If you are gardening on a patio or balcony in pots you will need:

• Trowel (small spade)
• Short handled fork
• Secateurs ( for cutting flowers and dead stems)
• Gardener’s ties ( for tying long stems to stakes or railings to prevent wind damage)
• Scissors
• Watering can

In a larger garden you will also need:

• Spade
• Long handled fork
• Hoe
• Rake
• Leaf rake (for cleaning up piles of weeds and dead leaves)
• Large plastic bags or bins for carrying weeds to recycling receptacle
• Hose and nozzles and/or sprinklers for watering

Option extras include

• Wheelbarrow
• Hose reel
• Loppers (for trimming small branches on trees)

You can make compost in a black plastic bin, available from hardware stores or garden centres.  These take up very little room but don’t allow air to circulate very well.

If you have room, make a frame out of wood, old bricks or old corrugated iron.  The bin should be no more than 1 metre square.

It’s helpful to have 2 bins so that you can have one bin being filled with fresh organic material and one bin ready to use.  If you have room for a 3^rd bin then you can have one to fill, one to leave to fully decompose and one ready to use.

Heat forms in the organic waste material so that is decomposes and after a few weeks it becomes a dark crumbly soil-like consistency.  The hotter it gets the faster it decomposes and the sooner you get your rich compost.

You need to add organic waste in layers not more than 30cm thick. This enables air to circulate through the different layers and you don’t get clumps of organic material eg lawn clippings that get soggy and don’t break down easily.

Starting at the bottom, make your compost heap using the following:

• Twiggy material such as small thin tree branches, dead flower stems

• Dead leaves and flowers

• Lawn clippings

• Kitchen food scraps

• Repeat with more lawn clippings dead leaves and food scraps

When your compost is ready to use, spread it on your garden as thickly as you need it.  Your plants will love it.

What not to put into your compost

• Meat or cheese as these tend to attract mice and rats
• Weeds with seed heads – home composting tends not to build up enough heat to kill the seeds and the weeds will grow through the compost
• Thick stalks from tree branches – these need to be crunched up in a garden shredder

• Corn cobs, whole stalks and roots from the vegetable garden –cut these into smaller pieces and then add them to the compost bin.

• Rose prunings and dead leaves from rose bushes – if rust or other fungal diseases are present they will be spread through the compost and then through your garden.

• Oxalis, convolvulus, cooch, kikiyu grass and other weeds that spread along underground or form bulbs that are difficult to remove from your garden.

What to do with organic material that can’t be composted at home

If you have an organic recycling collection in your area, then put your weeds and rose prunings etc in there.  The commercial composting ventures build huge piles that get a steam up as they build up great heat that will kill most weed seeds.

If you don’t have any way of getting your weeds to a recycling depot or commercial composting operation, then probably the only thing you can do is put the weeds out with the rubbish collection or bury them deep in an unobtrusive place on your property.  They will eventually decompose in either of these situations.

You can create a no-dig garden by building up layers of organic material till you have a pile that is high and wide enough to grow some vegetables.

You can build your raised no-dig garden beds within a frame that will keep the soil in place.

You can make the frame out of solid pieces of wood, old wooden railway sleepers, kitset beds or sheets of corrugated iron.  You can use anything that will be strong enough to stand up to being filled with soil and plants.

Or you can simply build up layers of organic material on any surface and sweep or rake the soil back into place when it starts to spread.

Or you can fill old car tyres, buckets or plant troughs with organic material to create a number of mini no-dig gardens.

The best organic material to start a no-dig garden is

• straw or pea straw,

• compost (bought or home-made),

• some animal manure (sheep pellets, chicken manure or other animal manure that is readily available)

• lots of wet newspapers, flattened cardboard cartons or an old piece of wool carpet.

Before you put your raised bed in place, cover the ground with some sort of covering that will stop weeds getting through into your garden.  A piece of old carpet is great. Or flattened cardboard cartons, a very thick layer of newspapers or you can buy commercial weed mat from hardware stores of garden centres.

This base layer is especially important if you are creating your no-dig garden over an existing lawn or a ‘wilderness’ area in your back yard.

If you are using buckets or plant pots you will need to create a bottom layer that lets the water drain through – such as, stones, large pebbles or pieces from old broken clay pots

Once you have your bottom layer sorted you build up layers of the various organic material until you have filled your container, frame or have enough height in your pile of organic material.

Leave it to settle for a week before you start planting.

Lettuces getting started in an old car tyre

Vegetable garden beds are easiest to manage if they are square or oblong in shape and no more than 1 metre wide.  An oblong bed can be 1 metre wide and up to 2 metres or more long depending on how much space you have.

When you have decided on the best place, measure the area you want to use and mark it out with string tied to pegs in each corner.

With your spade cut right around the area, then start to dig inside the string. Try to dig at least the depth of the spade (or 20-30 cm) so that you break up enough of the earth to allow your plants to put roots down without hitting hard un-dug ground.

In the winter, make sure the ground is not too wet and soggy In this situation, your digging will upset the structure of the soil and the resultts of your planting will be disappointing, even if you add ltos of soil nutrients.

Break up the soil with the spade or fork, or even the hoe then rake over the soil to level it out.  You can remove the clumps of lawn or just break them up, dig them in and let the old lawn rot down over time.

The soil is unlikely to have enough nutrients for plants so you will need to add plant food in the form of organic compost, chicken manure or pellets of sheep manure (smelly but easy to apply and great for your plants).

Other nutrients include blood and bone, superphosphate, dolomite lime or general garden fertiliser.

If you want to garden organically, you will need to check the contents of bags of general garden fertiliser.  It will be best to ask at your garden centre when you go to buy your fertiliser.

Now you are ready to start planting.

Look for tools that feel comfortable to use – the right length and style of handle that suits you and are made of strong and durable materials. Spades and forks made of forged steel are stronger than pressed steel.

A basic set of garden tool needs will include:

• A spade to use for digging, and cultivating soil.
• A fork with four prongs for breaking up heavy soil and digging in compost and other organic material.
• A push hoe is the most useful tool of all, for cultivating soil, cutting weeds off just below the ground and breaking up the top layer of soil to keep the garden free of weeds.
• A rake with metal tines (spikes) to use to level off freshly dug ground, pressing down soil when planting seeds, and raking up weeds and other garden rubbish into piles for disposal.
• A trowel is a small spade with a short handle.  It is used for detailed weeding, digging small areas and making holes to plant bulbs and small vegetable flower plants. If you have a small garden, raised garden beds or pots, you will find the trowel the most useful tool of all.
• A hand fork with a short handle will help break up soil and help with weeding in small areas.

This basic set of tools will get you started well.  Later you can add more to suit your particular gardening style.

Next we will talk about how to use your new tools to create your new garden.

If you buy flowers, re-cut the stem when you get home and stand the stems for several hours or overnight in a bucket of luke-warm water.

 If your cut flowers have come from a florist, you will find a small sachet of commercial flower food in wiht the flowers.  This contains “flower food” that  helps flowers to stay fresh longer.  Simply add the contents of the sachet to the water in the vase before you arrange the flowers.

To can make your own “flower food” add one teaspoon each of sugar, chlorine bleach and white vinegar to a 30 cm vase.   The sugar feeds the flowers, the chlorine slows down the bacterial growth, the acid improves the PH of the water.

Flower food and fresh water can increase the life of cut flowers by up to 25 percent.

Floppy flowers benefit from a hot water treatment. If you have bought some flowers and taken longer to get home than you expected, put about five centimetres of boiling water in a bowl or mug and hold stems in it for about 30 seconds (no longer or they will cook). Keep the flower heads out of the steam.  Then arrange them in a vase with flower food – see above.

Some flowers like special treatment to keep them fresh longer.

Dahlias  Plunge the lower 2 cm of stem in boiling water to seal the stem.   Pick flowers when sun is not on them.

Roses  Cut roses in the evening and put them into a bucket of warm water with flower food. You will need 1 tbsp each of sugar chlorine bleach and vinegar per bucket.  After treating the roses to a long soak, pour some of the water from the bucket into the vase, re-cut 1-2 cm of each stem as you arrange the flowers.  Get the stem into the vase as soon as you have re-cut the stem. If air gets into the stem it forms bubbles that block access to the water so the rose cannot drink.

Iceland poppies   Burn the ends of the stems with a match! – it works!

Daffodils, tulips etc  Change the water often because they exude slime which taints the water.

Woody stemmed plants such chrysanthemums, lilacs, viburnums and spring blossom such as prunus and wintersweet also benefit from a hot water treatment.  This gently softens the stems to open up the fibres, which improves their water uptake.

Autumn foliage  Cut and put it straight into a jar containing up to 100 cm glycerine.  Leave for 5-6 days to absorb as much as it can.  Will keep fresh for months.

And what of the days of eating sweet juicy tomatoes, fresh peas in the pod, crunching on freshly picked lettuces or raiding the strawberry plants for those luscious sweet red strawberries.

How we treasure those memories and wish we could recreate them on the balconies of our apartments or the patios of our townhouses.

You can grow your own your own lettuces, tomatoes, strawberries and other edibles on balconies or patios.  They will then be very handy to the kitchen when they are ready for you to pick and eat.

Askmumnow has lots of  hints and tips  to help you with your own small garden.

You will need them to be in a sunny place so the fruit will get the warmth of the sun.

Strawberry plants generally produce two main crops each season.

If you prepare your strawberry pots in early spring, you can look forward to your first sweet juicy strawberries two months later (by Christmas in New Zealand and Australia) and another crop in autumn.

If you plant your strawberries later in spring or early summer, you will still get a crop of strawberries in autumn.

You will need:

• 1 20-30 cm planter pot or a similar sized hanging basket
• 1 bag of potting mix (available from supermarkets, hardware stores or garden centres preferably with some organic fertiliser incorporated in the mix
• A punnet or bundle of strawberry plants
• Shredded newspaper or a small amount of straw
• Old net curtains or other netting to keep the birds from eating your berries.

Fill the container with potting mix (available from supermarkets, hardware stores or garden centres).

Take your strawberry plants and set them out in the pot or basket 8-10 cm apart.

In the hanging basket you can poke some plants in the sides and some in the top.  The plants will cover the whole basket as they grow and can look spectacular.

It’s important not to bury the crown of the strawberry plant. Keep the crown (that’s the part just below the leaves), just above ground level,

Cover the potting mix in the pot or basket with straw or shredded newspaper.  This acts as mulch and also keeps the fruit off the soil so they are less likely to get dirty or rot.

Cover the plants with netting just before the fruit starts to ripen to keep the birds away.

Explanation: Mulch is a thick layer of organic material to cover garden beds to retain moisture and keep weeds away.

Prepare your place for these plants with good potting mix if you are using pots or good soil with compost or potting mix added if necessary for planting herbs in the garden.

Give the herbs a good soaking before you transplant them so you reduce the stress on the plants.

Hollow out a space that is bigger than the herb plant and its surrounding soil

Put the plant in the hole and fill the rest of the hole with soil or compost.

Press down well so the plant is firmly in place.

Water again and watch it grow!

Contrary to popular 20^thC belief, buying a parsley plant does not necessarily mean you will get pregnant!

You will need a shallow tray with drip holes in the base and some special seedraising mix (or very fine soil).

Follow the planting and growing instructions on the packet.

Water well and keep the tray moist (but not soggy) until the plants are ready to transplant into a permanent position in the garden or into pots.