Nowadays, the seed catalogs start to fly before the snow does. It can be hard to focus on Christmas shopping done with visions of heirloom watermelons and container carrots dancing in your eyes. But in January, it’s time to take down the tree and set up to start seeds. In the Midwest, the short growing […]
Eight youngsters at the International Flavors Community Garden plot on West 18th Street in Erie, Pennsylvania, have helped clear away their patch for the winter after a fruitful summer. The children worked on the garden through an Erie School District after-school program called Creating Healthy Active Members Planning to Succeed. Garden supplies were paid for […]
Why is it that most garden books debut in February? I have to wait until then for Willy Galloway’s terrific vegetable book, Grow, Cook, Eat—A Food Lover’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening. Is February the month when publishers assume gardeners’ hearts turn to spring? This gardener’s heart is warmed by new books in deep winter, when […]
White Christmas? We can only hope. Not just because snow makes the holidays so much more picturesque, but because it does wonders for a garden. Last year we had snow cover almost all winter — common up north, but unusual in more southerly parts of the Midwest. Then we had the most spectacular spring. Bulbs […]
These gift ideas are for the gardeners on your list– some to inspire and others to help make the jobs at hand as light as they can be. Growing Tasty Tropical Plants In Any Home Anywhere by Byron Martin and Lauralynn Martin is guide written by the co-owners of Logee’s, the world-famous greenhouse operation in […]
In the early spring, it’s such a delight to come upon a garden that bursts with daffodils, scilla and crocuses. Yet it always amazes me how many front yards are still mostly bare and brown, with just a few shoots poking up. Without a bulb layer, you miss a whole season of color. Bulbs are […]
Brent Heath of Brent and Becky’s Bulbs makes this claim with a certain pride: “It’s always safe to walk in our greenhouses.” Most owners of commercial establishments can’t say that. Routine chemical spraying or fumigation of indoor growing spaces means workers are forbidden to enter the area for specific times—from hours to days. But not […]
It’s time to bring in the bounty we’ve grown outdoors and take stock of the season. In that spirit, I’m looking at the most successful new varieties I tried this season—the majority featuring compact, space-saving qualifications. One of the limiting factors in my gardening space is that I’m compelled to locate plants that deer eat […]
Green-fingered educators at the Fusion Academy are teaching their children core subjects like English alongside long-term life skills such as healthy living through gardening. The school set up an edible garden project to reinforce students' practical skills and help them develop appropriate eating habits. During the summer students planted vegetable patches, which included three raised […]
Home gardeners and farmers look to the past and see their future at the National Heirloom Exposition. Heirloom vegetables —those open-pollinated varieties older than 50 years—have long been treasured by gardeners and farmers alike for their wide-ranging flavors, extended harvest times, and often odd-lot looks. This September, the niche horticultural pursuits of organic practices, seed […]
As the air turns crisp and winter casts a shadow on these early fall days, who can ignore the fact that everyday becomes shorter too? Will there be enough light on winter’s shortest days for your indoor plants? Although the quantity of solar radiation the earth receives just outside the atmosphere is nearly constant, the […]
I’ve been bustling around the garden for the last few weeks, getting all the tender plants in out of the cold. Tropical plants, such as all our common houseplants, need to move indoors by the time nighttime temperatures are consistently in the low 50s, weeks before the first frost would kill them outright. This is […]
