If you have a tiny yard and would like a simple but well-maintained garden, you only need two things – determination and know-how.  Here are some tips on how to keep your garden by the yard looking spruced up and glamorous.

1. Deadheading
Keep your border free from wilted flowers and dried leaves. Deadheading or removing dead flower heads will encourage the plants to produce more blooms for longer. Many perennials such as geraniums and dahlias, and some annuals benefit from having spent blooms removed

2. Pinch out tops.
Certain plants – especially foliage plants like Coleus – respond with a spurt of growth when their tops are pinched out. Pinching out makes the plant much bushier and so more blooms are produced. Fuchsias are prone to becoming leggy unless they are pinched out.

3. Fertilize lightly.
A minimal amount of fertilizer will further boost the growth of your vegetation. If you water your yard frequently, you have to fertilize it more regularly because of nutrient depletion. A fortnightly application of liquid fertilizer is sometimes more beneficial than granules as it is more readily absorbed by the leaves. Container plants will be considerably healthier with a half-strength solution of liquid fertilizer applied regularly.

4. Weed out.
This is one of the best ways to preserve the beauty of your garden by the yard.  Remember, weeds compete with your plants for both nutrients and moisture. If the weeds are not close to seeding, leave them on the bed to rot down for mulch. If you must use a weedicide, try and get a wick applicator, rather than a spray. This will protect you plants from spray-drift.

5. Water them well
One good tip when it comes to watering your garden by the yard is to give it a thorough soaking once a week, making sure there is no run-off to cause erosion. Deep watering will encourage the growth of deeper roots that will be able to withstand dry spells weatherwise

6. Say no to chemicals
Chemicals are dangerous to humans and often kill the natural predators of the pest in your garden, so avoid them if possible. There are many organic alternatives that work almost as well.

With these simple tips, your garden by the yard will soon be the envy of your neighbors.

Soil compaction. Pants love to breath and that is often difficult when placed in garden rows as we have quite a bit of difficulty avoiding all together the possibility of stepping onto the tilled rows in which we have planted our fruits, vegetables, or plants in a traditional garden situation. By using a raised garden, which is designed to be worked from without rather than within, there is little fear of compacting the soil around the plants. At the same time many lifelong gardeners feel the inability to walk around in their gardens is a disadvantage in itself and prefer to be able to do so. This is often a matter of preference rather than practicality but a valid opposition just the same.

Numbers. You can actually plant more plants in the same amount of square footage in a raised bed because there is no need for rows. You should also be aware that plants in raised beds often tend to grow larger than plants in traditional garden rows. That being said you should resist the urge to over plant within the raised garden bed, as this will eliminate that slight benefit. Many traditional gardeners have seen the results of overcrowding in these beds and feel that their way of doing this is much butter.

One huge benefit to raised beds for summer gardens in areas that are nearly saturated with excess moisture is that raised beds allow much better drainage than traditional row gardening. This is one thing that the average gardener will not argue with unless he lives in an area in which this isn't much of a problem. Most gardeners in the south though, where there is a great deal of humidity and moisture will agree that proper drainage is a problem.

Raised beds are less back breaking. This is a huge benefit to those of us who are feeling the years creeping into our bones. By being above ground, raised gardens offer easier access for planting, weeding, planting, and investigating for signs of pests. Another great thing about raised gardens is that they are not as quick to cool as the earth, which renders them more productive and with longer growing seasons that most gardens that are placed in the ground.

For those who have unusually shaped yards or growing areas, raised gardens allow the opportunity to have a beautiful summer garden in almost any shape you can build the box for. This means you are not limited to rows, as many gardens tend to be and that you have a few more options for aesthetics when planning and growing your summer garden.

The downside to raised summer gardens is that they are difficult to dismantle and nearly impossible to till. This means you must do all the working of the soil by hand and many gardeners do not fully appreciate the beauty of that process. The most important thing however, is that you choose a summer garden system that works for you. You may find that combining the two provides the best results and is a great use of your time or that you prefer one over the other. There really is no wrong answer only the one that is wrong for you.

One of the best things about gardening is felling warm, moist dirt in your bare hands, but you will often end up with blistered, chapped, and scraped skin.  The solution to this problem is gardening gloves.  The more time you spend getting down and dirty in the garden, the more you need gardening gloves.  Gardening gloves will be able to ease some of the pain you would otherwise be subject to, letting you spend even more time playing in the dirt.

There are hundreds of different types of gloves on the market, and the kind of gardening glove you buy depends on the way you garden.  Some gloves offer protection against specific substances or things, for example, leather gloves are not the best for working with chemicals or water.  Many gardening gloves are specialized for pruning thorns, refilling gasoline tanks, or using a chain saw, while others are for general tasks such as raking, digging, and weeding.

After choosing the type of gardening glove you need, you must make sure and pick out the perfect fit.  Gloves that are too big have a tendency to slip off while gloves that are too small could cause aches and cramps.  Any glove that doesn’t fit could defeat the whole purpose of wearing gloves and cause blistering.  To find a glove with the best fit possible, try the gloves on both hands, make a fist, and imitate the movements you make when gardening.  If there is no pinching or slipping and the glove is comfortable then you have found your match.

Gardening gloves can be bought in many places and are produced by many companies, causing them all to have a different quality and price.  Most gloves can be washed in cool water and then air dried.  There are many different types of gloves you can purchase to satisfy your varying needs, such as cotton and cotton-polyester for general-purpose chores.  These are among the most popular gloves and are perfect for light chores in cool and dry weather.  Leather gloves can also be used for general chores but are heavier than cotton and polyester.  Chemical resistant gloves will help protect your hands against oils, acids, herbicides, pesticides, and many other chemicals.  Grip enhancing gloves are designed with rubber dots for extra gripping power.  Cut and puncture resistant gloves are designed to offer extra protection against sharp edges

If you are the type person that only wears gloves as an optional luxury for various tasks, you should think seriously for using specialized gardening gloves for many of the activities you will be doing outside.  There is really no reason not to wear gardening gloves; they protect your hands from the elements and don’t ever cost all that much.

There is another thing to be considered in making each vegetable do its best, and that is crop rotation.

Here are the fundamental rules of crop rotation:

(1) Crops of the same vegetable, or vegetables of the same family (such as turnips and cabbage) should not follow each other

(2) Vegetables that feed near the surface, like corn, should follow deep-rooting crops

(3) Vines or leaf crops should follow root crops

(4) Quick-growing crops should follow those occupying the land all season

These are the principles which should determine the rotations. The best time is to plan the rotation when you plan for your garden.  Proper rotation of your crops can help to ensure a great harvest.

The purposes of cultivation are three to get rid of weeds, and to stimulate growth by (1) letting air into the soil and freeing unavailable plant food, and (2) by conserving moisture.

As to weeds, you need not be told the importance of keeping your crops clean.  You have learned from bitter and costly experience the price of letting them get anything resembling a start.  One or two days' growth, after they are well up, followed perhaps by a day or so of rain, may easily double or treble the work of cleaning them out.  And where weeds have attained any size they cannot be taken out without doing a great deal of injury to your crop.  Also realize that every day's growth means just so much available plant food stolen from under the very roots of your crops.

Instead of letting the weeds get away with any plant food, you should be furnishing more, for clean and frequent cultivation will not only break the soil up mechanically, but let in air, moisture and heat all essential in effecting those chemical changes necessary to convert non- available into available plant food.  Soil cultivators had learned by observation the necessity of keeping the soil nicely loosened about their growing crops.  Plants need to breathe.  Their roots need air.

Important as the question of air is, that of water ranks beside it.  You may not see at first what the of frequent cultivation has to do with water.  Take a strip of blotting paper, dip one end in water, and watch the moisture run up hill, soak up through the blotter.  The "capillary attraction" the water crawls up little invisible tubes formed by the texture of the blotter.  Now take a similar piece, cut it across, hold the two cut edges firmly together, and try it again.  The moisture refuses to cross the line: the connection has been severed.

In the same way the water stored in the soil after a rain begins at once to escape into the atmosphere.  Water on the surface evaporates first, and the water which has soaked in begins to move in through the soil to the surface.  It is leaving your garden, through the millions of soil tubes, just as surely as if you had a two-inch pipe, pumping it into the gutter night and day!  Save your garden by stopping the waste.  It is the easiest thing in the world to do, cut the pipe in two.  By frequent cultivation of the surface soil, not more than one or two inches deep for most small vegetables, the soil tubes are kept broken and a mulch of dust is maintained.  Try to get over every part of your garden, especially where it is not shaded, once in every ten days or two weeks.  Does that seem like too much work?  You can push your wheel hoe through, and thus keep the dust mulch as a constant protection, as fast as you can walk.  If you wait for the weeds, you will nearly have to crawl through, doing more or less harm by disturbing your growing plants, losing all the plant food which they have consumed, and actually putting in more hours of infinitely more disagreeable work.

The matter of keeping weeds cleaned out of the rows and between the plants in the rows is not so quickly accomplished.  Where hand-work is necessary, let it be done at once.  Here are a few practical suggestions that will reduce this work to a minimum;
    (1) Get at this work while the ground is soft; as soon as the soil begins to dry out after a rain is the best time.  Under such conditions the weeds will pull out by the roots, without breaking off.
   
    (2) Immediately before weeding, go over the rows with a wheel hoe, cutting shallow, but just as close as possible, leaving a narrow, plainly visible strip which must be hand- weeded. 
   
    (3) See to it that not only the weeds are pulled but that  every inch  of soil surface is broken up.  It is fully as important that the weeds just sprouting be destroyed, as that the larger ones be pulled up.  One stroke of the weeder or the fingers will destroy a hundred weed seedlings in less time than one weed can be pulled out after it gets a good start.
   
    (4) Use one of the small hand-weeders until you become skilled with it.