Spring burst upon the scene this month, and was I ever glad to see it, as was just about everyone else I know in my part of the southwest, i.e. from the Rockies south thru the Sangre de Cristo mountains to Albuquerque. We had the errant snowfall…like it lost its way then dropped a desultory […]
The greenhouse can do many wonderful things, particularly at this time of year, but one of the things it cannot do is make up for me having bought tomato plants too early. I know this lesson. I learned it many years ago, or at least I should have. Tomatoes grow fast, and as they do […]
There are so many ways to enjoy strawberries, a bright-colored topping on your breakfast cereal being just one. So why not try your hand at growing them. Strawberries can be grown in pots, both inside and outside a greenhouse. Or you can grow them in the ground, either outdoors or in a greenhouse bed. If […]
Brighten up your greenhouse with tubs of colourful Fountain Grasses in red, crimson or purple marked foliage. Good splashes of colour these are especially useful amongst taller plants camouflaging bare stems or disguising tubs. Fountain Grasses are remarkably easy to care for with minimal attention yet respond with luxuriant displays throughout the growing season. The […]
There is never a perfect time to have knee replacement surgery…or any surgery for that matter. However, for this gardener, May 1, 2024, was exactly the wrong time since it erased for all practical purposes an entire gardening year. Even now, as I write this, my right knee is complaining after just a brief totter […]
Space in a greenhouse is often at a premium. Traditionally, seed starting requires room on tables for multiple containers, heat mats, etc. So, when I found out that my colleague, Seattle garden journalist and speaker, Erica Browne Grivas was working with a new space-saving method, I was interested. Basically, it involves creating long rolls of […]
Whether you’re planting a new garden, or filling out an established plot, bare-root perennials will deliver: they’re cost-effective, eco-friendly and raring to grow. It doesn’t take much to embark on a lifelong adventure in gardening. You might be a newbie with a builders-just-left-the-scene blank canvas, or be itching to make your own mark on a […]
When I was a young thing in my twenties, I spent some time in a lowly position in plant breeding and we worked on producing better cauliflower varieties. Each cauliflower in the field, and there were thousands of them to assess, was individually scored for depth of curd, colour and rice-like quality. The latter was […]
There are lots of positive things we can do to support our garden birds. High on the list is ensuring a rich supply of natural food, including insects. If you love the garden birds you need to love insects too because without insects our birds (and many other creatures would die). We need insects and […]
Last year the US Department of Agriculture released a new Plant Hardiness Zone Map, which is based on average minimum winter temperatures over the prior 10 years. Most locations were given a somewhat higher categorization on this new map to account for global warming. So, because of ongoing climate change, gardeners may be seeing earlier […]
One of the delights of this moment of the year in the greenhouse is my dwarf nectarine, in a pot on the sunniest side. It is true that spring is starting to show itself elsewhere: I have a collection of pots and plugs of seed compost on the greenhouse bench that are showing little signs […]
At this time of year, a weather beating greenhouse is invaluable. Hot sunny days, followed by clear, cold nights means that the remains wet and cold, so it is too early for sowing outdoors directly into the soil. It’s long been accepted that parsnips are sown outdoors in February but the truth is that sowing […]
