Category Archive

Plants & Gardening

These posts cover vegetables, flower gardens, houseplants, and the trails and tribulations associated with them.

How to prune everbearing raspberries

Learning how to prune my everbearing raspberries

The tricky thing about everbearing raspberries is that, unlike summer-bearing raspberries that produce one big crop in late summer, these plants give two smaller crops per year. You can pretty much prune summer-bearing raspberries all the way to the ground in the winter, but if you want both crops from the everbearing, you have to know which canes to cut to the ground and which to prune back carefully and by how much.

How to start from seed

How to start from seed

I’ve got a lot of seeds I haven’t used up from the past two or three years, and I promised myself I wouldn’t buy more until I’ve used what I’ve got. With such a variety of ages and sources, there’s no telling what will make it to harvest, especially with the older seeds. But it’s either throw them away or throw them in dirt to see what happens. Here’s my general plan of attack for starting anything from seed…

Rescuing already-sprouted tulip bulbs

A spell of weirdly warm weather got me rummaging around in my little gardening closet, and I stumbled across something that would fill any home gardener with horror. I’d completely forgotten that I had bought a bunch of tulip and hyacinth bulbs late last summer.

How do I turn a driveway into a vegetable garden?

It’s January and Spring is fast approaching so I’ve got planting on my mind. Unfortunately, the only spot that really works for a vegetable garden is a patch of yard that was paved over as a driveway extension. So the question is, what is the best way to make this space useable as a garden?

The most amazing desk I’ve ever seen looks like the Little Mermaid’s work station

While walking home from brunch, my friend Drew (of wheat allergy questions fame) and I stumbled upon a nursery that I’ve always wanted to explore. So we took a detour and started wandering amongst the funky plants and trees for sale. Then we stumbled upon the coolest desk I’ve ever seen…

Apartment balcony container garden: before and after

Last year, I tried planting some simple herbs for the first time; this year, I decided to get serious and do some real vegetable container gardening! To fuel my motivation, I even took a workshop on organic balcony gardening through one of our local CSAs, Fresh City Farms. But first, I needed to clean up the rust and ugly of our apartment balcony…

My parents’ pallet garden fence is ugly and awesome

My parents got a huge stack of pallets. They also got a huge influx of deer on their property this year. And the idea to grow a big ol’ vegetable garden. These three factors converged to create the Ugly Pallet Fence. Though it be ugly, it is quite effective…

Deer lawd — the easiest way to keep deer from eating your tulips

Here in the U.S., we have a lot of deer. So many in my area that we often see them chilling by the side of the road like it ain’t no thing. And for those of you who grow flowers in your garden, you might know that they enjoy eating the fine delicacy that is your colorful tulips. Here’s my favorite way to keep them from chowing down.