Professional Gardening Tips
Peppers Peppers – Here is a complete listing of peppers to support your gardening/eating needs. Each page provides the pepper information to support the reference data below. The only negative issue is that you have to come back to this page to use the below reference notes to understand the pepper. The tables were too big to put on one […]
Apricots Of Mediterranean origin and flowering in late February and March, outdoor apricots demand a frost-free sunny site. Bush trees can be grown only in the southwest and southeast North America and England; elsewhere, as fan-trained trees on walls facing east, south, or southwest, or in greenhouses. Apricots prefer a moisture retentive, friable and well-drained soil: they object to stiff […]
Dianna Vreeland, the celebrated editor of Vogue magazine, was fabled for the pronouncements that she made about all kinds of things. One of the most famous was, “Pink is the navy blue of India.” Of course, this statement came at a time when navy blue was one of the perennial “neutral” colors in women’s fashion in the United States. Mrs. Vreeland […]
The pears grown in England is the European Pear which derives from Pyrus communis, native of the temperate parts of Europe and the western part of southern Asia as far as the Himalayas. In America some varieties are grown which are hybrids between the European Pear (as represented by `William’s Bon Chretien’, known in America as ‘Bartlett’) and Pyrus serotina, […]
Kale Also known as borecole, this hardy vegetable is a member of the brassica family. Varieties include the Scotch kales, cottager’s kale, thousand-headed and asparagus kale. All are grown for winter supplies of greens. They are particularly recommended to gardeners in very cold areas where winter cabbage and sprouting broccoli are difficult crops. Sow seeds in the open on a […]
Asparagus This delicious vegetable is expensive to buy but easy to grow. The shoots are cut below soil level when they are about 10cm (4in) long, but all cutting must cease soon after the middle of June to allow the plants to develop over the summer and build up the crowns for the following spring. Asparagus plants must not be […]
ARTICHOKES: CHINESE, GLOBE, AND JERUSALEM There are three distinct kinds of Artichoke grown as vegetables: the Jerusalem Artichoke, for its tubers; the Globe Artichoke, for the young flower heads, and the young shoots, which are blanched to provide “chards”; and the Chinese or Japanese Artichoke, for its small tubers. The name Artichoke is a corruption of the Italian articiocco, itself […]
Although the calendar may say spring, here in the north country, March only hints at the warmer weather to come. For gardeners this can be a frustrating month with late season snows, fluctuating temperatures, and mud limiting outdoor activities. One way to shorten the waiting period until the gardening season is to force branches of spring flowering shrubs like forsythia, […]
When I was growing up, my father’s friend, Richard Pastecki, grew lots of eggplant. He did not eat them grilled or in salads, and it would never have occurred to him to use them in something as unfamiliar as ratatouille. Richard Pastecki raised eggplant for only one reason—Eggplant Parmesan. In the Pastecki household Eggplant Parmesan was taken very seriously. Richard’s […]
Everyone knows how delicious is the taste of carefully home-canned produce from the family Vegetable Garden, but as a rule she cannot forget even for a moment the labor which Canning costs the women of the household. I myself have a small Vegetable Garden and do my Canning without assistance, three or four quarts at a time. Those who enjoy […]