You Could Have a Salad Bar in Your Backyard in January! Cold-Weather Gardening Tips for Zones 6 and 7
Don’t stop growing food in the fall – let’s grow all year round!
On Camomile and Failure…
“I’m just not a gardener…I have a brown thumb.” If you have ever said this, or if you have felt any kind of despair after a failure in the garden, this post is for YOU! All too often people imagine that I must have success with everything plant in my garden and that I don’t fail at anything after all these years. Not true! Failure is a part of gardening and farming every year – and it offers life lessons that are about more than gardening.
Beneficial Nematodes: A Powerful Organic Pest Control Method
There’s nothing worse for a gardener than to check on your crop and find it destroyed by pests – sometimes overnight! It’s enough to make an organic gardener run to the nearest store for some chemical pesticide. But wait – there are many other methods available that are safe and organic to help keep pests under control and keep your plants healthy and strong. Beneficial Nematodes are one of the most potent ways to protect your garden.
Saving Pepper Seeds: When You Should and Should NOT!
Saving pepper seeds should be a slam dunk, right? Just save the biggest, best pepper from your harvest and remove the seeds for next year. But wait…there is something you need to know.
Saving Bean Seeds for Cooking and Replanting
Did you grow green beans this summer in your garden? Before you yank those spent plants out and throw them on your compost pile, stop! You can save seeds for next year and you won’t have to buy them. And if you tried growing beans for storing and cooking, you’ll need to use this same technique to harvest them. It’s easy. Let’s go!
When to Harvest Butternut Squash
If you are growing butternut squash for the first time, you really need to know when to harvest it. Many first time gardeners make the mistake of treating butternut squash like zucchini, and pick them when they are full size and green.
Growing Ground Cherries! (aka Dwarf Cape Gooseberries)
Gooseberries are such a fun little fruit to add to your garden. They are sweet! (think pineapple and lemon combined) And kids will love peeling back the papery outer lantern to find the sweet little skittle-sized fruit inside. Plus, they commonly re-seed themselves, so if you are lucky, plant once and have them forever!
Test Your Soil pH! (Don’t be scared. I’ll help you)
Testing your soils seems super intimidating for most home gardeners. It also feels unnecessary – until something goes wrong. When you see your plants are suddenly not thriving and you’ve done everything you think you can do, it might be that your soil is out of balance. The first thing you want to check is your soil pH.
Saving Seeds: Preparing the Garden
In order to have seeds to save from your garden for next year, there are a few things you need to do in your garden right now. Watch this quick video tutorial and then jump to the section below for a list of seeds you can save and how. Later in the fall, I’ll share specific information on each type of plant and how to save the seeds.
Growing Blackberries!
Once you get your blackberry patch started, you’ll likely find it becomes a maintenance free source of berry goodness for years! Let’s get started…
