Jack Frost will soon make his appearance and you won’t want to let your many months of work in the vegetable garden go to waste. When frost is imminent, harvest all tomatoes both red and green, all peppers no matter how small, and all the beans, cucumbers and zucchini that are still producing. Cut tender [Continue]
This year, I finally did what I’ve known I should have been doing for 25 years but never had the nerve to do. In early July, and then again a few weeks later, I ruthlessly thinned the apples growing on my ‘Liberty’ apple tree. Mother Nature gives us a head start at thinning with what [Continue]
Twenty years ago, I heard that you shouldn’t use wood chips as a mulch because they tie up nitrogen in the soil as they decompose, preventing the plants from using it. Ten years ago I heard that it is okay to use wood chips after all because they actually don’t steal nitrogen from plants. A [Continue]
It’s too early to tell yet whether the coming growing season will bring us abundant rain or if the dry weather trend that gave us a relatively easy winter will continue through the summer. As of last week, almost 50% of the Midwest was considered abnormally dry or under moderate drought conditions, with Winnebago County [Continue]
Everything you thought you knew about how plants get nutrients from the soil through their roots may be wrong. Scientists have determined that 95% of plant families get the majority of their nutrition not through roots, but through microscopic fungi that either attach to or penetrate the roots. These fungi, called mycorrhizae (pronounced my-core-rise-uh), form [Continue]
Tomatoes are the most popular vegetable garden plant. Even gardeners who have space for nothing else often put a tomato plant in a pot on their porch or in a flower bed. Tomatoes are easy to grow, but here are some tips to make them even more successful. There are a few things you should [Continue]
Last winter was brutal and this spring has been ugly, but the calendar says it’s planting time, so let’s review some shopping and planting basics. When buying annual flowers, veggie packs, or containerized perennial flowers, shrubs or trees, first pick up the container. It should feel solid, not too light for its size. A too-light [Continue]
Gardeners have many reasons for pursuing their hobby – exercise, relaxation, spending time outdoors, creativity and beauty, or growing healthy, fresh food. These are all admirable motives for pursuit of a worthwhile pastime. Gardening should be a lovely, relaxing activity. So why do we sometimes make it so much work? Why do we try [Continue]
How are you coming along with your fall yard and garden clean-up? Still have a ways to go? Wouldn’t it be much easier to leave the annuals standing, the perennials uncut, the leaves unraked and the brush piles unburned? You could just quit now and allow your yard to be a haven of shelter and [Continue]
What tasks are you doing in your vegetable garden this time of year? Pulling everything up, rototilling, maybe trying to find some free manure, beating yourself up over the many weeds you didn’t pull? There is a way to make autumn’s garden tasks, and indeed the entire vegetable garden year, easier. It’s called deep mulch [Continue]