A few weeks ago now a reader of one of my Gardening and Landscaping Blogs sent me an email! Their comments went along the lines of “Paul you really are Mr Green Fingers! You ought to put together a site where we can get easy access to all this great information on Starting A Garden in one place!”

So here we are! I am delighted to be able to welcome you to Starting A Garden! This site has evolved from my extensive writing on all aspects of Gardening and Landscaping and I know that you are really going to enjoy being a member here when you see what is on offer!

Before we do that though let me just say that I know that are really going to find your Membership here of value. My aim is to provide you with a source of information to help you Starting A Garden of any type and to help you create the perfect garden that you want!

Starting a Garden Is Aimed At Anyone Who Wants Help And Advice On
Starting A Garden
Flower Garden Ideas
Starting Vegetable Gardens
Gardening Flower Plants
How To Start A Vegetable Garden
Starting A Herb Garden
How To Plant a Garden
So What Starting a Garden, Gardening Ideas and Landscaping Ideas Will I Have Access To?
Immediately you become a member you will gain access to a whole range of advice on Starting a Garden and over the coming months we will be covering the following subjects:

Rose Gardens
Herb Gardens
Deck Building
Bonsai Gardening
Edible Gardening and Healthy Eating
Lawn Care
Landscaping Ideas
Starting A Garden
Flower Garden Ideas
Starting Vegetable Gardens
Gardening Flower Plants
How To Start A Vegetable Garden
Starting A Herb Garden
How To Plant a Garden
Green House Gardening
House Plant Gardening
Water Gardening
Home Security and Home Improvement
Organic Gardening
Small Garden Design
Backyard Landscaping
……and many more!

As well as that I will be adding at least one relevant, well written (even if I say so myself!) ebooks or reports each month. You will even be offered the opportunity to make money from some of these as you will be able to distribute or sell them!

Let’s take a look at some of the information you will be getting as a member of Starting a Garden over the coming months

Container Gardening
Choosing Containers for Your Container Garden
Choosing Plants for Your Container Garden
Locating an Outdoor Container Garden
Planning Your Container Garden
Why Container Gardening Is The Best Way to Grow Plants

Edible Landscaping
An Introduction to Edible Landscapes
Edible Flowers in Edible Landscapes
Great Plants for Edible Landscapes
Planning Your Edible Landscape
Using Perennial Vegetables for Landscaping

Herb Gardening
Benefits of Growing Your Own Herbs
Easy Herbs for Beginning Herb Gardeners
Herb Gardening for Kids
Growing Herbs Organically
Planning Your Herb Garden

Rock Gardening
An Introduction to Rock Gardening
Common Rock Garden Plants
Designing a Rock Garden
Rock Garden Ponds and Waterfalls
Rock Gardens for Landscaping

Flower Gardening
A Beginner’s Guide to Flower Gardening
Flower Garden Design Tips
Flower Gardens as Part of Landscaping
Popular Flowers for Flower Gardens
Protecting Your Flowers from Diseases

Organic Gardening
Benefits of Organic Gardening
Controlling Weeds in an Organic Garden
Dealing with Pests in an Organic Garden
Making Organic Compost
Types of Organic Fertilizers and Compost

Butterfly Gardening
An Introduction to Butterfly Gardening
Butterfly Host Plants
Butterfly Nectar Plants
Common North American Butterflies
Creating a Butterfly Garden

Vegetable Gardening
Common Vegetable Garden Pests
Introduction to Vegetable Gardening
Raised Bed Vegetable Gardening
Ten Great Vegetables for Home Vegetable Gardens
The Easy Way to Start a Vegetable Garden

Rose Gardening
An Introduction to Rose Gardening
Choosing Roses for Your Garden
How to Tend Your Roses
The Perfect Soil for Roses
Winterizing Your Roses

Raised Bed Gardening
An Introduction to Raised Bed Gardening
Choosing Plants for a Raised Bed Garden
Creating a Raised Bed Garden
Maintaining a Raised Bed Garden
Why Raised Beds Make Gardening Easier

Water Gardening
An Introduction to Water Gardening
Planting Your Water Garden

But wait….there’s more! You will also get completely Free Access to some great gardening discounts and to some of the best gardening and landscaping resource sites on the internet and will be adding more each month!

In addition we have an Affiliate Programme which enables you to earn each time you refer a member who joins the site! So for referring people you will have the opportunity to earn extra money each month!

The first 40 people to join will be able to join for Free! They will not be charged a membership fee and once we hit forty members they will be eligble to start referring members and earning affiliate fees!

So as they say what are you waiting for?

Take a look at Starting A Garden now!

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Observing wildlife, such as a doe and her fawn sipping from your pond, a scolding squirrel gathering acorns, or the frogs, butterflies, birds and other animals going about their daily business, can be fun, interesting and relaxing.

While it’s true that we rarely do wildlife a service by feeding them from our cupboards, by using the following wildlife attraction and sustainability tips, you can feel good knowing that you are giving back to wildlife some of its lost ecosystem, especially if you live in an urban or residentially developed area.

You will also be creating an environmentally friendly landscape as well because what is good for the animals is also good for the environment.

In the words of Aldo Leopold, the “father of conservation: There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.” If you are of the latter inclination, the following tips from the National Wildlife Federation are for you.

Feeding Wildlife

Provide native plants that are a natural part of animals’ diets. Going native with your landscape also benefits the environment because native plants are adapted to their locations and thus require little maintenance.

Here are a few examples:

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Southeast: The quaking aspen tree is enjoyed by many animals. Deer and moose enjoy the twigs and foliage. Beavers, rabbits, and other mammals eat the bark; foliage and buds, while grouse and quail feed on the winter buds.
•
Pacific Northwest: The Western serviceberry is a pretty shrub whose berries are a favorite fruit of squirrels, songbirds and bears. The foliage is enjoyed by deer.
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Northeast: Cardinal flowers, native to the Northeast region are a favorite of hummingbirds.
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Midwest: Autumn butterflies sip on the nectar of narrowleaf sunflowers.
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Southwest: Birds and small mammals rely on the red berries of the skunkbush during the winter.

Water

Much water can be saved by replacing a lawn with native plants. You can put this water to better use by providing fresh water to wildlife. Birdbaths, butterfly puddles, ponds and rain gardens will be much appreciated, especially with the planet’s climate changes affecting their supply. Water can also be collected in
rain barrels.

Shelter

Another way to be a good host to wildlife is to provide places for the animals to hide from people, predators, and inclement weather, as well as shelter for raising their babies. Here are some examples:

Native shrubs and thickets.
Dead trees (good homes as well as food sources).
Logs and rocks for good hideouts.
Birdhouses.
Bat roosting boxes.
Ponds for aquatic wildlife, including fish and amphibians.
Wildlflower meadows.

Yard Maintenance

By going green, you create healthier soil, water and air for the wildlife as well as for you and your human loved ones. Just these two practices alone will work wonders:

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Mulching (use mulches that are from sustainable forestry practices and free from pests): Reduces need for watering, provides nutrients to the soil, and reduces need for fertilizer.

•
Reducing lawn areas: Besides the fact that most lawns are maintained with chemicals and green house gas producing, powered lawnmowers, a lawn provides little value to wildlife. By replacing a grass lawn with native wildflowers, bushes, and trees, you can provide the food, shelter, and cover that help to maintain healthy, natural ecosystems for the wildlife that you enjoy.

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If you are a Blogger then you are going to want to take advantage of John Reese’s new free release at BlogRush.

It’s a way of getting your content syndicated across other Blogs as you can see from the BlogRush Widget in the right hand sidebar. The content that will be displayed is taken from relevant blogs so you don’t need to worry that you will get non-related material appearing.

Take a look at BlogRush by clicking on the link.

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Growing a garden specifically for canning or freezing foods is becoming a popular hobby these days, primarily because gardeners know just how much healthier home grown food is for their families, compared to most of what’s found in the produce section of your local grocery store. And growing a canning garden can be fairly easy and simple, or it can be more complex too. How much of which really depends on the personal preferences and desires of the gardener.

Canning gardens are general vegetable gardens which are grown with the purpose of canning the produce once it’s been harvest. And usually anything that’s eaten fresh can be used for canning, so many gardeners will simple plant extra vegetables so they’ll have some of the harvest for fresh eating, and some for canning too.

In many cases though, experience will show that some varieties of vegetables work better for canning than others. So if you want to create a vegetable garden specifically for canning, you may want to try some of the species which are known to work best.

You’ll also want to consider what type of canning you plan to do. If you plan to can tomatoes for instance, will you can whole, peeled, or chopped ones? Or would you prefer to make tomatoe sauces and pastes, or even various marinara sauces or salsas too?

Cucumbers are another excellent vegetable to grow for canning purposes, because you can make pickles from them. Even here however, you can select from a variety of different cucumber plants. Some work wonderfully for canning dill pickles, while others work better for making sweet bread and butter pickles. Then there are those which work well for pickle slices, and those which are best left whole too.

Different types of hot peppers such as cayenne and jalapeno peppers are often used in canning gardens too, because these are primary ingredients for making salsa and other hot sauces.

Almost any vegetable you might buy canned in the grocery store can be grown in your canning garden too. Carrots, Beets, Green Beans, and Peas are all examples of vegetables commonly grown for canning purposes.

If you have fruit bushes, vines, or trees, you might want to try your hand at canning these too. Not only can you simply can the fruits in liquid for use during the winter seasons, you can also freeze them fresh, or create various jellys and preserves from them too.

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I asked James Mann who is an expert on Herb Gardening to share some of this thoughts with us.

I have always loved herbs but it was until I started herb gardening that I really started to understand herbs. They have quickly become my favorite plant in my backyard garden. Of course my only thought on herbs before I had a garden was strictly for the kitchen and my cooking.

Of course herbs have their practical value and they certainly serve a purpose, Mmmmmmm, but they also look beautiful in my garden and make the yard smell nice and that’s a blessing here in town. Oh yeah we don’t want to forget that with herb gardening you can actually use your plants in your food, which is what most people think of immediately.

Fresh herbs are far superior in flavor than dried but if you don’t have an indoor herb garden you are going to have to dry those herbs so you have them all through the winter months. It’s not difficult, you just…

First, cut the tops off leafy herbs and wash thoroughly, then hang them until the water evaporates. Next you can tie all the stems together and put them in a paper bag to dry for a couple of weeks. Once dry you can crush the leaves and store them in glass jars until you need them.

I can’t get enough of cooking shows, just love the Food Network. Lot’s of Italian cooking going on there and one of the most used herbs it Basil, so why not have your own basil growing in your herb garden.

Regular green basil is great but give Dark Opal a try as well, they make a great decoration and addition to any backyard garden, or even your windowsills because the Dark Opal basil has light pink flowers and dark red leaves making it beautiful to look at.

I don’t grow basil strictly for its good looks; I use it for extra flavor in tomato juices and pastes.

Do you like baked potatoes fresh of your BBQ? Well chives are one of my fav things to put on my baked potatoes. They are very petite looking and resemble a blade of grass or very young green onions. Chives may be small and fragile looking but can handle some pretty dry conditions and make a great addition to your herb garden. We use them for more than just baked potatoes, chives are great in salads, egg dishes, and many different sauces.

Other great herbs for you garden are mint, great in jellies, thyme and sage for flavoring soups, chicken, turkey, pork, and other sausages. Some grow sage for its beautiful blue spiked flowers and have no desire to cook with it.

My beautiful wife can’t get enough lavender because it is probably the best smelling herb in all of herb gardening. She has lavender everything like candles and perfume. Their light purple flowers smell absolutely lovely.

Other types of herbs often grown in herb gardening include borage (used in salads), chervil (used in egg dishes), sweet marjoram (flavors lamb, fish, salad, and soup), sesame (flavors crackers, cookies, and bread), and dill (flavors meats and used in pickles). Herb gardening allows gardeners to use herbs from their own garden for cooking, looks, and smell. Herb gardening will produce much fresher herbs with more flavor than store-bought herbs, and are a lot cheaper.

You can read more from James at his Herb Gardening Site

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Just an update on the Free Online Gardening Courses that we currently have available at Online Gardening Courses. These are:

An Introduction To Geraniums and Fushias
An Introduction To Greenhouse Gardening
An Introduction to Winter Gardening
Gardening Tips For Beginners
How To Grow an Herb Garden
Organic Gardening

More are being added each month and we are getting some very positive feedback about them. To sign up for your free membership you just need to go to Online Gardening Courses

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Are we raising a generation of potatoes? (Couch potatoes, that is). It seems to me, that with our hectic schedules and stressful jobs, we have found the “ultimate Nanny for our kids. It is called Electronics. Come on now you know what I’m talking about, TV, Video Games, Computers and the list goes on. What can we do about this? It’s as simple as Getting off the couch and bringing the kids outdoors, and have some fun getting dirty.

Why should you consider gardening for your children? Good question! Here are the benefits that gardening could easily provide the children with:

1. Science

In planting, children are indirectly taught the wonders of science like the plant’s life cycle and how human’s intervention can break or make the environment. They can have a first hand experience on the miracle of life through a seed. This would definitely be a new and enjoyable experience for the kids.

2. Life

Watching a seed grow into a tree is just as wondrous as the conception to birth and growth of a child. In time, kids will learn to love their plants and appreciate the life in them. Gardening could actually help simulate how life should be treated, it should be with care. The necessities to live will be emphasized to kids with the help of gardening - water, sunlight, air, soil. Those necessities could easily be corresponded to human necessities, i.e., water, shelter, air, food. By simply weeding out, one could educate how bad influences should be avoided to be able to live life smoothly.

3. Relaxation

Studies show that gardening can reduce stress because of its calming effect. This is applicable to any age group. More so, it stimulates all the five senses. Believe it or not, gardening may be used as therapy to children who have been abused or those who are members of broken homes. It helps build one’s self-esteem.

4. Quality Time with the Family

You can forget about your stressful work life for a while, be soothed by the lovely ambience in the garden. You can play and spend quality time with your children. You can talk while watering the plants or you can work quietly beside each other.

The bottom line is, always do what you have to do, together with your kids. You might discover a lot of new things about your child while mingling with them in your garden.

Let kids become aware of their environment’s needs. And one way to jumpstart that environmental education may be through gardening. It’s hitting two birds with one stone — teach them to respect life while you bond with them.

So, turn off the TV, shut down the computer, but on some grub clothes and let them get dirty ?For more hints and tips, just go to, PaPa’s Garden

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