The spring after my cutting celery made seeds, I had hundreds of volunteer celery seedlings around the compost pile. Deep mulch that reduces repeated freezing and thawing of the soil is a good way to enhance the cold tolerance of parsley, celery, other...
Fight Back! Starting with a weedy garden can be intimidating, and demoralizing. It's that combination of persistence and resistance that makes them so frustrating! Weeds employ some pretty underhand tactics to get the better of us: breaking off bits of...
Compost is always in short supply, so use it where it's needed most It's precious stuff though, so it's wise to reserve it for your hungriest or most treasured plants – there's simply never enough! To make most effective use of your compost, use it...
In hugelkultur, logs or other wood are buried beneath a hilled garden which slowly benefits from the wood's decomposition. There are no rules on the materials you choose provided they don't leach nasty chemicals into the soil, as can happen with treated...
When I do use compost to top-dress fall veggies, I place old boards or pieces of weathered cardboard along the edges of the bed to provide shelter for fall crickets , which eat weed seeds for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
If it's too windy, much of the gas simply blows away, slamming the brakes on the ripening process. Warmth loving crops can stall at lower temperatures, spluttering to a halt before they've crossed the finishing line.
Don't use a wound paint or wrap to try and seal the wound. They look like they've been used for shotgun target practice, giving the disease its alternative name of ‘shothole' (careful how you say it!).
Dried chilies are just as versatile as fresh chilies. You can store them in containers, thread them into a chili ristra, grind them into a paste and even infuse oil or vinegar with these warming wonders.
Prioritize shady areas for crops that prefer cooler conditions, such as salad leaves. Mulching can keep soil cooler and reduce evaporation How to Apply a Mulch Thoroughly soak the ground before adding your mulch.
Position the seed potatoes 30cm (12in) apart along the bottom of trenches spaced at least 60cm (24in) apart. Potatoes need a period of dormancy before they can sprout into a new plant, so in this case you really will need to start with genuine seed potatoes.
Now remove the smallest fruits and any that are awkwardly positioned. Selectively removing young fruits is called thinning. 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...
You can buy sticky traps, or make your own. Grow some of them next to the greenhouse door to tempt these beneficial bugs closer. Needless to say, the first line of control is to take action as soon as they appear; the early gardener catches the whitefly,...
Or why not make your own liquid feed from fast-growing, nutrient-rich plants such as comfrey? Here, then, are some top tips to keep those pickings coming... Pickings from fruiting and pod-producing vegetables such as beans and tomatoes are coming thick...
Improve the Garden Environment Many pest predators, such as hoverflies (syrphid flies) are also nectar lovers and pollinators, so grow battalions of flowers near – or even in – your vegetable patch.
So here's how to do it! Types of Cabbage There's a fantastic range of cabbage varieties to choose from, offering different shapes, colors and textures. Sow the seeds thinly along the row then cover over and water.
Avid gardeners are busy gardeners. Climbers, particularly scented climbers like jasmine, honeysuckle or rambling roses are also perfect for this purpose and may be trained up an arch positioned over the seating to offer both scent and dappled shade.
Popular varieties include ‘Red Meat', ‘Mantanghong', ‘Misato Rose' and ‘Stargazer'. Purple daikons like ‘Sweet Baby' are popular at fall farmers markets. The fall growing season has many attractions, including fewer weeds, milder temperatures,...
Preserving techniques help to spread out sudden gluts so that summer's bounty can be enjoyed later on in the year when fresh pickings are thin on the ground. As you'd expect, there are many thousands of chutney recipes.
The most stalwart members of the turnip tribe, rutabagas are a rustic cross between wild turnip and cultivated cabbage that came about in Scandinavia, Russia or perhaps Lithuania in the late Middle Ages.
The beautiful seed heads of onion family plants are attractive to beneficial insects How to Store Saved Seeds Dry seeds can be cleaned before storing by carefully blowing away any remaining chaff, or separating out the seeds through a series of screens...
Provide supplemental watering of 1 to 2 inches per week during dry conditions.Fertilize only if there are signs of poor nourishment, such as small leaves, light green coloring or thin flowering.
Continue watering weekly for the first six weeks until the roots establish themselves in the planting site. Drive a wooden stake into the ground at your hedge's terminal points and stretch a string between the stakes to create a straight line for reference.Determine...
Make the trench at least three times the width of the average root ball. Always allow the top 2 to 3 inches of soil to dry between each watering to prevent rot and other fungal diseases.
I must confess I don't do that very often, especially since my four thujas have grown so big and bushy. I started to water it more and managed to have a bushy tree this summer, even if it suffered during the.
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 starting your garden.So, why should you nick seed coats?
However, dampness is the number one enemy of seeds, so you have to act immediately to save what you can.freestar.queue.push(function() { googletag.display("div-gpt-ad-300x250-ATF-1"); });You have to check the condition of the seeds first.
These seeds are designed to carry the plant's genetic material on in the form of new plants. The little guys can come up anywhere,, but that is half the fun. If they land in a favorable location, all that is left is to wait for the warm season and they...
