If you have an area of the garden that’s empty or the plants are on their way out then you should consider planting winter kill cover crops! Cover crops are any plant that you grow not to harvest but for some other benefit like weed suppression, mulch production, soil improvement, beneficial insect support, etc. If […]
Read MoreStrategies for Summer Maintenance in the School Garden
Summer break is just around the corner for many local schools, and while many of you may already be daydreaming of family cookouts, long pool days, and hitting the snooze button on Monday mornings, summer can also bring on a new set of stressors when it comes to tending to a needy school garden. While […]
Read MoreGreens for the Summer Heat
Greens are the most nutritious vegetables there are and there are plenty of greens to choose from for the cool months of spring, fall, and even winter including: lettuce, spinach, arugula, mache, turnip greens, mustard, beet greens, kale, collards, chard, radish greens, cabbage, bok choi, tatsoi, sorrel, and a multitude of other less common greens. […]
Read MoreGrow Your Own Sweet Potato Slips
Did you know sweet potatoes aren’t grown from seeds? Instead, they are started from root sprouts that slowly emerge from the “eyes” of mature sweet potatoes until they are ready to take over your garden bed with their vines and tuberous roots! This might sound like the plot to a new sci-fi show, but it […]
Read MoreOrchard Variety Recommendations
If you want to plant some food-producing woody plants including trees, shrubs, vines, or brambles, this is the post for you and now is the time to order! Ordering fruit and nut-producing plants can be very overwhelming especially when you have a small space you are working with. Usually, you can only plant a few […]
Read MoreThat Mountain of Catalogs
This is the time of year that if you have been gardening for long you get a deluge of seed and plant catalogs in the mail. Although it can be really fun to look through them and read all the glowing descriptions it can also be overwhelming to figure out what to order. So today […]
Read MorePrepping the Garden and Orchard for Winter
Prepping the Garden & Orchard for Winter By this time of year, most of us are ready for a break. It becomes easy to just leave the garden as it is and worry about it in the spring. Although leaving it for spring is tempting after a long year of tending the garden and orchard, […]
Read MoreIncreasing Pollination in Your Veggie Garden with Companion Plants
Guest Post by Nicole Miller-Struttann, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biology, Webster University Many crop plants rely on local insects for pollination. While honeybees can be important pollinators in agricultural settings, wild bees are often better pollinators. That is good news in some ways, because it means you don’t need a honeybee hive to increase pollination. […]
Read MoreOrchards Are a Buzz with Local Researchers
Guest Post by Nicole Miller-Struttann, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biology, Webster University Orchards are popping up in a lot of community gardens around the country, and it’s easy to understand why. They help to provide local sources of high-quality fruits, create shaded nooks for people and animals alike, and reduce the environmental impacts of long-distance […]
Read MoreJune Tip: Vertical Gardening
What if I told you there was a way to increase vegetable production without increasing garden size and that it would also reduce disease without using any fertilizers or pesticides. Sounds like a marketing scam but it’s not, it’s vertical gardening. Training and supporting plants that would normally sprawl over a large area of the […]
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