How much light should tomato seedlings get? If you give them too little, they will become tall, skinny, unhealthy plants, a condition called leggy. If you give them too much the leaves will be damaged. How much is the best amount?
The new science of growing tomato seedlings will surprise you.
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This question was asked in our Facebook Group: “How can I utilize my garden to save money on groceries? My garden always costs me way more than the amount of food I get from it.”
That is a great question and in this post, I’ll look at ways to keep costs down in the vegetable garden.
I am sure you have heard of determinate tomatoes and beans. I have known about them for years and knew they formed bushes and produced all of their fruit at one time. After that, they stop growing.
Turns out that most of the things I thought I knew about determinate plants is wrong! Not only that, but 99.9% of the gardening information about determinate plants online, in books, in seed catalogs and even Master Gardening Groups is incorrect.
Why should you care? This myth can cause you to grow the wrong type of vegetable.
There seems to be a lot of confusion about F1 hybrid seeds. Here is the truth about some common myths.
Does the fruit of squash and pumpkins need light to complete its ripening process? Should you remove leaves so that sun can get to the fruit to speed up ripening? If pumpkins are picked green, should they be left in sunshine or not?
Peppers come in many colors; green, yellow, orange, red and even purple, but when is the best time to pick them? Will they ripen after you harvest them? If they ripen indoors are they as good as vine ripened ones? Let’s have a close look.
Discussions about fertilizing tomatoes is mostly about selecting the right NPK and rarely discusses the amount to use. When quantity does come up, most comments suggest following the instructions on the box. But are the instructions on the box correct? Are the instructions complete enough so that you can apply the correct amount?
This post will compare some commercial products to see what they suggest and then I’ll compare that to reliable agricultural recommendations to see how much fertilizer gardeners should be using to grow great tomatoes.
You built some great raised garden beds and now you need to fill them but soil is heavy to move and expensive. You look around for a better alternative and find a hundred suggestions online. Which is the best option?
I started using raised beds back in 1974 and have tried a lot of variations over the years. In this post I’ll combine the science with my experience and tell you what works and what doesn’t, and give you the best option for filling raised beds.
Did you know that hybrid vegetables can be toxic? If you are a strong proponent of heirlooms you are probably jumping up and down with joy and if you grow a lot of hybrids you are probably wondering if I have lost my marbles! Let me be clear, most hybrids are perfectly safe to eat, but there are a few special cases where they are not safe.
Understanding these cases of toxic hybrid vegetables provides insights into the risk of saving seeds and using natural means to develop new cultivars.
When should you plant garlic? The common advice is to plant after the first hard frost. That advice may work but it is not right. The best planting time has nothing to do with frost!
It’s hard to find an ornamental garden without at least a couple of Hosta, but did you know hostas can be grown as perennial vegetables? Hostas, also called plantain lilies, have found their way into almost every garden in Zones 3 through 8, and for good reason – they’re resilient, beautiful, drought tolerant, shade tolerant, and low-maintenance yet not aggressive. For the same reasons, hostas make a wonderful addition to a perennial vegetable garden.
How to Grow, Harvest and Eat Hosta, harvesting shoots, source: Practical Self Reliance
I have never soaked garlic before planting but it might be a good idea. There is certainly a trend towards soaking with water, fertilizer, fish emulsion or disinfectants. This post will examine these techniques to see if they affect plant growth and the size of harvested garlic.
