Powder mildew is showing up in gardens and flower beds earlier this year. It used to not have been a major problem years ago. As our summers get more humid, this fungus is now common. It starts out as a…
Powdery Mildew in Gardens
Category: Gardening & Landscape
Vintage Lawn Sprinklers
There is a group of people collecting vintage lawn sprinklers. Surprisingly, there are many designs of old water sprinklers. Lawn and garden sprinklers have not changed over the years much. The vintage ones were most likely made of cast iron…
Snow on the Mountain
Snow on the Mountain is a native weedy plant found around in pastures in the area. Belonging to the family of Euphorbias, which are a family of succulents. This means they are drought tolerant and need full sun. Like its…
When are Onions Ready
When are onions ready to pull and store? Rule of thumb is when 2/3 of the tops have fallen over. You can bend over the rest of the crop. Also, stop watering. Leave the onions in the ground for a…
Blossom End Rot in Tomatoes
Blossom end rot in tomatoes shows up a browning or blackening areas on the bottom of the fruit. It is more common than not on the first ripening tomatoes. Pepper and eggplant also get this condition, but to a lesser…
Leaf Miner Injury
This week I am hearing about leaf miner injury in various plants. You look at the leaf and see tunnels winding around between the tissues of the leaf. I have not seen heavy infestations that skeletonize the plant, however, they…
Cleome Plants
Cleome plants are not too popular anymore and I do not know why. They are hard to start indoors but come up readily in the garden if you allow the seeds to drop. Once the flower spike opens up, cleomes…
Red Plastic Mulch
Been reading about using red plastic mulch being good for tomatoes. I did this and the results are very noticeable! The tomato plants growing on red plastic are showing twice the growth versus the plants without the plastic. I had…
Amaranthus
Amaranthus plant has been grown for thousands of years as a food crop in Mexico from the Aztec. When Spain’s Cortez arrived, he burnt the fields as punishment. Mexico is reviving the crop as a staple food source. Also called…
Tomato Leaf Curl
People are having issues with tomato leaf curl. There are no easy answers without looking at the leaf itself and doing some detective work. If the leaves are distorted with brown spots and the leaves are turning yellow. Answer: foliar…
Cape Marigold
The African Daisy or Cape Marigold are commonly called by their fancy name “Osteospermum”. You commonly find these plants in the greenhouses coming mainly in yellow and purple but many colors in between. They make for great plants in containers.…
Cosmos Flower
Cosmos flower is an all-purpose cottage plant. Depending on the variety, they grow from 1 foot to 6 feet tall. They make particularly good cut flowers, filler plants among perennials, and use as a bedding plant for mass plantings. They…
Chamomile Plants
Chamomile plants are known for the relaxing tea in which the flower blossoms have seeped. As a flowering plant, they add beauty to any area they are growing. I grow some in a large pot and let the seeds germinate…
African Daisy or Cape Marigold
The African Daisy or Cape Marigold are commonly called by their fancy name “Osteospermum”. You commonly find these plants in the greenhouses coming mainly in yellow and purple but many colors in between. They make for great plants in containers.…
Die-back
Trees and shrubs in South Dakota have been slow to leaf out due to the winter. A lot of woody plants are showing signs of die-back or total death. Most likely due to the winter going through warm and cold…