With the arrival of July and hotter weather, many gardeners leave the garden to fend for itself. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help the harvest. Although your planting may be done, to ensure good yields, you need to spend time in the garden watering, weeding, and checking for insect pests. Some crops will benefit from a modest side dressing of nitrogen fertilizer […]
Last week, I dropped in to see one of my daughter’s former teachers. The teacher has a warm, sunny classroom with an array of flourishing potted plants on the windowsills. It was a midwinter treat to see such luxuriant geraniums and aloes. I just missed the blooming period of a large jasmine, but from the size of it, I am […]
Gardening fads and fashions are as perennial as gardening itself. This spring giant plants such Colocasia (elephant ears) and Alocasia are all over the covers of gardening magazines and catalogs. Next year miniatures will probably return, only to be supplanted after awhile by something else. Editorial ink always flows like water over Niagara Falls, submerging the old horticultural trends and […]
Onions When the seeds are to be sown directly in the soil where the plants are to grow, the bed should be well prepared. Digging and manuring will have been carried out during the late autumn or winter and the soil needs raking before sowing so that the bed is level, even and free of large clods and stones. Sow […]
Useful and Easily Grown Flowers for Garden and Greenhouse Tagetes (Tage’tes) are annuals of great decorative value during the summer and autumn months. They are natives of Mexico and South America and belong to the Daisy family, Compositae. The name is said to have been derived from a mythological deity, Tages. These Marigolds are quite distinct from the Pot Marigold […]
TOMATOES All gardeners take pride in vine-ripened tomatoes. In addition to traditional red tomatoes, you can grow tomatoes that ripen to yellow, orange, and even purple. Small cherry tomatoes are ideal for salads and fleshy paste tomatoes cook into a rich, thick sauce. Tomatoes are not difficult to grow, provided they get plenty of sun and warmth. PEPPERS Peppers are […]
Radishes Seeds of this quick-growing vegetable may be sown for salads at intervals from early March to October. It is generally treated as a catch crop, being sown on a piece of ground which is intended for cabbages or some other crop to be planted subsequently. A rich, moist soil and cool conditions yield the most succulent radishes. Slow growth […]
Picture this: you’re an enthusiastic gardener, ready for a weekend of fruitful toil, only to discover rust on your favourite shears or your lawnmower refusing to start. Sound familiar? Such is a common woe faced by garden lovers across the country. Your garden equipment – the heart and soul of your green pursuits – often faces the brunt of weather […]
MAY is the joyous month of the year, when old and young are working in their gardens. Perennials are now coming into bloom, but the various bulbous flowers are putting forth every effort to distract our attention from their fair sisters. The unwise annuals are growing, preparing for their profusion of bloom, overlooking the fact that other plants are conserving […]
Spider mites, also known as two-spotted mites, become a particular problem for the gardener through the winter. Normally, they hibernate in ground litter or under the bark of trees or shrubs. However, if they stow away onto a plant being brought indoors, the artificial lights, and warm, dry, conditions of most heated homes will allow them to keep infecting plants. […]