How to Vegetable Garden

How to Vegetable Garden in April

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:42:00 +0000

Home gardening and in particular vegetable gardening has never been so popular. Here are a few hints and tips about how to vegetable garden in the month of April. The mention of April conjures up the thought of spring and the fresh green appearing everywhere encourages us to get our hands into the garden soil. [...]

How to Vegetable Garden in April is a post from: How to Vegetable Garden

How to Vegetable Garden in March

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:27:00 +0000

How to vegetable garden in the month of March involves preparation and protection. Soil needs to be warmed before any planting takes place and there will be early crops that need protection. Vegetable Garden Preparation If you have not already begun then now is a good time to start your vegetable garden cultivation and preparation of seedbeds. [...]

How to Vegetable Garden in March is a post from: How to Vegetable Garden

How to make your garden grow: Seeds vs. seedlings

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 11:56:03 +0000

Providence Journal

A vegetable garden takes a lot of energy to maintain. For many people, it may be wiser to buy a small number of plants in the kinds of vegetables, ...
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How to make your garden grow: Seeds vs. seedlings is a post from: How to Vegetable Garden

Bill Finch: Start simple on vegetable gardens

Vegetable Gardening News — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:02:09 +0000

Press-Register - al.com (blog)

By Bill Finch View full size(File)Q: Do you know where I could go to get advice on how to learn to grow a vegetable garden? I need a book of know-how, ...
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Another Great Reason to Grow Marjoram

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:56:00 +0000

After weeks of winter weather that has included snow, frosts, ice, hard ground and very cold winds it has been a joy to be able to get back into the garden again if only for a couple of days.

In those couple of days I have been able to get on with some real gardening. What do I mean by real gardening? The answer may come as a surprise when I say starting to clear last year’s debris from the herbaceous borders, pulling up any weeds that have managed to survive the winter months, gathering leaves and cutting out and dead spotted on shrubs while weeding. I have heard so many people say that they enjoy planting up a border but hate the maintenance that follows. I can understand but gardening is not just about planting. Just like a room in the house the garden needs a bit of TLC to keep it looking good, how you plant will determine how much time you need to put into the regular tidying. I plant quite densely so most of my work is late winter / early spring clearing the borders before everything starts to put on a spurt and cover the soil.

Along the edge of one border I planted marjoram (oregano). The golden leafed form is a plant I would not be without; it is like a ray of sunshine in the garden and has the benefit of small but masses of beautiful flowers. Also along the border edge I have the larger varieties with much darker green leaves and these again have a mass of flower. The idea of the planting was to have them close to the kitchen and be handy when required for cooking, so much nicer than dried oregano. This has worked well but there is yet another advantage of growing marjoram. As part of my cleaning up the borders exercise I have been weeding around the marjoram plants and cutting off all the old flower stalks and the smell of marjoram that has surrounded me has made the job such a pleasure.

The garden birds strangely are eating more seed now than when the weather was really bad. I will have to buy a new sack of seed sooner than expected! It is not very often I spot the Blackcap but this pretty little bird has been visiting the fatball that I hang in the Magnolia close to the conservatory. He is quite nervous and as yet I have not managed to take a picture. However, one bird I have been able to picture is the Sparrowhawk. I heard a bang on the conservatory window and also heard our cockatiel going berserk. She must have thought her days were numbered and he that here was a colourful and easy meal. Anyway he sat very conveniently on a bowl not far from the window so although taken through glass I am quite pleased with the results. We humans are taught by our parents what is danger and what is safe. Our cockatiel will have been separated from its mother at a very tender age and yet she instinctively knows danger. We don’t have to look out of the window to know that a Sparrowhawk is flying by or a neighbourhood cat is passing through. Amazing when you think about it.

My Garden is My Space - Hints, tips and how to articles for gardeners. Reviews and offers of garden tools, gardening equipment and many other garden related items
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Gardening and Wildlife - Gardening and wildlife stories, hints and tips...
How to Vegetable Garden - How to vegetable garden each month of the year with hints and tips on a variety of vegetables
How to Vegetable Garden in January - Seasonal hints and tips on how to vegetable garden in January
How to Vegetable Garden in February - Seasonal hints and tips on how to vegetable garden in February

Another Great Reason to Grow Marjoram is a post from: How to Vegetable Garden

Dan Pearson | Gardens

Vegetable Gardening News — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:05:22 +0000

A cutting garden is your chance to tear up the rulebook on planting – so mix lights and brights with fragrant posies and wild one-offs

This year I am planning two cutting gardens. The first and smaller of the two is to be planted this month; the second is being built this winter, with the aim to have it up and running for annuals by the summer. In many ways a cutting garden is an extravagant idea, because cutting flowers is the most luxurious way of enjoying them at close quarters, but I have no intention of either of these gardens feeling like an indulgence. They will be workmanlike and take their aesthetic from the vegetable garden or the allotment. You should be able to harvest flowers as you would a row of beans, and leave with an armful – and not the slightest twinge of guilt.

A friend and fellow designer in America has been making cutting gardens for some time, by simply fencing off an area from the garden proper. Within these vermin-proof enclosures, Edwina's vegetables, herbs and flowers are lined out in rows, with paths wide enough for a barrow to pass between them. The paths are mulched with pine needles in her own garden, as she has a wood of pine at the back, but it could just as easily be bark to keep things simple. Everything is reduced down to the most practical way of growing things: the tallest plants are at the back, so they don't put the shorter plants in the shade, and there is not a care in the world for colour – if Edwina likes it, it works. Where most garden owners would never dream of trusting you with a pair of secateurs to pick a posy for the table, it is a different thing for Edwina, and it is standard practice to be issued with a couple of buckets – one to fill with spuds and beans, the other with as many flowers as you see fit to liven up the table for lunch.

In planning my cutting gardens I have enjoyed a certain freedom, with plants that are not easily worked into the garden proper. Because as soon as you pick a flower and take it out of context, it becomes an object that you can look at for itself. Dahlias with stripes suddenly become an option – if the stripes don't work this year, then something else will next. Likewise, if you want to grow "Blue Moon" roses for their scent and curiosity, then do so – a solitary flower will be a delight in a bedside jug.

Having a brief is important, because the cutting garden needs to work hard if it is to be truly productive. The larger the area is, the more relaxed you can be about plants that might bloom only once. Bearded iris can be enjoyed without having to worry about the remaining 11 months of the year, when they are doing little more than leaf. And if you have enough room for peonies, there's the creaminess of the "Duchesse de Nemours", which, picked in bud, will rupture to perfume a room. In a decent-sized cutting garden, a whole row of once-blooming Anchusa azurea "Loddon Royalist" can easily be accommodated as a luxury, but in the main the plants should be doers, and able to come again after they have been harvested.

Planning for a long season of flowers (or several seasons) is important, so we are using modern English roses from David Austin to extend the season. We have chosen varieties that are disease resistant, as we want to run the cutting gardens on organic principles because they are close to the fruit and vegetables, but we have been free with colour as long as there is scent. We are also intercropping, using lines of Alchemilla under the roses, as "Lady's Mantle" is good filler in a vase.

The rest of the perennials are set out in rows one metre apart. Within the rows they are planted in a double line, a foot apart, and the gaps between the main rows are planted with bulbs, so you can fill a jug with tulips and not hold back – or worry that they might not come back a second year. The tulips can be dug out after they have flowered and replaced with annuals – Scabiosa atropurpurea "Chile Black", wild gloriosa daisies (Rudbeckia hirta) and mixed cosmos where a mix would never do in the flowerbeds. Whereas the perennials might take a couple of years to come to cropping well, the annuals will provide for you in a matter of months.

The smaller of our two cutting gardens is in the country, so we have decided to go two ways with the brief. The first is to use highly ornamental flowers that are in contrast to the rest of the garden, which feathers to hedgerow. There are lilies in rows that can easily be picked over for lily beetle, blowsy chrysanthemums and dahlias for the autumn. In contrast, the second route is to use plants that have a super-nature quality about them: vivid thistles such as Eryngium "Electric Haze" and Cersium rivulare "Atropurpureum", and the peachy-flowered recurrent Geum "Princess Juliana" to work in among a bundle of native grasses or cow parsley. There will be giant daisies such as Leucanthemum "T E Killin", larger-than-life Scabiosa caucasica "Blausiegel" and rows of Michaelmas daisies so that you can fill a room with them come the autumn.

It is an exciting prospect planning a garden with freedom in mind – our very own trial ground and a place where gardening can break the usual rules. ★

dan.pearson@observer.co.uk

Reader offer Observer readers can take advantage of this offer on flower seeds suitable for cutting. This superb collection contains the following: Delphinium "Pacific Giants", Eryngium alpinum "Superbum", Dahlia "Pompon" mixed, Honesty Purple and White mixed, Lavender "Hidcote", penstemon mixed colours, Sunflower Hallo, Sweet Pea Incense mixed, Shasta Daisy "Alaska" and Cosmos "Sensation" mixed. One collection costs just £9.88, saving £9 on the normal retail price. Buy two collections for £17.76 and save a further £2. Call 0330 333 6852, quoting ref OBDP141, or send a cheque made payable to Observer Reader Offers with your order, to Observer, OBDP141, Rookery Farm, Joys Bank, Holbeach St Johns, Spalding, PE12 8SG. Price includes UK mainland p&p. We reserve the right to substitute any varieties for others of equal or greater value. Dispatch will be within 28 days, supplied as packets of seed

Dan Pearson

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Dan Pearson | Gardens is a post from: How to Vegetable Garden

Use paint to make a splash

Vegetable Gardening News — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 06:00:00 +0000

Posted by mgervais
In the vegetable garden at Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boyleston, Massachusetts, a bean tower isn't just functional, it's a colorful focal point. Welcome to the Fine Gardening Garden Photo of the...

Use paint to make a splash is a post from: How to Vegetable Garden

Vegetable gardening trend likely to maintain momentum

Vegetable Gardening News — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Garden Writers Association Foundation survey suggests edibles will remain big in 2010

Vegetable gardening trend likely to maintain momentum is a post from: How to Vegetable Garden

The Urban Plantaholic’s Kitchen Garden

Vegetable Gardening News — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:36:00 +0000

I said in my last post back in August that we may return, and that has proved to be at least partly true. I am back with a new sponsor; Quilted Velvet having decided not to participate in the shows this year. Not, they assure me, a decision that had anything to do with my slightly eccentric designs. Everyone involved agreed our three show gardens were a great success.

Now it's time for something completely different. As I announced on my personal blog, Pea Soup and Pork Pies, to be found at www.tonysmithgallery.com, I am now working on an Urban Garden at Chelsea for Easigrass, the artifical grass company.

The Urban Plantaholic’s Kitchen Garden is a post from: How to Vegetable Garden

Do My Garden Birds Know Something That I Do Not?

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 09:39:00 +0000

Do my garden birds know more than me and the weather forecasters? Sometimes it makes me wonder. This is the most severe winter we have had for years. Snow, freezing temperatures that have not even reached as high as the norm for this time of the year and yet as soon as the snow and ice have cleared the birds are singing like spring is just around the corner. Not only are the garden birds singing to claim their territories but the Jackdaws are trying to build a nest in my chimney. With the winds coming from the north temperatures are still below what they should be so what is it that instils so much encouragement in them? Maybe it is the lengthening days.

Food for our feathered friends must be in short supply; a Greater Spotted Woodpecker is visiting and feeding on the large fatball I hang in the tree near the seed feeder. I have had them visiting and taking peanuts from the feeder but this is the first time I have seem them take fat. The Blackbirds are still coming to me to beg for dried fruit but even they are now taking peanuts from the feeder.

The garden birds may be preparing for spring but I think it is going to be a while before I can do any gardening outside. The lawns are looking a bit sad after the snow and I have never seen so many shrubs, including hedging, with such burnt leaves for a long time. Mother Nature has a way of recovering from these setbacks but it would not surprise me to find the odd shrub and perennial plant not putting in an appearance this year.

Probably another week and I will be making a sowing of tomato seeds. As decided after last years growing season I will just be growing Harbinger. There are newer tomato varieties that will produce fruits all the same size. However that is not a consideration for me, my tomatoes can ripen at many different sizes and I can put up with that in exchange for the excellent flavour.

In spite of the very bad weather my early flowering Mohonia is still providing colour. I have met gardeners who do not like this group of shrubs but I am a fan. There were a couple in the garden when I moved here and I have added to the collection. Very accommodating, nice yellow flowers with a pleasing perfume that can fill a garden. They make great “full stop” plants in a border or can be used as architectural plants due to their shapely (and spiky!) dark green leaves.

My Garden is My Space - Hints, tips and how to articles for gardeners. Reviews and offers of garden tools, gardening equipment and many other garden related items
Garden Diary - Stories, hints and tips by a gardener
Gardening and Wildlife - Gardening and wildlife stories, hints and tips...
How to Vegetable Garden - How to vegetable garden each month of the year with hints and tips on a variety of vegetables
How to Vegetable Garden in January - Seasonal hints and tips on how to vegetable garden in January
How to Vegetable Garden in February - Seasonal hints and tips on how to vegetable garden in February
Greater spotted woodpecker - At Lavell's today. Attached Thumbnails. Click image for larger version

Do My Garden Birds Know Something That I Do Not? is a post from: How to Vegetable Garden