Garden Tips & Resources

Archive for the ‘Garden Tools’ Category

Fall is a great time to clean up your garden. Begin by pulling out weeds that may have cropped up, and raking fallen leaves. Weeds and rotten leaves can carry insects and diseases that might be harmful to your garden. You should also rid your garden of spent annual plants, and harvest your vegetables and other plants that cannot withstand the winter weather.

After fall has come and gone, the leaves will be off your trees and you can see the rotten branches. Trimming off the unwanted branches from your trees isn’t necessary to your gardens health, but may help later on by not dropping branches on your plants and not blocking too much of the sun.

If you have younger trees you should consider wrapping them and supporting them with stakes to help them survive the winter wind and cold.

Putting mulch over your garden for the winter can be a helpful way to protect plants from sudden temperature changes and heavy snow. For mulch you can use about five inches of shredded bark, pine needles, or a variety of other materials. You have to be careful not to mulch too early, because some insects may still be alive and able to take shelter in it for the winter.

Once you are finished with your gardening tools you should clean them and make sure they are in a safe place where they won’t rust and you know where they’ll be for next year.

Before winter comes you should always set out slug repellent, as slugs are one of the worst bugs to have in your garden.

If you have a pool or fountain in your garden, be sure to take out any fish that you have in them and bring them inside. There’s nothing sadder than a fish frozen in a block of ice.

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Even if you have very few weeds in your yard and garden though, a weed eater is a handy tool to have in your garden shed because it provides other functionality too. One of the best things you can use a weedeater for – besides cutting down weeds – is edging. Weed eaters are handy to trim the grass along the edge of your sidewalk, driveway, patio, and garden beds too. Weed eaters can clip grass that the lawnmower can’t reach too, such as that growing right against the house, or up close to your favorite apple tree.

There are a couple of different types of weed eaters you can buy, and there are also a wide variety of motor sizes and power settings too. These days weed eaters even come with different types of attachments and heads too, so you can select a weed eater that’s just right for your particular yard and garden needs.

Gas weed eaters are the most common type you’ll find, and these are usually considered more powerful as well. These weed eaters have a small engine on them which requires gasoline in order to operate. The extra power of these weed eaters is beneficial for some, particularly if you have a large number of tough weeds in your lawn or garden. Some people don’t like having to buy and store gasoline though, and with today’s gas prices being so high this may not be an ideal choice.

Electric weed eaters use the electricity from your home to run. Generally you need a long heavy duty extension cord so that you’re able to reach all areas of your yard and garden with this type of weed eater, and that can be a big drawback for someone with a very large lawn area to maintain. Electric weed eaters often tend to be less powerful than gas versions too, and this can be frustrating when you have very tough weeds to keep under control.

String heads are the most commonly seen type of head on a weed eater. These use thick plastic cord to actually cut the weeds. The cord is usually arranged in a coiled format inside the head, and the cord is extended out gradually as needed.

When you’re using a weed eater which has a cord or string style head, there is usually a button on the bottom which acts as a feed. When the cord breaks and becomes too short to cut the weeds, you simply tap the weed eater against the ground and more cord is extended. Depending on the type of weed eater you have though, this does not always work as well as it should. And a problem commonly seen with this type of weed eater head is that the cord becomes tangled or stuck inside, so the head must be removed and the problem fixed before you can continue with your trimming.

Another type of weed eater head which is starting to become more popular uses plastic blades. These are like small serrated knife blades made of thick, durable plastic. These blades often last much longer than the plastic cord does, because they don’t break nearly as easily. Often the blades have a shorter cutting perimeter than the plastic does though, and this can take some getting used to if you’ve always used cord style cutting heads instead. Some people don’t like the blades because of their shortness, and in some weed eater models the blades can pop off during operation, which means you must stop what you’re doing and reattach them.

If you’ve never used a weed eater before, your best course of action is to try one or more before actually choosing the type you’ll buy. Consider borrowing one from a friend or family member, or simply rent one from a small equipment rental facility. Then do a bit of research online into the different types of machines and their head attachments, see with other users have to say about each, and make your decision from there.

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