Independent gardening advice for real gardens, balconies and windowsills.
Practical guides on soil, composting, watering, seeds, pests and the everyday skills that make a garden thrive.
That is the first step toward the preparation of a successful garden out of the way. Next comes the harrowing; if the soil after plowing is at all stiff and lumpy, get a disc-harrow if you can; on cla...
It is a very common thing to allow the garden vegetables not used to rot on the ground, or in it. There is a great deal of unnecessary waste in this respect, for a great many of the things so neglecte...
Dry though the maritime Northwest summer is, we enter the growing season with our full depth of soil at field capacity. Except on clayey soils in extraordinarily frosty, high-elevation locations, we u...
Most perennial and biennial herbs are actually weeds and wild hillside shrubs from Mediterranean climates similar to that of Southern California. They are adapted to growing on winter rainfall and sur...
Probably one of the good resolutions made with the New Year was a better garden for the coming summer. The psychologists claim that the only hope for resolutions is to nail them down at the start with...
Beet, late July-August 2 3-4 in. 15 in. Borecole May-June[2] 1/2-1 2 ft. 2-1/2 ft. Broccoli May-June[2] 1/2-1 2 ft. 2-1/2 ft. Brussels sprouts May-June[2] 1/2-1 1-1/2 ft. 2-1/2 ft. Cabbage late May-Ju...
Formerly it was the custom for gardeners to invest their labors and achievements with a mystery and secrecy which might well have discouraged any amateur from trespassing upon such difficult ground. "...
I use the term "methods of fighting" rather than the more usual one, "remedies," because by both experience and study I am more and more convinced that so long as the commercial fields of agriculture...
For white-grub and cut-worm see pages elsewhere in the text. For rust, which frequently injures the leaves so seriously as to cause practical loss of crop, choose hardy varieties and change bed freque...