Winterizing ponds is important for anyone who lives in a climate where water freezes. Even in warmer areas were temperatures get close to freezing, you should consider some preparation steps for cold weather.
This post looks at things you should consider before winter sets in.
There is a lot of talk these days about the environmental impact of using peat and peat moss in horticulture. We are told to stop using it so that we can preserve the peatlands. This sounds like the responsible thing to do, but is this really a problem? Are we running out of peat? Reports seem to indicate that Europe has used up all of its and now Canada is starting to do the same. Is horticulture really responsible for the loss of bogs and wetlands?
If we don’t use peat or peat moss, what alternatives are there? Coir gets mentioned a lot, but is it a suitable substitute? Is it a better choice, environmentally?
Much of the information about peat moss is misunderstood, and it’s time to weed through the myths.
Rhubarb is a great vegetable that is one of the easiest things to grow. I deadhead the flower stem, mulch with wood chips and that is the only care the plant has gotten in 10 years. It produces every year. But gardeners need to make things more complicated and numerous rhubarb myths have developed.
Fertilizing gardens is a popular topic and every gardening book and website will give you advice. There are thousands of products on the market claiming they are the best ones for your garden. The problem is that almost none of this information is correct. Most gardeners are wasting time and money on fertilizer they don’t need. Even worse is the fact that they are wasting a valuable natural resource and polluting the environment.
If you garden, please take the time to understand fertilizers. I know this is not a glamorous topic, but it is very important to the garden and the environment.
Rhubarb is a favorite vegetable of gardeners in temperate climates since it is so easy to grow. We eat the stems, and know that you should never eat the leaves since they are poisonous due to high levels of oxalic acid.
I’ve known this fact since I was a kid so you can imagine my surprise when I learned a few weeks ago that this is all a big myth. Lets dig into the truth.
Corydalis solida is a great spring ephemeral that brings an unusual color to the garden at this time of year. How many of our spring flowers are red, pink or purplish red? Spread them around the garden between larger plants and enjoy them while the larger plants are still sleeping. By the time they grow to any size, C. solida will have gone underground for a summer snooze.
The reason cucumbers, squash, muskmelons and watermelons should not be grown near each other is that they are all cucurbits and may cross-pollinate to produce weird franken-gourds. This myth does have some truth in it, but it is not good gardening advice.
Watering plants correctly is one of the easiest things to learn in gardening but many people find it confusing. The reason for this is that they want to use regular schedules. Regular schedules, like once a week, do not work. If you want to learn how to water your garden or house plants correctly you need to learn a little bit about plants and soil. This post will simplify the whole thing so that you will always know when to water.
Bunching onions are very popular and can be expensive to buy. Fortunately, they are easy to grow and take up very little space in the garden.
Native bees are apparently in trouble. They are dying by the millions. We all need to plant more flowers to try and save the bees. Turns out that much of this is based on false information. We don’t actually know the status of most native bees.
In this post I will look at how this myth got started and discuss some real facts about native bees.
Allium fistulosum is a perennial onion that is good to eat and makes a great garden plant. It has many common names but the most common are welsh onion or Japanese bunching onion. “Welsh” is a corruption of the German “Walsch,” meaning “foreign,” and has no reference to Wales.
I have seen hundreds of reports about the honeybees dying. If we don’t do something soon we will loose 75% of our food supply. Chemicals are killing them by the millions. But are they really dying? Do we have a catastrophe on our hands or do we have a bunch of fear mongering authors who do not understand science?
From a myth busting point of view this is an interesting story. The truth depends very much on how you ask the question.
