Independent gardening advice for real gardens, balconies and windowsills.
Practical advice on growing food and flowers, improving soil, and making the most of small spaces. Start anywhere — the garden will meet you.
This vegetable is basically a beet with succulent leaves and thick stalks instead of edible, sweet roots. It is just as drought tolerant as a beet, and in dry gardening, chard is sown, spaced, and gro...
Jan. 1st--Send for catalogues. Make planting plan and table. Order seeds. Feb. 1st--Inside: cabbage, cauliflower, first sowing. Onions for plants. Feb. 15th--Inside: lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, Bru...
I am half tempted to omit entirely any discussion of chemical fertilizers: to give a list of them, tell how to apply them, and let the why and wherefore go. It is, however, such an important subject,...
Cherries have one advantage over the other fruits--they give quicker returns. But, as far as my experience goes, they are not as long-lived. The sour type is hardier, at least north of New Jersey, tha...
Sour cherries are more easily grown than the sweet varieties, and are less subject to the attacks of fruit enemies. Sweet cherries are troubled by the curculio, or fruit-worm, which attacks also peach...
Children are more or less observers of nature, and frequently far more so than their elders. This, perhaps, is in a great measure to be accounted for from the fact that childhood is naturally inquisit...
Broadcast complete organic fertilizer or strong compost shallowly over the corn patch till midwinter, or as early in spring as the earth can be worked without making too many clods. Corn will germinat...
_Sowing date:_ About May 5 to 15 at Elkton. _Spacing:_ Most varieties usually run five about 3 feet from the hill. Space the hills about 5 to 6 feet apart in all directions. _Irrigation:_ Like melons....
In humid climates like ours, sandy soils may seem very open and friable on the surface but frequently hold some unpleasant subsoil surprises. Over geologic time spans, mineral grains are slowly destro...
The currant and gooseberry are very similar in their cultural requirements. A deep, rich and moist soil is the best--approaching a clayey loam. There need be no fear of giving too much manure, but it...
July/August Average Eureka, CA 61 Medford, OR 89 Eugene, OR 82 Astoria, OR 68 Olympia, WA 78 Seattle, WA 75 Bellingham, WA 74 Vancouver, BC 73 Victoria, BC 68
Suppose you are growing a conventional, irrigated garden and something unanticipated interrupts your ability to water. Perhaps you are homesteading and your well begins to dry up. Perhaps you're a bac...