Garden Bird Feeders

Archive for February, 2009

BENEFITS OF ORGANIC GARDENING

Organic gardening works in harmony with mother nature and her natural gifts of health providing plants. Chemically laden fertilizers end up polluting our rivers, streams, lakes and other ground water resources. Practicing organic gardening methods is essential for the growing of items such as herbs, vegetables and fruits that are going to be consumed as part of your diet.

There are a myriad of reasons to practice organic gardening techniques. According to Patricia S. Michalak, in the book Rodale’s Successful Organic Gardening Herbs (Rodale Press, 1993), “The goal of the organic gardener is to keep all the natural cycles in balance.”

NATURAL PEST CONTROLS

The organic gardener should try to encourage beneficial creatures to their yard. Beneficial insects will eat a variety of harmful pests that may infest your garden from time to time. For example, ladybugs love to feast on aphids and mealy bugs. Utilizing natural pest controls may lessen or even eliminate your need to use harmful chemical based pesticides.

Common beneficial creatures that should be welcomed into your yard include green lacewings, ladybugs, tachinid flies, parasitic wasps, syrphid flies, spiders, lizards, snakes, birds, and toads. Many garden supply companies sell beneficial insects, such as lady bugs and green lacewings, which can be released into your garden when needed. Instructions for utilizing these organic pest controls are included with your shipment of beneficial insects. Organic based insecticides, such as cayenne pepper spray and insecticidal soap, can be purchased at garden supply stores.

A FEW ORGANIC PEST CONTROLS:

1. Cayenne pepper spray

2. Garlic spray

3. Insecticidal soap spray

4. Take a walk through your garden and hand pick bugs and other pests from plants at least once a week

5. Use diatomaceous earth dusted on your plants to help kill pests such as cutworms and hornworms. Use this material with caution as it will also kill beneficial critters such as the caterpillars of butterflies. As I am an avid butterfly gardener I have discontinued the use of diatomaceous earth in my garden and prefer to handpick the larger pests from my plants.

6. Place a ring of wood ash around the base of plants that are bothered by soft bodied pests such as snails, slugs, cut worms and cabbage maggots. The sharp edges of the material discourages these pests from crawling to your plants and doing their damage.

7. A blast of water

After thirty-five years of tending to my own garden, I could give quite a detailed list as to the type of gifts to give someone like myself. Of course you may have considered the obvious choices; a rake, a small shovel, a larger shovel, and that is great, but some people like a certain type of gardening tool. My son, for instance, loves this old rusted out rake that he has had for well over ten years. So what do you get the ‘picky’ gardeners?

-Mason Jars. If your gardener grows tomatoes, peppers or cucumbers, they will most likely need jars to can them in. This means boiling the tomatoes and skinning them, and sealing them in a Mason jar to store until you are ready to make homemade soup or stew or swiss steak. For cucumbers, well we make pickles, of course. Nothing is better than homemade dill or sweet pickles. My granddaughter took a jar to work last year, and her coworkers fought over them! Also you might want to pickle your peppers! canning your veggies makes them edible for months after that garden is covered with snow and ice. If you are really lucky, you’ll have enough to last until the next canning season.

-Twine or Rope. This may sound silly, but there is nothing more helpful than some good twine to hold up your vines and leaves upon the stakes (stakes are very vital, as well). This allows your plant to grow larger than it would if it is not aided with room to grow. Sometimes this makes all the difference between a good harvest, or a not so good one. And trust me, if the family is used to that home grown goodness, you will want to make sure that you help your plants along.

-Farmers Almanac. If you live in an area where the weather is unpredictable, this could be key. You need a good week to plant a good sized garden, and you need to do it all at a certain consistency, so you want to make sure that if you take a week off of work that it will not be raining the entire time. You need to utilize the best planting times for each particular plant, and an almanac could aid in this greatly.

-Gardening guide books. A book with a detailed list of different plants, flowers and vegetables is a very good idea for a gardener. It may come in handy, especially for a beginning gardener. If it contains descriptions, as well as illustrations that is all the better. If someone you know enjoys gardening, they will enjoy a book with any types of information, it is right up their alley.

-Garden novelty items, or wind chimes. How about a little wheelbarrow that is actually a planter? Or a quaint little birdbath? Or how about a little cement or plastic animated frog, or bird? I have them all in my yard, they are something cute and entertaining to look at when my hands are beneath the soil. Wind chimes to hang in a nearby tree would be nice, as well.

There are so many ideas that would be good for the gardener on your list. How about a journal that they can keep and fill with tips for certain plants, or a record of last year’s weather, and what they reaped from it in the fall. The possibilities are endless! You want to know what to get someone who like to garden? Ask someone that practices, after all, “Gardeners know all the best dirt!”

In many ways, gardens are very personal creations, each choice and each hour of tending yields specific results. After several seasons, however, the garden you dreamed may have never bloomed or no longer pleases you as you thought it might. At these times it is worthwhile to consider some more unusual, that is to say, more interesting or less common garden features. The most important thing when planning the space of your garden is keeping in mind the visual balance between the various elements. Stone elements always add excellent contrast to a garden. By using stone to offset your garden you will draw attention to all of the textures in your garden. A coarse sandstone finish will help display glossy green leaves, helping them to look lush and vibrant by drawing attention to the edges of individual leaves. A matte gray stone will help bring out the reds in your roses while a shiny marble will best offset flowing water and large “roundish” plantings.

Lights are an ever-increasing popular feature in gardens. Gone are the days when lights in gardens only give alert of intruders. There are many different kinds of lights that can be used to set your garden glowing at night so be sure to choose carefully for your purposes. Too much light will overpower the natural peacefulness of your garden while too little may create long and discomfiting shadows rather than giving your garden gentle illumination.

Placing a waterfall in your garden will change the overall landscape and ultimate impact of your garden. A garden waterfall provides a relaxing accompaniment to other garden sounds as the water falls gently or skips along its path. Large waterfalls will likely offer a feeling of luxurious grandeur that may not be desirable in every garden. Tiny spaces are better suited to the smaller, less sprawling waterfall arrangements. With many options available, think about how much space you are willing to give over to your waterfall. Garden Waterfalls: http://www.garden-fountains.com/Categories.bok?category=Waterfalls

Remember to be careful to consider texture when selecting your waterfall. There may not be a great deal of statuary and stone in your garden already, but when adding a large attraction like a waterfall, be sure to select a color and kind of stone that looks natural in your area. Different plants are best accentuated in different ways so it is important to select landscape elements with a deliberate eye for contrast and texture.

Another interesting feature that you can use in your garden is a birdbath. A birdbath is a slightly more sedate source of interest in a garden and will not have as much impact on the overall look, but it will provide interesting balance and contrast to the leafy and flowery. There are many types of birdbaths, ranging from small low to the ground constructions to Romanesque columns.

Try moving your birdbath around and look at it from several directions and during several different times of the day. Arrange flowers and other garden elements carefully around your birdbath so as not to distract its charm. For Bird Baths: http://www.garden-fountains.com/Categories.bok?category=Bird+Baths

If you have a very limited amount of garden space, but a large patio, deck, or veranda, use planters to arrange greenery in the space you do have. Accent your planters with a trellis or coax a vine along another standing structure to increase the height of your arrangement. By arranging several different planters in a small space it is easy to create the illusion of a much larger garden.

A trellis can also be used effectively to block unsightly constructs in your vicinity. Many climbing vines grow (especially annuals) quickly, without much care to add attractive height, color and texture to your space.

Another way of adding height to your arrangement is by using a wall fountain. Wall fountains provide graceful lines to areas that usually remain unornamented. The advantage of structuring your garden around such inanimate objects is lasting, low maintenance attractiveness.

Think about the shape of each object you are using and how it balances its companions. Two planters of the same height but very different shape should probably not be placed side by side because it creates an awkwardness in the visual flow. Use other pieces of statuary to move the eye along a more graceful line.

Many people have trouble arranging their garden in ways that please them. There are a few key design elements that may help you create a garden that provides lasting visual pleasure and is reasonably easy to maintain.

1. Use permanent objects to define the boundaries of your garden. Limits help to create relationships between objects and will help you determine what is missing.

2. Use movable objects to create change and keep yourself from feeling trapped within an inflexible design (your garden should make you happy!).

3. Remember that not every item in your garden can be the center of attention. Although it is often a good idea to work outward from a large central object, symmetry is actually the hardest kind of pattern to do well. Asymmetrical patterns are actually far easier to work with for the average gardener.

Birdfeeders either help birds or they don’t.To feed wild birds in the middle of the winter is considered to be cruel to a certain extent. Overwintering birds had to adapt to harsh conditions.It is the way their species survives.

However in the Spring and Fall when birds are beginning to migrate birdfeeders are a great help.

Basically place the birdfeeder high above the ground and away from trees or any bushes. Squirrels and other animals have a real tendency to steal. Nothing is more cruel than to have your food stolen from you from beneath your own nose.

Buying birdseed isn’t as difficult as many people think. The type of birdseed that is healthy for foraging or migratory birds has fat. Fat increases their body weight and protects them from the cold. Therefore Sunflower seeds have been deemed by many birdwatchers as the most healthy food for any bird in the wild.

The type of bird feeder is hard to purchase.There are many styles,yet you need a birdfeeder that will make a climbing squirrel unable to reach the food. A long cylindrical birdfeeder, many times used for Hummingbirds but adapted to other wild species is a good choice. If the squirrel tries to climb the feeder his nails slip and he falls before reaching the small chamber where seed is exposed.

A Memoir of Ferns and Acceptance

All my life I have coveted the kind of magic that gardeners wield. Every time I disposed of another sun-charred basil plant, another withered tomato stalk, another empty pot of dirt that never yielded a single shoot, the failure burned me, and I wished I could nurture things that couldn’t be cooed to or scratched under the chin with my gangrenous thumb.

Luckily, I live with my boyfriend in a sunny corner apartment in a renovated women’s shelter in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and in the year that we’ve lived there, Ryan and I have opened our home to two kittens dubbed Nero and Augustus, innumerable books, magazines, knick-knacks, doodads, chochkies, dust bunnies, and the occasional panic-stricken mouse, but not a single plant. In my house, plants meet the same fate as does a mouse in my kittens’ claws. I once drowned a water lily.

Ryan’s mother is a passionate gardener with a taste for the meticulous chaos of English gardens. She’s the kind of woman who bakes things from scratch and laughs at your jokes when no one else will, and, in an effort to impress her, during my first visit to Washington I followed her into her garden to help her pot some ferns on a gray early morning. The kitchen window had been cranked open, and I could smell the fresh coffee still drizzling into the carafe. The men of the house lay sprawled and snoring; three gray-bearded cats curled comatose on the sofa. The stage was set for some profound bonding. Then it all went hideously wrong.

As I pulled on my gloves and said, “Beautiful morning, isn’t it? Shall I start with this one?” Kristy whirled around and jumped.

“Oh!” she cried, “You startled me, I-” her eyes landed on the gardening gloves I’d borrowed from the garage. Her face paled. She gulped. “You wanted to help me?”

“If that’s alright,” I said, beginning to sense the first inkling of awkwardness. I convinced myself that it was not dread I saw widening her eyes. After all, this was a woman whose presence transformed Saddam into Oprah, tempests into warm tropical breezes. This was a woman who milled her own flour. Plus, it wasn’t as though she could sense my dark history as the well-meaning Mengele of the plant world. She couldn’t just say “no, it’s not alright.”

“Well, no. It’s not alright.”

“Oh… okay,” I said, my body suddenly unaware of how to position itself. “I’ll just walk around the place a little and, you know, see if there’s any garbage to pick up. Or dead birds to bury.

You may ask ‘what are water garden kits?’ Let’s just say that this is like Batman’s utility belt for every gardener who has a water pond. With water garden kit, the water gardener has everything he needs.

So the next question is ‘what’s inside a water garden kit?’ Read on so you could take a peek at the water gardener’s utility belt.

To enhance the attractiveness and beauty of their water garden, the kit is necessary for every gardener. Not only will human beings appreciate the view, even wildlife such as birds will come flocking your garden.

1. Some kits contain a one fountain pump that comes with a safety cord. This is for water gardeners who prefer to install their own fountains by themselves.

2. They also contain a 4-pack bird bath cleaner that thoroughly flushes out the organic residue and mineral deposits that build up in bird baths. Made from beneficial enzymes and bacteria, the water gardener’s bird bath will be healthier than ever. These handy dispensers float in the bowl and continuously threat the water for 30 days. Do not worry, these dispenser will not prevent the birds from drinking and bathing on the bath. In getting this, you even provided your flying pets with clean water.

3. No water gardener wants pesticides in his garden. Destroy those pesky mosquitoes even they are in their larvae states. Mosquitoes are so irritating, plus they can be harmful to human beings and animals. Mosquito bites transmit deadly viruses both to people and pets.

Garden kits contain solutions that you can throw into standing water. In only a matter of minutes, you can observe that it dissolves and releases granules that target mosquito larvae. These pests are destroyed way before they buzz around.

4. A main concern for water gardeners is the water that seeps through the entire ecosystem. That is why they have a water garden filter system in the first place to do the job. But for maintenance, water garden kits also include pond water filters that instantly remove the chlorine and chloramines from hose water. Simply by attaching these to your hose, you can fill up your pond and not worry about chlorine getting into the marine ecosystem and creating problems for your fish.

5. You want to feed your fish the best so we recommend that you buy a nutritionally balanced pellet that is also economically productive for everyday feeding of your goldfish. Make sure that it contains crude protein and can easily be digested by your pet fish living in water temperatures ranging from 50F to 65F.

There are some special pellets that combine the high quality required amino acids, digestive enzymes and vegetable proteins. Water gardeners and koi enthusiasts turn to these kinds of pellets for assurance that their pets will be healthy,

Usually, a water garden pond kit contains pond liner, the underlayment for the pond liner, a submersible pump, a filter, pond sterilizer, tubings, fittings and nozzle. Get the easy start pond kit to help you gear up for the water garden pond that you have always wanted.

The most popular garden kits are those that have everything the water gardener needs to have an attractive water garden. From maintaining the ponds to feeding the fish, the items inside the garden kit must be of top quality.

If a pump is included in the water garden kit, make sure that it can suck the water from the pond even with the skimmer flap placed above it. The pump should also filter the water as it passes through skimmers and pushed out to the tubing.

In fact some pumps have steam effect that allows it to make greater water drops (that is if you have a fountain). The good thing about having a water garden kit is that there are accessories that can play up your creativity, especially if you have a water garden fountain in your pond.

Most of the time, water garden kits can be assembled in the sense that it is a complete package deal for those who have water garden ponds with fountains. Considering the fact that it contains most of the tools you need for your hobby.

My husband and I have been feeding wild birds in our backyard for years. We enjoy all the variety of birds that come to eat the food we provide. If the feeders are empty they will gather in the trees and look in the window at us until we fill the feeders. Occasionaly one of them will fly into a window. One such bird was a beautiful male red bird. My husband went outside and picked him up. We put him in a box and soon he became a lot better. I borrowed a cage from a friend to put him.

Our son told us a wild bird would not eat or drink in the house, but our red bird did. I put him in our bedroom, let him out of the cage and put food and water close to a corner where I had a large potted plant. He roosted in the plant at night.

We had a dog that also slept in the bedroom at the foot of our bed. At day light the red bird would start singing and flying around the room, landing on the bed to wake up the sleeping dog. The pair became quite fond of each other. We also came to love him as you would any pet.

The bird seemed quite happy and content and didn’t seem to miss being outdoors and the company of other birds. Until one beautiful spring day when he held his head cocked to the window outside and seemed to be calling to someone special. Outside the window was a female who called to him to come help her build a nest and continue the cycle of life.

Though it broke my heart, I knew the time had come to let him fly away. He had brought so much joy to us. I opened the window and he flew away with his mate.

I like to think he comes often and sings me a song and brings his little ones to the security of our back yard. In fact, I believe he is the one that sits in my tree the most and stares at me when the feeders are empty.

There is great joy in watching wild birds in your own backyard. Attracting these birds is quite simple and is a great activity for the entire family.

Many people enjoy bird watching. It is a peaceful activity that any member of the family can enjoy. By providing an environment wild birds will enjoy, you can attract them into your yard and have hours of pleasure from watching them.

Creating a wild bird habitat in your yard is not that difficult and requires very few materials. The upkeep of your habitat is the most important thing to remember. Also, wild birds will become accustomed to having food sources available in your yard, so you must remain consistent in your feeding. If you are not willing to provide a consistent feeding routine, you should not pursue setting up a back yard wild bird habitat. However, if you are willing to do the necessary jobs required for having a bird habitat, you can easily provide a safe haven for birds and a joyous experience for the entire family.

Supper’s Ready

Food of course, is the easiest way to attract any animal into your yard. Believe it or not, certain birds enjoy certain types of foods. The food that you choose to put out, can make a big difference in what kind of birds you will be attracting. Here are a few bird food types, and the species of birds that they will attract.

Sunflower hearts- Sunflower hears are the inside kernel of a sunflower seed. You can also put whole sunflower seeds out, however the birds will really enjoy the hearts, because they are easier and smaller for them to eat. You can even put out Black Oil Sunflower seeds which many of these birds enjoy. Sunflower hearts attract Sparrows, Nuthatches, Cardinals, Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, House Finches and Goldfinches.

Nyjer Seeds- Nyjer seed is a small seed that looks like a piece of wild rice. Nyjer seed is has a very high fat and protein content, which is great for birds, especially finches. Nyjer seed is also quite expensive however, so this seed would be best mixed in with other seeds or offered in small amounts in small feeders. Birds that are attracted to Nyjer seed include Finches, Redpoles, Titmice and even Mourning Doves.

Mixed Bird Seeds-Many companies make mixed bird seeds that include items such as sunflower, safflower, peanuts, cracked corn and possibly dried fruit. These mixes are popular for attracting a wide variety of birds since they contain so many different seeds. Cardinals, Blue jays, Woodpeckers, Finches