Elise Cooke - Garden Guides

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Stories By Elise Cooke

Lawn Care

Lawn Care By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022

How To Adjust The Lawn Mower Carburetor

How to Adjust the Lawn Mower Carburetor. In most lawn mower internal combustion engines, the carburetor prepares the potent mix of air and fuel in the proportions best suited for the controlled explosion that takes place to drive the pistons downward and force the engine to turn. If there isn't enough fuel in the mix, the engine "runs lean," with not enough explosion to drive the pistons properly. When the engine "runs rich," too much fuel causes smoky operation, sputtering and flooding. Carburetors need periodic cleaning and adjustment to prevent and correct problems.
By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022 Read More
Produce

Produce By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022

How Salt Tolerant Is A Bean Plant?

How Salt Tolerant Is a Bean Plant?. Beans are a staple all over the world. They're high in protein, nutrients and fiber. Beans can be consumed fresh in their pods or shelled and dried into a product that can last for years under the right conditions. They're easy to grow, even in poor soils. As a legume, they fix nitrogen in the ground and are often grown as a green manure to improve farmland tilth and fertility. Any potential threat to bean production is taken seriously in agricultural spheres.
By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022 Read More
Produce

Produce By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022

The Effect Of Different Colors On A Bean Plant

The Effect of Different Colors on a Bean Plant. Beans are amazingly prolific plants. Each bean produces a single stem, which can produce multiple flowers, all nearly certain to develop into pods of several more beans each. Being legumes, beans even supply their own nitrogen and make soil more fertile for the crops that follow them. Beans, therefore, need little in the way of nutrients. What they need most is light, in very specific wavelengths.
By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022 Read More
Produce

Produce By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022

The Effect Of Household Ammonia On Plant Growth

The Effect of Household Ammonia on Plant Growth. Plants need nitrogen for many critical cellular functions, including photosynthesis. Ironically, though nitrogen makes up about 80 percent of the earth's atmosphere, it is difficult to keep it in the soil where plants can access it. Common household ammonia is rich in nitrogen, so some gardening experts recommend fertilizing plants with dilute concentrations of this cleanser. Unfortunately, plants cannot avail themselves of the nitrogen in ammonia as readily as would be expected.
By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022 Read More
Produce

Produce By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022

Effect Of Salinity In Soil On Pea Plants

Effect of Salinity in Soil on Pea Plants. About 20 percent of cultivated agricultural land in the United States contains saline levels that are high enough to affect crop yields as of 2010. Because salts dissolve easily in water, they can be carried by irrigation to crops, where they can build up to toxic levels in cultivated soil. This is especially true if there is clay or a hard layer of dirt that prevents the salts from leaching below the root zone. Sodium chloride and sodium sulfate are two such salts to which crops like pea plants are particularly sensitive.
By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022 Read More
Produce

Produce By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022

How Table Salt Affects Plant Growth

How Table Salt Affects Plant Growth. Table salt doesn't actually have to come from a salt shaker to affect plant growth. In fact, sodium chloride (NaCl) is very commonly found in soil. Where the land is used for agricultural purposes, salt tends to accumulate as plants pull other minerals out of the ground, leaving the salt behind. Irrigation tends to deliver salt from ground water, where it dissolved out of rocks. High concentrations of salt affect about 20 percent of farm land in the United States, and the percentage is increasing with each passing year.
By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022 Read More
Produce

Produce By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022

How To Make A Rainstick Out Of Cactus

How to Make a Rainstick Out of Cactus. The origin of the traditional South American rain stick isn't definitively known. Indian tribes in Chile, Peru and Mexico all lay claim to having invented them, while one strong theory contends that African slaves who arrived during the Spanish occupation brought them to the New World, where indigenous people quickly adopted them. The mellifluous sounds of the traditional rain stick were supposedly once thought to have the power to draw water from the clouds, or just to make beautiful music. Regardless of their beginnings or ceremonial purpose, many people still make rain sticks in the traditional manner.
By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022 Read More
Produce

Produce By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022

Watermelon Plants & Salt Water

Watermelon Plants & Salt Water. According to the National Watermelon Promotion Board, the United States is the fifth largest producer of watermelons in the world, with the states of Georgia, Florida and Texas leading the nation. Watermelon is an even more important crop in the arid lands of China, Turkey and Iran, where salty ground water is prevalent. Watermelons prefer loose, well-drained, non-saline soils, but are able to tolerate some salt exposure during cultivation.
By Elise Cooke November 4th, 2022 Read More
Produce

Produce By Elise Cooke September 6th, 2022

The Effect Of Fluorescent Light On Plant Growth

The Effect of Fluorescent Light on Plant Growth. Stars produce electromagnetic energy. One portion of that spectrum that the sun sends to Earth's atmosphere is in the form of visible light. Plants need visible light for several vital life processes. Whereas the sun produces all wavelengths of visible light, fluorescent light only produces some of those wavelengths. Whether fluorescent lights can produce sufficient light quality for plants to grow depends on the light and the wavelengths emitted.
By Elise Cooke September 6th, 2022 Read More
Flowers

Flowers By Elise Cooke September 6th, 2022

Description Of A Mint Plant

Description of a Mint Plant. Mint plants are all members of the Lamiaceae family and the Mentha genus. These hardy perennials have been grown and used for centuries for qualities that lend themselves to decorative, culinary, medicinal and aromatic purposes. Mint plants are identified most readily by their distinctive rhizomes, stems, leaves and flowers.
By Elise Cooke September 6th, 2022 Read More
Produce

Produce By Elise Cooke September 6th, 2022

How To Fertilize Sweet Corn With Nitrogen

How to Fertilize Sweet Corn With Nitrogen. Sweet corn is difficult to grow with a good yield in an average backyard garden because it is a heavy feeder of nitrogen. Even though nitrogen comprises about 80 percent of the Earth's atmosphere, it leaks out of soil easily, and keeping enough of it available to sweet corn roots in soil poses challenges for the organic gardener who doesn't want to use petroleum-based fertilizers. Periodic infusions of nutrient-rich solutions into the root base, coupled with natural nitrogen-fixing companion plants will prevent nitrogen deficits and the consequential lower harvest.
By Elise Cooke September 6th, 2022 Read More
Produce

Produce By Elise Cooke September 6th, 2022

Vegetable Planting Seasons For The Gulf Coast

Vegetable Planting Seasons for the Gulf Coast. The Gulf Coast is its own climate band stretching from southeastern Texas through the southern parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia and into northern Florida. Here, so close to the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it's not just about the heat, it's about the humidity. Gardeners can grow vegetables in these parts almost year-round.
By Elise Cooke September 6th, 2022 Read More