From the Garden
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How to Plant, Grow, Prune, and Harvest Currants
Currants are small, round berry-like fruits that can be eaten fresh or cooked with sugar and made into pie fillings, puddings, dessert sauces, jams, and jellies. There are red, white–actually yellowish-white, and black-fruited currants. Currants grow as bushes to about 6 feet tall. They grow best in cool-summer regions and seldom thrive in warm-summer regions […] More
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How to Grow Sweet Bay
Sweet bay is an aromatic herb that grows as a large shrub or tree. Bay leaves are used to flavor soups, stews, vegetables, and meats. Sweet bay is also called laurel leaf and bay laurel. Get to Know Sweet Bay Botanical name and family: Laurus nobilis is a member of the Lauraceae or laurel Origin: […] More
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Pepper Growing Success Tips
1. Peppers prefer deep, aged-compost–rich soil. If your soil is heavy with clay, grow peppers in a raised bed, adding loam and sand. 2. Growing peppers in your native soil: add at least 2 inches of aged compost across the planting bed and sprinkle with 5-10-10 organic fertilizer, then turn the soil to at least […] More
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How to Grow Chives
Chives are a hardy cool-weather perennial, a relative of the onion. The tips of chive leaves have a mild onion flavor. Adds chives to salads and as a garnish for many cooked dishes. Chives have slender, round, hollow grass-like leaves 6 to 10 inches long. Globe-like pinkish-purple flowers shoot up in spring on stalks to […] More
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How to Grow Sunchoke
The sunchoke, also called Jerusalem artichoke, is a variety of perennial sunflowers grown for its edible low-starch tuber which looks much like a small potato but tastes like a water chestnut. Sunchoke tubers can be planted in the garden as early as 2 to 3 weeks before the average last frost date in spring. They […] More
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How to Grow Carrots
Carrots are among the easiest garden vegetables to grow—and the most bountiful–given the right conditions. Grow carrots in the cool time of the year—spring and autumn. Plant carrots in loose, compost-rich soil free of pebbles, stones or other obstructions. Sow carrots in the garden 2 to 3 weeks before the average last frost date in […] More