Give peas a chance: the soil is warm enough to plant them already
A few weeks ago I wrote of the earliness of the season, as evidenced by one of the earliest of the early bloomers: witch hazel. It was already in bloom at Longwood Gardens…
The plums of pruners & the oldest living seed
One perk of writing a book about pruning (The Pruning Book) is that I get sent a lot of pruning tools to try out. The pruning shears hang on a row of wooden…
Be careful what you wish for with this mild winter
Witch hazel blossoms on February 5! Not here, but down in Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania: a public botanical and pleasure garden around which I had some time to wander before giving…
Growing closer to your home while the world gets warmer
Every time I walk out the back door on the way to the greenhouse, chicken coop or compost pile, I take a look at my vegetable gardens. No, I’m not checking out what’s…
When ladybugs aren’t available, water will serve to control aphids
The first sign that spring is around the corner (well, perhaps around the block) is the aphids clustering on lettuce leaves in the greenhouse. For organically grown lettuce, eradication of these pests isn’t…
When the chips are down
Dryish and cold, but not frigid weather: What else is there to do outdoors, gardenwise, but mulch? (Pruning is best left until after the coldest nights of winter have passed, in late February.)…
What to do with that overgrown Norfolk Island pine
Cold has yet to throw a wrench into salads fresh from the garden, even though December 16 saw a nighttime low of 12 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes, the lettuce would be mush if unprotected;…
You can manage a Christmas tree farm
A living Christmas tree seems the “right” thing to do: You get a holiday tree decorating your living room for a couple of weeks; the planet gets a tree to soak up carbon…
I yam what I yam
Lance the Plumber is also quite a good gardener; I’ve seen his garden. So I had some faith in his recipe for growing sweet potatoes: Make a circle of fencing a couple of…
