Raking leaves can be welcome warm work on a chilly autumn day. It's essential to make sure that no weedkiller has been used on the grass, as any residues may harm your crops. These mulches may be free but their value to gardeners is inestimable! They...
There are no rules on the materials you choose provided they don't leach nasty chemicals into the soil, as can happen with treated lumber or landscape timbers. Natural stone is often free if you live in a mountainous area, and as long as you stack a low...
Cool-season cover crops are a beautiful and bioactive way to increase your soil's organic matter content during the off season, and you won't need a tractor to chop down the plants when the time comes.
The bag will trap any ethylene gas produced by the fruit, encouraging it to ripen to perfection. There are some reliable methods to ripen green tomatoes at the end of the season. What tricks do you use?
Do any branches point inwards, cross over each other or look like they'll cross in the future? Don't use a wound paint or wrap to try and seal the wound. Bacterial canker affects plums, cherries and other trees in the Prunus family.
Once all of your chilies are threaded on, tie off the line to make a loop. Arrange the chili peppers by spacing them out in a spiral formation – each chili should be offset about 30 to 60 degrees from the previous one.
Concentrate your watering where it's needed: young seedlings to help them establish, salad leaves to stop them wilting, fruiting vegetables like tomatoes and anything growing in a pot.
Whether or not you choose to leave potatoes in the ground depends on how cold early winter is in your part of the world. Planting Second Crop Potatoes Second-crop potatoes take about three months to reach maturity.
But thinning further can help trees to stay in good shape and produce a more useful crop. This usually includes the odd-shaped ‘king' fruit at the center of the cluster. Finally, continue thinning until the fruits are evenly spaced, leaving only the...
The real clincher for quibble-free identification is their habit of swarming away when approached or disturbed. Just like aphids they produce a sticky ‘honeydew', which is in fact…their feces.
Prune to Let the Sunshine In Strong growth over the summer months can mean that taller plants cast shade where they didn't before, compromising crops that need plenty of direct sunlight.
Mulching will also help to suppress weeds (which can sometimes harbour pests) while encouraging pest-munching ground beetles. Not only can it be used to create protective tunnels for the likes of brassicas (for instance to exclude cabbage white butterflies...
Spring cabbages are sown from the second half of summer to harvest the following year. You can use a string line to insure nice, straight rows. Additional rows of spring or summer cabbage should be set around the same distance apart, while fall and winter...
Then feed more sand in between the pots right up to the rims, before pouring in water to thoroughly wet the sand. Bamboo contributes a welcome rustle if you haven't got many trees or shrubs nearby to sway and shuffle in the breeze.
There is some truth here, in that a review of studies from around the world concluded that compounds in daikon radishes may help prevent diabetes, cancer and disorders of the digestive system.
It uses 900g (2lb) of the fruits together with a large onion and a cooking apple. Drying and Dehydrating Fruits and Vegetables Drying is one of the very easiest methods of preserving, requiring no specialist skills – just lots of fresh produce.
Pull the plants, trim off long roots and tops, and wash the roots lightly before letting them dry for a day in a cool place. Spacing is important, too, because crowded rutabagas will grow huge tops with skinny roots.
Spread the seeds out on paper to dry out for a week or more before storing. For this reason only ever save the seeds of traditional, open-pollinated varieties. So here's how to do it...
Furthermore, their self cleaning characteristic means that no deadheading is needed. Students who finished their work early were allowed to weed and water the plants. Florida's heat and humidity bothered them not in the least.
If you are experiencing an especially dreary or rainy period, okra blossom drop may occur.Temperature fluctuations can also stress the plant and cause it to lose flowers. The flower itself is very showy but also short lived.Okra flowers usually bloom...
This is usually after only 2 or 3 days of growth. Okra is more drought tolerant than many garden plants, but watering it will keep it healthier and may make it more productive. Remove any older pods that have become too tough to eat so they won't reduce...
An okra plant flowers a few months after planting, and then it produces seed pods.freestar.queue.push(function() { googletag.display("div-gpt-ad-300x250-ATF-1"); });Gardeners raising seed pods to eat should pick them when they are about 3 inches long.
Flowers, such as, also make great companions. Plant both the okra and radish seeds together, 3-4 inches apart in a row. The brilliantly colored blooms attract natural pollinators, which in turn visit the okra flowers resulting in large, plump pods.
Plants afflicted with this blight will wilt and present yellowing leaves and a darkened discolored stem with a white fungal growth around its base near the soil line.Like plants with fusarium wilt, there is no means of treating a sick okra seedling.
What are root knot nematodes and how can root knot nematodes on okra be managed?Nematodes are commonly referred to as eelworms and are essential to the harmonic makeup of soil. Later in the growing season, roots may begin to rot.For the home gardener,...
Leaving the pods on the plant to mature like this slows down the development of new pods. Once you're done picking okra, store them in plastic bags in your refrigerator where they will last about a week, or freeze the pods if you have too much to use.
And when red okra is cooked, alas, it loses its red hue and the pods turn green.for your area or directly outside 2-4 weeks after the last expected frost. Read on to find out all about growing red okra plants.is the only member of the mallow family (which...
