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Heating Mats for Winter Warmth
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness?” –John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America, 1962 Last week, I wrote about readying my greenhouse...
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Shed Some Light on Indoor Gardening
“There are two ways of spreading light: To be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” – Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence, 1920 Every greenhouse gardener who attempts to grow healthy plants in...
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A Winter Blue Jay and Other ‘Tails’ at the Bird Feeder
There, on the black bough of a snow flecked maple, Fearless and gay as our love, A bluejay cocked his crest! Oh who can tell the range of joy Or set the bounds of beauty? -Sara Teasdale, ‘A Winter...
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Preserve a Pine; All Lives Matter
“Every creature is better alive than dead, men, and moose, and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.” – Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) As I...
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Moss and Lichen: Beauty or Beast?
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” – Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (The Duchess), Molly Bawn, 1878 In Sunday’s column (Dec. 20, 2015), I wrote about the “magic and misdeeds of mistletoe,” a parasitic...
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Try Pelleted Seeds for Better Lettuce, Carrot, and Beet Crops
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) In Sunday’s column (Jan. 10, 2016), I wrote about trying new gardening techniques...
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“Superfoods” versus the “Dirty Dozen”
“A garden always gives back more than it receives.” – Mara Beamish In Sunday’s column (Jan. 17, 2016), I wrote about the advantages of planning and growing a “prescriptive” garden, full of foods that...
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Protect Against Overwintering Plant Diseases
Gardening is a kind of disease. It infects you, you cannot escape it. When you go visiting, your eyes rove about the garden; you interrupt serious cocktail drinking because of an irresistible impulse...
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The Community Garden Connection
WWII poster for "victory" gardens “Gardens, scholars say, are the first sign of commitment to a community. When people plant corn they are saying, let’s stay here. And by their connection to the land,...
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On Taming the Strawberries in Our Gardens
Strawberries that in gardens grow Are plump and juicy fine, But sweeter far as wise men know Spring from the woodland vine ~Wild...
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Build friendships in the garden
A Garden in Harmony There’s a garden where the peppers Were all growing on the vine, The tomatoes and the pumpkins And the string beans, very fine. Harmony had been so perfect In this garden where they...
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S— Happens and Then Becomes a Cow Pot
“The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do,...
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My Bloomin’ Yard
One of my favorite times of the year is right now as my winter warrior bloomers combine with the brave first flowers of spring. Here is what’s blooming in my yard, and what the flowers mean according...
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More Lessons Learned about Starting Plants from Seeds
“There’s little doubt growing your own plants from seed will give you a sense of pride and accomplishment.” – Barbara W. Ellis, Starting Seeds, 2012 Algae and stem rot on Bells of Ireland …Except when...
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Go Native in Your Garden
“If you have 15 species of plants in your garden, and 13 of them are aliens that are toxic to insect herbivores, you have, in effect, a garden based on only two plant species. Too simple.” – Douglas...
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I’ve started hardening off my seedlings
Gardening requires lots of water — most of it in the form of perspiration. ~Lou Erickson, cartoonist, 1913-1990 The warm springtime weather this week has caused my greenhouse temperatures to skyrocket...
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My plants love the spring air and sunshine!
Gardens are a form of autobiography. ~Sydney Eddison, Horticulture magazine, August/September 1993 I’ve taken all of the plants out of the greenhouse now, and they are spending all of their time...
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At the Root of it All
“When the roots are deep, there is no reason to fear the wind.” – Chinese proverb If you’ve ever seen a pine tree with shallow roots uprooted by a fierce storm, you know the truth behind this ancient...
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Herbs in garden beds and pots
Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun, and with him rise weeping.’ ~ Shakespeare, A Winter’s Tale, 1623 I enjoy growing a wide variety of herbs, including...
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Garden tours de force coming up in June
“Gardens and flowers have a way of bringing people together, drawing them from their homes.” ― Clare Ansberry, The Women of Troy Hill, 2000 Besides the AAUW Garden Tour on June 11 (see my Mail Tribune...
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