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On the lookout for spring flowers
Yes, that’s me, driving slowly by the garden centers now, peering out the window hoping for a glimpse of the first pansies and violas for sale. I have carefully chosen my routes to pass by as many garden centers as I can, hoping to see those flats of pansies and violas as soon as they set them out for sale.
Some people think that pansies and the smaller flowering violas are not worth the trouble in the spring because once it warms up in early summer, they stop flowering and start looking fairly ragged. But if you plant them early enough, as early as mid-March, you can enjoy their blooms for at least two to three months or longer. Read the rest of this entry »
Radishes for instant gratification
For instant gratification when it comes to sowing seeds and having something ready to harvest, there are few vegetables that can compare with radishes. “Instant” can be as little as three weeks from sowing to harvesting for some popular radish varieties.
By comparison, it takes three to four times as long for tomatoes and corn to be ready to harvest after planting. And even a fast growing lettuce takes over a month, unless you take a short cut and harvest the leaves as micro greens. Read the rest of this entry »
Plant your peas in early spring
With the snow melting, and hopefully warmer days ahead, it’s not too early to think about planting what are often referred to as “early spring crops,” like peas. There are just a few tricks to learn when growing peas, but learning them is well worth the time, because peas grown in your garden taste much better than any canned or frozen peas bought in a store.
Many new gardeners are surprised at how early we can plant peas in this area. My preferred date to plant peas is March 17, or whenever the ground has reached a temperature of around 45 degrees at about an inch deep in the soil, the depth for planting peas. Like most vegetables, they should be grown in full sun. Read the rest of this entry »
Learn to grow produce from an expert
Who else remembers Jim Wilson from the PBS gardening show The Victory Garden? Wilson had a segment on the show in the 1980s that was filmed at the Victory Garden South at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Ga. I used to love watching those shows, listening to Wilson as he enthusiastically taught us how to grow produce.
I enjoyed watching him walk around his vegetable garden sampling all kinds of vegetables and raving about how good they were. I still remember a segment where he picked an ear of sweet corn and took a bite from it right there in the garden, without even cooking it. He said something along the lines of, “My goodness this is sweet. No butter needed for this corn. This is one sweet ear of corn”. He made it all look and sound so good that I wanted to grow corn like that! Read the rest of this entry »
Be active, not sedentary, in the off-season
The problem for many gardeners, especially those of us who live around here where winter is winter, is that for several months now, we have not had a chance to engage in our favorite form of exercise, namely gardening.
We Midwestern gardeners have not been mowing our lawns, dragging hoses around, hoeing the garden, raking leaves or digging holes for several months now. At best, we may have shoveled snow a few times this winter, though many of us have tried to make even snow removal a more sedentary activity by using snow blowers or having the neighborhood kids do it. Read the rest of this entry »
Trusty tomatoes top my list
I’m setting the stage now for the summer vegetable garden by picking out which tomato varieties I plan to grow from seed. As I look through seed catalogs and Web sites, I’m inundated with choices. I can have my pick of colors — red, pink, orange, yellow, purple, green and even striped. I can choose sizes that start out as small as a currant and go up to as large as a small melon. Would I like heirloom tomato varieties or new hybrid varieties? How about disease resistance and indeterminate versus determinate vines?
After browsing through a few catalogs, the list of tomato varieties I want to grow gets longer and longer. Somehow before I actually place my seed orders, I’ll manage to get the list down to a reasonable number for my garden. Read the rest of this entry »
Don’t trash your amaryllis
A few weeks after you’ve put up the last of the holiday decorations, it’s tempting to also toss out the poinsettia plants and amaryllis (Hippeastrum sp.) bulbs once their blooms have faded. I agree, go right ahead and send the poinsettias to the compost bin. Most of us can’t provide the kind of environment they need to re-bloom anyway, particularly the requirement for complete darkness for 12 hours each day for 10-12 weeks in the fall.
But don’t toss the amaryllis bulbs out! With some simple care you can get the amaryllis bulbs to bloom again next year. Read the rest of this entry »
Mid-winter checkups keep the garden going
Snow! It’s just what we gardeners wanted to help protect the plants in the garden. The new snow cover will provide insulation from really cold temperatures, which should help less hardy plants survive the below-freezing temperatures that arrived with the New Year.
After any significant snowfall, it’s a good idea to walk around the garden, not just because it’s a pretty sight to see, but because there might be some damage or potential damage to take care of. Read the rest of this entry »
Forcing hyacinth bulbs ‘on vase’
A few days ago, I completed another annual ritual of my gardening year when I set out my hyacinth vases, filled them with water and put a pre-chilled hyacinth bulb on top of each one. In just a few days, I should see tiny roots forming and green tips growing from each bulb.
Forcing hyacinths on vases is a centuries old tradition. The hyacinth vases are shaped with a neck that allows the bulb to rest as close to the water as possible without actually touching the water. Although hyacinth vases are made especially for this purpose, any vase with a neck or opening that is narrow enough to support the bulb just above the water will work. Read the rest of this entry »
Make specific goals with PLANTS
New Year’s Day is not a good time to make resolutions about gardening! It seems that whatever we resolve to do better in the garden, like maybe keeping up with weeding, we can’t really do until spring arrives. Then when spring arrives, it’s just as easy to forget those resolutions as we rush about preparing for warm weather.
For better results, set some goals for your garden. This is a great activity for the winter months when there is time to dream, a chance to plan, and no pressure to start digging tomorrow. Read the rest of this entry »