to the garden centre, it is worth considering for a while what you would like to accomplish with your open-air seating area. Do you want a theme? Do you want to entertain or dine there? Or do you just want to sit peacefully, take pleasure in your garden and read a magazine?

Indeed, the reply may well be a permutation of all those things. If you simply want to sit there with a drink and a book, you may be content to just buy a couple of chairs and a small table, but if you want to entertain or take family meals outside, you may prefer a more substantial table. A large oak table would be quite expensive, but it would look fabulous and last for a ten years or more.

If you choose a table, you will have to have chairs to match, but do you want loungers as well? They could be of plastic and kept in the shed until required.

You will likely need some form of shade. This can be supplied by folding, even removable umbrellas or by overhanging trees or shrubs. Wisteria or clematis can do the task as well and cost you next to nothing.

Do you anticipate cooking in this area? If you do, what and how? Do you fancy a barbecue pit or a real hob and oven? A lot of people in areas where the climate permits are doing a lot of cooking outdoors in a carbon copy of an indoor kitchen, but without all the walls.. If you plan the outdoor kitchen well, you will be able to use it in the rain too. I find it great not to have kitchen smells in the house and cooking outside is a good experience as well.

If it gets nippy in the evenings then you can think about buying some patio heaters. They are not expensive to buy or to run and one standard patio heater can keep quite a group of people warm. (By the word ’standard’ here, I mean upright, like a lamp post).

Lighting is the last major consideration in the list when choosing garden furniture. There are actually two sorts of garden lighting to consider: lighting to see by and lighting to lure insects away. Again, you could use standard lamps to illuminate your patio. They cast their light far enough so that you can still look at your garden after dark or you could have separate wall light on dimmers.

The one light I would definitely have is a mosquito lantern. Hang this away from where you sit, because they do draw insects to them which they then electrocute with a pleasing zap.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few subjects, but is at present involved with visual comfort lighting. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.

May 5, 2011

The Best Ways Of Extending The Life Of Your Summer Garden

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 2:18 pm

The overwhelming majority of gardens look their best in the summer whether they yield flowers, fruit or vegetables, the same is probably true of your garden. When the garden looks so pleasant and the weather is fine, it is lovely to spend more time outside.

There are two ways of approaching this: you can try to extend the growing life of your garden by say a few weeks or a month or / and you can extend the number of hours you can sit in the garden per day. By taking both routes you will get the utmost pleasure from your summer garden.

The first thing you can do to extend the life of your summer garden is construct some raised growing beds. Raised growing beds heat up more rapidly and cool down more slowly than a growing bed in the soil. This is because the brick walls of the raised beds will soak up and hold the sun’s heat, warming the soil faster and retaining it.

It will also chill down more slowly as winter approaches because frost comes up from the ground and your raised beds will be that much higher so the chill will have to travel further. You can also try to heat these raised beds artificially if the first frost has not yet arrived. Apply the heat to the walls of the beds.

You may find that the cost of heating the flower beds is not worth the money, but if you have a special occasion on just at that period of the year when the weather usually takes a change for the worse, you may believe the cost worth it to have a nice floral display for that special day.

Raised growing beds are definitely the best route to take, but if for some reason you cannot build some raised beds, you could give your plants a head start by planting them in pots ahead of when the first frost is forecast for. if you have a greenhouse, you will be able to get even flowers commenced in this way. Then, you could transplant more mature plants outside when the weather allows. This will extend the life of your summer garden to the fore a little.

Another way of extending the garden’s summer life a little is to cover the plants over at night. However, you must keep an eye on the plants, because these covers are very effective. You have to be able to remove them before the sun warms up or your plants may swelter. You cannot go to work in the morning and leave your plants covered over all day.

The second way to get more enjoyment from your summer garden is to extend the number of hours per day that you can sit outside. This is easily achieved with exterior lighting. You can either run electric wiring to your garden and have lighting installed or you can use solar powered lighting, which will save you money on installation and electricity costs.

Once you have enough light, the only other things you might have to have to extend the life of your summer garden are a mosquito trap and a patio heater.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on quite a few subjects, but is currently concerned with exterior lighting fixtures. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.

February 2, 2011

Finding Affordable Camping Equipment

Camping is a very popular activity among the under Forties. People like to go hunting, fishing, hiking, walking or just camping with their friends, family or lover. The outdoors is delightful and can be romantic. Lots of people want to get a little closer to nature and the easiest way of doing this is sleeping under canvas, or nylon or something man-made like that. Another advantage for the young is that it is not expensive.

However, it is not only inexpensive, it is healthy and instructive. All children should go camping either with their parents or the scouts in order to learn something of nature before they get locked into a career to pay the mortgage and forget that there is life outside the city. You know, there are inner city children that do not know that milk comes from cows? How ridiculous is that?

So, if you are going to take an education in nature by the horns, you will have to have certain camping equipment. Inexpensive though camping equipment is relative to the equipment required for other activities, most people still have to be a bit careful how much they spend.

If you fall into that category, then this article is for you. Before we get into the nitty-gritty, it is worth pointing out that if you have the money, you can do worse than simply going down to the local sports shop or camping shop and buying all your equipment from them. Buy everything you require in one go and ask for a discount. if anything ever goes wrong they will remember you as a big spender and fix it for you right away.

However, the remainder of have to be a bit more careful with the cheque book. If you know a bit concerning camping gear from your parents or from the scouts and do not mind second-hand, then car boot sales and garage sales can be just the thing.

Frequently people are selling stuff because their kids have left home and they are having a clear out or perhaps they have had more children and the pup tent is no longer any use to them.

I sold a lovely tent not so long ago for peanuts because I knew that I would never need it again. The beauty of these sales is that you can put the tent up or get the seller to put it up for a closer inspection. Look for rot, sniff for mildew, check the number of pegs and guide lines et cetera, but do not get carried away with perfection, you can buy extra pegs, lanyard and a mallet, but you do not want to have to sew up holes or replace zips or fly screen.

Classified ads are another good source of equipment, but pick the item up yourself so that you know where to take it back if you do not have the opportunity to inspect it properly before handing over the money.

EBay and Amazon are also pretty decent, but you have to do some research on the manufacturers’ names and the standard retail prices otherwise you might end up buying a costly copy, a kiddies’ toy tent or simply junk.

One of my favourite stores to browse is the Army and Navy Surplus store. Try going into an A&N and coming out empty-handed. If the equipment in there is good enough for our troops to risk their lives with, it’s decent enough for a week in the Poconos.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a number of topics, but is now involved with the egg crate foam mattress pad. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Egg Crate Mattress Pad For Sale.

December 23, 2010

Hiking And Camping: A Growing Trend Again

Are you interested in getting closer to nature? Do you like walking and sleeping under the stars – or under canvas at least? If you do, then a walking or hiking and camping holiday might be just the thing for you. A hiking and camping holiday will get you out in the fresh air, permit you to observe nature first hand and cost you very little to boot. In short, hiking and camping are the perfect combination, if you are looking for a healthy, inexpensive vacation outdoors.

Not only that but you can either go alone with a couple of good books, take a lover, take a friend or take the family with you. All in all, you have many alternatives available to you if you want to trek off into the wild blue yonder on foot.

There are a couple of ways of approaching a vacation of this kind. You can either book into a hiking and camping site or you can literally simply head off. If you have children with you then the camping ground is a necessity, but otherwise the decision is yours, although it has to be kept in mind, that camping off site is or can be illegal. Trespass is definitely illegal as is causing a nuisance of yourself, putting wild animals under stress for no good reason, damaging trees or property and littering.

So, if you are a novice to hiking and camping, you would probably be better off going to a hiking and camping site or park. Do not be put off by this thought, some of them are truly immense. Check out the Poconos and other national parks for example.

There is no doubt that price is a factor in the selection of a camping holiday for many young people, but it is rarely the sole reason why people like to get away and sleep under the stars. Getting back to nature and bird- and animal-watching are other everyday reasons.

If you fancy this type of holiday, it is worth remembering that hiking and camping have become very popular pastimes of late. They always were well-liked, it is a fact, but they waned in the Eighties and Nineties, and are seeing a resurgence now. Therefore, do your homework, see where you would like to go, get some brochures or look on line and book up early. Yes, these days you have to book up early to get into the best hiking and camping parks again.

A final note of warning, if you decide to go off into the wilderness outside a park, let people know where you are. Take your mobile phone and a couple of fully-charged extra batteries and say when you are going to phone in that you are safe and make certain that you abide by it. It is very expensive if Air-Sea Rescue are called out on unnecessarily.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a number of topics, but is now concerned with the egg crate foam mattress pad. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Egg Crate Mattress Pad For Sale.

November 17, 2010

How You Can Prepare To Meditate

There is a lot of nonsense talked about meditation. I do not mean what it can do for you because that is difficult to prove one way or the other. I have read people saying that they discovered all sorts of things in meditation and who am I to say that they did not merely because I have not had the precisely same experience.

I believe that there are many stages of evolution and so what one person experiences in one way another might experience in a entirely different way.

No, I mean that there is a lot of rubbish talked about how one has to meditate. I am reading an piece right now by someone who says: ‘… for a successful meditation practice, everything has to be perfect ….. the room has to be set up in such a way …’ and so it goes on. The person who wrote that piece appears never to have even thought leave alone ever meditated.

Meditation has always been most frequently practiced by people with a spiritual bent. Of those people, most people who meditated were monks, because they were seeking enlightenment and had the time and tranquility to meditate. It was hard to find the time or the quietness if you were a subsistence farmer with ten kids running about.

Anyway, lower orders of monks are not famous for living opulent lives where ‘everything … is ideal’. They live quiet lives and when they want to meditate, they will not be disturbed, no matter where they are but particularly in their cells.

My father used to drive out to a cliff top and meditate behind a bush gazing out 100 feet over the Bristol Channel. Frequently he did it in the middle of the night.

It is a good idea that the people you live with understand that when you want to meditate that they must strive not to make a great deal of noise and absolutely not call you by name or barge into the room where you are.

How you can accomplish this in your household, you know better than I, but talking to cohabitants and hanging a sign in a prominent position can help as can always meditating at the same hour of the day, but is not usually useful. Most of us have to take our free time when we can.

Turn off anything that makes a noise. Turn off phones and even the door bell, if you can. Open the window, if it is not unbearably cold or raining cats and dogs. Take a shower and put on loose-fitting comfortable clothes like pyjamas.

Sit on the floor, if you can; cross-legged, if you can. If you are nearly there, try sitting on a cushion or pillow. There are things called zafu or meditation pillows, which are small and thick.

Some are round and others are square, but a round zafu may be 12 inches in diameter and four to six inches thick. This is to raise you off the ground enough to take the strain off your hips and knees, if you are not used to sitting cross-legged.

It will encourage a correct posture, that is a straight back. It is also softer on the behind and when you are sitting comfortably, you may begin.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a variety of subjects, but is now involved with the waterproof mattress pads. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Egg Crate Mattress Pad For Sale.

November 12, 2010

Where To Purchase Your Camping Equipment

Do you like to go camping? Do you go with friends or family and do you help with the planning? If so, then you almost certainly already have a lot of the items you require, but as you doubtless already know, there is always something you have to purchase for each trip. If you are planning your first trip, then it is to be hoped that this short piece will give you some tips.

In fact, there are quite a few sources of camping gear. Some offer better value for money than others, some offer low quality gear and others offer high quality at high prices. The trick is to be somewhere in the middle, where you can get decent quality equipment which is fit for purpose at the right price and this is what we will help you to do.

One of the first points to comprehend, and it is very useful to understand this , is that a camper needs camping gear, ie the tent, sleeping bag, et cetera and camping supplies, ie food, insect repellent et cetera. It is helpful to realize the difference because some camping shops sell both gear and supplies, whereas others just sell one or the other.

Starting with camping gear. You can buy camping gear on line at dedicated camping shops, at department shops and at eBay and Amazon. The trick here is to do some research first to find out what is the best of what you require and how much it costs and then to go looking on line for that particular item manufactured by that particular manufacturer. You will absolutely save money by purchasing on line, but you have to be more careful of fakes.

Army and Navy Surplus stores are pretty decent too. After all, if it is decent enough for our fighting forces it is not going to fall apart the first time it rains or blows a bit. I have always found it difficult to come out of an army and navy store without buying anything, even if they did not have what I went in there for. I always end up buying a new compass or a knife or some other gizmo.

Department stores are next and you can pick up decent deals out of season, otherwise they tend to be costly and you have to be wary of not purchasing ‘kiddies gear’ meant for use in the back garden by mistake. Sports shops and dedicated camping shops are normally very dependable, selling the best gear at the top prices.

Now on to camping supplies. To be honest, what do you eat while camping that you do not eat at home each week? Moose, squirrel, possum, deer? Well, you are not going to take that with you anyway, are you, so you may as well get your camping supplies from your favourite supermarket.

Or you can go to the camping shop and pay over the odds for ’specialist foods’ and ’survival rations’, but again, to be honest, you would be better off acquiring items like that either on line or at the Army and Navy store again. If you want to try out some of these army rations, it can be fun, but get them at bargain prices from the A&N.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a variety of topics, but is now involved with the egg crate foam mattress pad. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Egg Crate Mattress Pad For Sale.

July 15, 2010

Go To A Pheasant Farm & Delight Yourself On A Hunt

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — Mike Tarvin @ 2:42 pm

Pheasants are located worldwide and have a variety of different shades in their plumage. There’s all kinds of looks from the white-eared pheasant to the reddish colored Blood pheasant, and everything else in between. These birds call for decent habitat for survival. In some areas the bird thrives and others it won’t. The wildcat is regarded as the most threatening predator to the wild pheasant. It can leap off the ground and pull one right out the air very quickly and be enjoying a meal within seconds. In locations that have raccoons and snakes, the eggs will be in peril too.

Pheasant farms offer hunting, but they also protect the species from extinction. The farms will raise the young birds till they are big enough to release into the habitat, insuring a strong population for hunting.

Good hunting dogs are imperative to being successful on the hunting range. A good dog will not only find the bird, but also scare and retrieve it for you. Labs are preferred for flushing out birds and great for finding a downed bird. It takes a good bit of training to train a good bird dog, but once it’s ready to go and experienced, you will want to live in the fields. Some hunters prefer pointers, but not me.

During the hotter times of the year you will find a lot of pheasants congregating around water. Water is a vital element to all wildlife not just birds. Just like fishing and other hunts you can expect great hunting early in the morning or late in the afternoon. The early morning hours seemed to be the best time of the day to take a lot of pheasant because they’re just waking and not as alert to danger because they are out gathering food.

It is always a good practice to wait for the birds to settle back down. When you and the dogs arrive they will retreat and hide and come back out after things calm back down. Always looks for signs of crowing and tracks to make sure you have pheasant in the area. On a pheasant farm you don’t have to worry about finding birds as they are often releases just hours prior to your hunt.

For more on pheasant hunting and Bird hunting lodges. Get your bird dog ready for a hunt of a lifetime.

More information on pheasant hunting and Alabama Pheasant Hunting. Get your bird dog ready for the bird hunt of a lifetime.

June 17, 2010

The Low Down On The Famous Pheasant

Many hunters like to get out on a Saturday afternoon in hunt for wild pheasant. Phasianus Colchicus is the scientific name of the common pheasant. Many hunters refer to it as simply pheasant or English pheasant.

You’ll find pheasants mostly in woodland areas but they are also in grasslands. They like to eat things like spiders, grasshoppers, worms, slugs, and centipedes or millipedes. The attractive birds like to scratch up foliage for these soft invertebrates and they also enjoy various grains and all types of berries. They choose to roost in the trees and shrubs at nighttime and gather food during the day.

Pheasants are also a phrase chosen for quail, ruffed grouse, or partridge. The ring-necked pheasant was introduced in North America in 1857 and has become well established in locations out West such as around the Rocky Mountains, Midwest, and the Plains. They have also reached into areas of both Canada and Mexico. The male pheasant is referred to as a cock and is known to have bright brown plumage and most species have a white ring around the neck. It is much more colorful (than the female) with a variety of green and purple markings. The plumage of the female pheasant is much duller in appearance and has more of a brownish speckled look. The male and female pheasant has two things in common, they both have short rounded wings and very strong and stout beaks with a yellowish appearance. The male can have a tail over 20 inches long and it often has long sharp spurs that often protects it from other wild animals.

Pheasant populations are sensitive to land development as well as clear cutting and environmental pollution. In many regions in the United States pheasant farming seems to be a good solution for guaranteeing future generations. In the United States, pheasants populations have declined due to many factors. Farms allow for better managed populations.

The pheasant is most abundant in the Great Plains where they are found in fields and around old farm houses. Pheasants enjoy pecking around grassy fields and often will bed down under old houses and around old farm equipment. In the US there are about 10 million birds compared to about 35 million in the United Kingdom.

Males do a strutting movement in the spring of the year to entice a female into courting. The head on the male will become bright red and engorged with.feathers puffed out as the male begins strutting in a courtship dance. Male birds will fight to the end to win the right to breed with a suitable female.

Male birds are polyamorous because they will mate with more than one female throughout their lifetime. It is common to find more than one female following the male at any one time. The females nest on the ground and will have about 10 eggs per nest. The eggs will be incubated by 23 to 26 days before hatching. Usually this occurs in the late spring and early summer starting in April through June.

For more on hunt pheasant and Bird hunting lodge. Get your bird dog ready for a hunt of a lifetime.

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