Best of all, mulch can be made – for free! – in your own garden. Raking leaves can be welcome warm work on a chilly autumn day. The best solution, if you have enough room in a sheltered spot, is to spread out the clippings on a hard surface and dry...
Raised Beds for a Sloping Vegetable Garden Building a terraced vegetable garden is basically making raised beds on a slope, and it's important to start at the bottom and work your way up.
It gets better: The cut corn stalks made handy weights for securing the edges of the cover. The corn plants may not use up all the fertilizer applied to the row middles, so it's a cushy planting niche for heavy-feeding fall crops like collards and spinach.
Tomatoes, for example, need a minimum temperature of 10°C (50°F) to fully develop. The bag will trap any ethylene gas produced by the fruit, encouraging it to ripen to perfection.
Oozing bark, though alarming, isn't necessarily a sign of the disease. Silver leaf disease is spread by spores from a bracket fungus. It's harder for the trees to resist the disease in winter, so again summer pruning is the safer option.
Earlier in the year I shared some top tips for growing super-spicy peppers . Push the needle through the green cap of each chili, rather than the flesh of the fruit, which could serve as an entry point for mold.
Two watering cans are better than one! Don't Blast Your Plants A strong spray from a hose can knock plants about or blast potting soil out of containers. The solution is to wet the seed drill before sowing, to give them the cool, moist surroundings they...
Keep them on a cool, bright windowsill. Whether or not you choose to leave potatoes in the ground depends on how cold early winter is in your part of the world. If you thought growing potatoes was hugely satisfying, second-crop potatoes will prove even...
Thin peaches in stages: to one fruit every four inches (10cm) once they reach the size of a hazelnut, then again at golf ball size to their final spacing of 8-10 inches (20-25cm). Why Thin Fruits?
You can buy sticky traps, or make your own. Just like aphids they produce a sticky ‘honeydew', which is in fact…their feces. Hanging up sticky traps is also a great way to monitor populations of whitefly early on in the season – act immediately...
Keep on Picking to Keep Plants Producing The first rule with any fruit or pod-producing vegetable is to keep up with the picking. It's naturally full of potassium, which fruit and pod-bearing plants love.
With no predators and no existing pests, this creates a gap in your garden's ecosystem for other pests to surge in unchecked, meaning you need to apply ever more pesticides just to keep on top of the problem.
Harvest cabbages once the heads have firmed up How to Harvest Cabbage Use a sharp knife to cut your cabbages once the heads have firmed up. A bed improved with compost or well-rotted manure is ideal for these hungry feeders, who will appreciate a further...
The towel wicks moisture away from the pot, which then evaporates. This can be achieved by framing it with, for example, large terracotta pots bursting with bedding plants, herbs or topiary.
There are many ways to enjoy the “little ginseng” of the vegetable world. Asian radishes including daikons, Chinese radishes, and watermelon radishes are great fun to grow as summer turns to fall, but you'll need to get busy.
For flavor add a big fat clove of crushed garlic, 250g (9oz) of dark brown sugar, 280ml (half a pint) of white wine vinegar, plus some grated ginger, a few chopped chillies, mustard seeds and a generous pinch of salt.
They will keep in good condition for two months or more, should they last that long. Avoiding Problems When Growing Rutabagas Like most other root crops, rutabagas need sunny, well-drained soil with a near-neutral pH amended with a modest supply of organic...
They're ready to pick and collect when the pods themselves turn leathery or crisp to the touch. Fava beans can cross-pollinate with other varieties, so only save seeds from these beans if you are growing just one variety.
Large or hard seeds like those ofoften require scarification for optimal germination. Seeds with an impermeable (waterproof) seed coat can benefit the most from nicking. It's important to know how to nick flower seeds as well as other plant seeds before...
Cover them with more paper and gently press to remove excess moisture.If the seeds are hard and mature, you can safely dry them and store them for future use. If the seeds are precious, you can take the trouble of growing the seedlings in auntil the weather...
Any seeds that are allowed to mature and sprout the next season are often called volunteers. Read on to learn more.. These seeds are designed to carry the plant's genetic material on in the form of new plants.
It can be greatly increased by the aid of a. You can make your ownCut a few new shoots from a willow and slice them into 1 inch (3 cm) pieces.Steep the willow pieces in water for a few days to create a willow tea.Dip your cuttings in the tea directly...
These containers will allow you to reduce the use of plastic and/or clay materials in your garden.Plantable containers can be used for starting plants. When selecting a plantable pot, it is important to consider how much time your plants need to start...
Depending on the type of fungal disease, seedlings may take on a twisted or water-soaked appearance, sometimes withor dark colored threads on the surface of the soil. Many gardeners prefer to water from the bottom, which keeps the surface of the soil...
A less familiar way to clone your favorite plants is propagation by layering. Roots will form along the part of the stem that's underground.freestar.queue.push(function() { googletag.display("div-gpt-ad-300x250-ATF-1"); });– Tip layering works by pushing...
Cross pollination is unlikely to happen if there is only one variety of a species of plant in your garden, but there is a very slight chance that a stray pollinating insect could carry pollen to your plants.freestar.queue.push(function() { googletag.display("div-gpt-ad-300x250-ATF-1");...
Spring has sprung — or nearly — and it's time to start your garden. Most transplanted seeds grow faster and produce more quickly than those directly sown outside.For the most part, the early fall crops are suited to direct sowing, while the summer...
