I hate mums—or more properly Chrysanthemum sp.—with a passion second only to my distaste for the new “fancy” petunias that never last through the summer. But mums are about as worthless in the garden in my estimation. Yes, they provide us some…
Gardening in the fall is a great time to look back on your garden successes and disappointments, but there’s still plenty of time left for most of us to do some last-minute garden maintenance. Fall gardening takes advantage of cooler…
Choosing a vine for the garden is a tricky business. The perfect vine would be one that is beautiful, easy to grow and stops at the end of the trellis. The stopping part – or perhaps more accurately failing to…
It will be a jungle out there when my morning glory vines grow up! The morning glory can grow to be ten feet tall or more in a season, which made it a popular privy plant in the old days…
Alpine strawberries cause confusion, as sometimes they’re considered wild, and sometimes they’re not. They’re generally of the genus Fragaria vesca, which grows wild in northern Europe. They can be both red or white. If you do a search online for…
My okra plants are producing now! Grown from seed started indoors in April. It was first cultivated in Ethiopia. Records of its cultivation in ancient Egypt date to over 3000 years ago! In the following centuries was spread throughout Africa, the…
Another one of my favorite flowers are blooming now: Four o’clocks or Marvel of Peru. It is an unusual plant, in that it may produce flowers of different colors on the same plant—including white, yellow, and a variety of pink,…
As long as there have been farmers and gardeners, there have been birds trying to eat their crops. And throughout the ages, farmers have tried to come up with ingenious ways to scare them off. Nowadays, scarecrows are familiar sights,…
First year in growing purslane. I have planted a couple of plants in a cement block and they are doing good. In the Mediterranean, it is used in soups and salads and has lots of potential health benefits. It lowers…
Here are some gardening hacks to use in your garden. Adding coffee grounds to the soil in your garden is a great way to enrich it with nitrogen, which encourages microorganism growth in the soil. Using coffee grounds seems to…
It’s such a sinking feeling to have one’s garden pummeled by hail especially for farmers who lost crops. Anyways in a few days to a week you’ll probably get a good idea what is salvageable or not. It never looks…
Creating a garden starts out as an innocent pursuit. You just want a pretty patch of flower or vegetables that flows and looks beautiful at least three seasons out of four. But there is that one plant that outshines the…
We’re having a lot of trouble with diseases in tomatoes. Leaves turn brown from the bottom of the plant and move upward. Is it a blight or a wilt? We’ve moved the plants and rotated them to a new location…
Since most outdoor landscape lighting is low voltage, it’s safe and easy enough for any DIYer to install. In fact, the only special tool you’ll need is a wire stripper, however, now many light systems have come out with a…
By growing herbs in pots and planters, you can grow tender perennials, such as rosemary and flowering sages year-round. I just bring them indoors in the fall. In addition, container gardening is a good option for gardeners who have limited…