Hort Shorts
- Need to know how much mulch, topsoil or pine straw you need to cover a given area? A few rules of thumb: 1 cubic yard of mulch will cover 100 square feet to a depth of 3 inches. That’s enough to fill the bed of a midsize truck. Bagged, you’d need 13 of the 2-cubic-foot bags or nine 3-cubic-foot bags. One cubic yard of topsoil will add a 2-inch layer over an area of 100 square feet. A bale of pine straw is enough to cover about 35 square feet. For a handy online calculator, visit
www.gardenplace.com/content/calculator/mulch_calc.html. - In July, there’s still time to plant summer and fall-bearing veggies. Beans (snap, pole and lima) will mature in 50 to 80 days, depending on kind and variety. Also, sow carrots, collards, beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and turnips.
- Stay on top of your cucumber harvest. Pick several times a week to keep the vines producing.
- Medicine bottles, film canisters and zippered plastic bags are great for storing seeds from the garden. But if you want to make pretty packets for sharing and swapping seeds, you’ll find many attractive, colorful templates online. All you need are a printer, scissors, and glue or tape. To get started on your own, check out www.geocities.com/siggyrose and http://alenkasprintables.com/seed_packets.shtml.