Eco-Seed Starter From Burpee Seeds

If you've read this blog before you probably have noticed that I blog quite a bit about starting seeds and especially about frugal ways people can start seeds at home. You can start seeds in plastic shoe boxes that are pretty inexpensive, empty plastic bottles makes great seed starters and even plastic sandwich bags can be used for germinating seeds. Since the day I dawned on me that so many seed starting kits and seed starting bio domes were unnecessary I haven't purchased a product like this seed starter kit from Burpee. In fact, my track record remains because it was sent to me for free by a representative of Burpee to review in my garden. So, what made me change my mind and give one of these commercial seed starters a try? I was intrigued by the manufacturing of the product. It is one of the new eco-seed starter kits that are made from biodegradable plastic.

Colored Plant Labels Make Planting Easier

One of the downsides, if it can be called that, about gardening is the obsession that can result from growing a single flower. For example, when I grew Zinnia ‘Green Envy’ I thought it would be the only Zinnia I would ever need. I quickly discovered that it would not be the case and every year I try a couple of new Zinnias, just to see. ‘Green Envy’ is still my first Zinnia love, but sometimes a gardener has to see what options are available to him. The problem arises when you try growing several cultivars and while planting them in the garden you discover that you forget which one is which. When plants are at the seedling stage, it can be rather difficult to tell them apart. I encountered this problem last year when I planned to sow seeds for Zinnia elegans “Green Envy,’ ‘Polar Bear and ‘California Giant.’ I did not want to create many homemade plant labels and spend an hour writing out the names. One afternoon while playing with the nephew it hit me: make color-coded plant labels and use them to keep track of the cultivars I was growing.

Plant Labels You Can Write And Erase

Over the winter Allsop Home & Garden sent me two packs of plants labels you can write and erase. While you can make your own plant and seedling labels/markers out of recyclable materials, sometimes it is nice to have a polished garden item or two around.

The plant labels themselves are a sturdy rubber material that is pre-printed with illustrated silhouettes of a number of herbs and ornamental garden plants. You can write the names of your plants or seedlings on the label, if the time comes when you need to change what you wrote you can rub it out with an eraser. The packs of plants labels also come with miniature shepherd hooks, which are also well-constructed.

Make Plant Labels For Your Garden From Recycled Items

Best Garden Gloves, Ever!

I've never been the kind of gardener to use garden gloves. Part of it is probably due to sheer ignorance, but mostly it is probably cultural. I never really thought of the dangers or gardening and exposing your naked hands and arms to potential hazards in the garden. Cuts, scrapes, dirt under your fingernails and bug bites all seem to be things a gardener comes to accept. Garden gloves always strike me as being something for women.

For a couple of years I politely turned down companies who offered me garden gloves, for the reasons stated above, but then a year ago I met Alice Strong, owner of GardenBasket.com, at the Chicago Flower & Garden Show. It was there that she gave me a pair of Atlas garden gloves and told me to test them after telling her of my resistance to wearing garden gloves. She told me about how the gloves were originally designed for assembly line work and all of a sudden the idea of garden gloves seemed less feminine than before.

Troy-Bilt Lithium Ion Garden Trimmer

Earlier this spring I was given the Troy-Bilt TB57 Lithium Ion string trimmer to review. This spring Troy-Bilt also sponsored Chicago Spring Fling, a garden blogger symposium, which I was part of organizing. I mention this just so that you know from the start that the good will shown to me and other garden bloggers by Troy-Bilt may have influenced my thoughts on it. I don't think it has but I think as a reader of this blog you deserve to know this information.