Gardening Tips
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Vegetable Harvest Times
Timing is everything when it comes to the home vegetable garden harvest. Once vegetables are picked they immediately begin to lose flavor, tenderness, and nutritional value. Harvest your crops as close to the time you plan to serve them, within an hour or less of serving time is best. How do you know when it […] More
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in Gardening Tips, Tips
Vegetable Watering Tips
Water is essential to the optimum growth of vegetables; the water content of most vegetables is nearly 90 percent. Providing the right amount of moisture to the vegetable garden is as important as supplying the right amount of plant food. When to water seeds, seedlings, and established plants • Seeds. Water to the age of […] More
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Growing Bulb Onions: Pick the Right Variety for Your Garden
Bulb onions are particular about where they grow. Onion bulb formation is triggered by the number of summer daylight hours. Bulb-forming onions can be divided into three types. Three types of bulbing onions Long-day onions require about 15 hours of summer daylight. Short-day onions require about 12 hours of summer daylight. Day-neutral (also called intermediate-day) […] More
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Nature Planting Signals for Vegetables: Phenology
The flowering of trees, shrubs, and perennial plants is determined by day length and temperature (this also applies to the lifecycle of insects and animals. You can use the bloom time of shrubs and trees to tell you when it is safe to plant vegetables in the garden. Look at blooming trees and shrubs in […] More
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Growing Herbs for Cooking
Herbs for cooking are plants whose leaves, seeds, fruits, flowers, or other parts are used fresh or dried for flavoring food. (A spice–broadly speaking–denotes a flavoring derived from the seed, fruit, bark, or other parts of a plant grown in warm, tropical regions.) A “potherb” is a plant you cook in a pot. Herbs generally […] More
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Bees and Herbs
Many culinary herbs will attract bees to your garden. Grow herbs and you will get double-duty attracting pollinators and bringing flavorings to the kitchen. Many herbs can be harvested cut-and-come-again, leaves, flowers, and seeds. That means you can enjoy many of these herbs all season without replanting. Bees in the garden are a good thing. […] More
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Lettuce Growing Tips
Lettuce grows best in cool weather and sunny locations. Spring, mid-summer, and early fall are the times of year to plant lettuce, but you can grow lettuce in the summer even in warm regions if you choose heat-tolerant and bolt-resistant varieties. There are lettuce cultivars that are ready for picking in 45 days and others […] More
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Potato Growing Tips
Grow potatoes from whole potatoes, small potatoes, or a cut piece of a larger potato. Potatoes grow from the dormant buds–called “eyes”–on the surface of other potatoes. When the buds sprout, they develop into new plants. About two weeks after sprouting, the main stem and first leaves of the new potato plant will appear above ground. Preparing to Plant […] More
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Squash and Pumpkin Growing Tips
The technique for planting summer squashes, winter squashes, and pumpkins is the same. Grow all squashes on hills spaced 3 to 8 feet apart depending upon the leaf size–the larger the leaf the farther apart. Set seedlings started indoors in the garden as soon as the weather has warmed. Make sure squashes are large and […] More
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Spinach Growing Tips
Spinach is a cool-weather crop that grows best when the daytime temperature remains consistently below 75°F–commonly in spring or fall. Young plants will bolt when exposed to temperatures below 40°F, but mature plants can withstand temperatures as low as 20°F. Spinach is ready for picking in about 40 days; for a continuous harvest, sow spinach […] More
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Pea Growing Tips
Grow peas during the winter in mild-winter regions. In cold-winter regions grow peas in the spring and sometimes in the fall. Peas and temperature Spring sowing peas: The optimum seed starting soil temperature for peas is 75°F; this makes growing peas for fall harvest a strong option when they are planted 55 to 70 days […] More
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in Gardening Tips, Soil
Plant Nutrients
Plants require nutrients to grow and for good health. Most plant nutrients are common chemical elements. Elemental plant nutrients are generally used in one of three ways: They become part of plant cells and are basic to the structure of plants. They are metabolic, required for biochemical functions within the plant such as photosynthesis or […] More
Stephen Albert