Posts

Easy-to-Grow Plants with Yellow Vegetables Beans – Often referred to as wax beans, yellow beans are available in both pole and bush varieties. Plus, these yellow veggies have the same cultivation requirements as traditional green beans. Wax beans have a mild grassy flavor similar to green beans and they retain their color when cooked. Beets – If the staining effect of traditional red beets is keeping you from serving this healthy veggie, golden beets are the answer....

Planning a Backyard Halloween Celebration A Halloween party outside is super fun, but the weather is chilly in many parts of the country, even during the day. Remind guests to bring jackets (and masks). If you don’t have a covered patio, you can purchase or rent a tent or canopy from a party supply store. You can also rent propane heaters. Decorating for Halloween in the Garden Have fun creating a backyard Halloween celebration and remember that decorations don’t have to be perfect to create a spooky Halloween vibe....

Mulberry Tree Harvest Mulberry trees attain a height of between 20 and 30 feet (6-9 m.). They make lovely, fast-growing landscape trees with the added bonus of producing delicious berries and leaves suitable for steeping as tea. The berries really stand out though. They look much like elongated blackberries and are sinfully sweet. Starting a mulberry tree from seed can be difficult. The seed needs 90 days of cold, moist stratification and even then, has a low germination rate....

Edible Nasturtium Flowers and Leaves Many people assume it is the leaves that are edible, like an herb or salad green, but you can use the flowers too, for culinary decoration and for eating. Both the leaves and the flowers have a peppery, spicy flavor and add a bite to green salads. They can also be used in cooked dishes but should be added in the last few minutes to avoid overcooking....

When to Harvest Tapioca Root The roots can be harvested, cooked, and eaten as soon as they form, but if you are looking for a somewhat substantial harvest, you may want to hold off for a while. Some early cultivars of cassava can be harvested as early as six to seven months after planting. Most varieties of cassava, however, are typically of a plump harvestable size around the eight to nine month mark....

What is an Herb? Herbs are defined as plants that are useful to humans. Not quite the same as a vegetable or a fruit, an herb is something we value for a variety of different reasons. An herb can be useful to us for its flavor, its scent, its medicinal properties or its use as an insecticide. Some herbs are used as coloring for dyes or for industrial uses. Herbs have been used for thousands of years in teas and balms to relieve physical ailments, such as upset stomachs and stress-induced illness....

High heat and worm bins normally make a bad combination, but you can still experiment with vermicomposting when it’s hot outside as long as you make the right preparations. High Heat and Worm Bins The hottest temperatures can kill off an entire worm population if you do nothing to help save it. Even if your worms survive, a heat wave can make them sluggish, sick, and useless for composting. If you live in an environment that is hot for a good portion of the year, such as Florida or Texas, install your worm bins with an eye toward keeping them as cool as possible....

Different Kinds of Honeysuckles The different types of honeysuckle include both shrubs and climbing vines. The vines climb by twining themselves around their supporting structure, and can’t cling to solid walls. Most need spring pruning to keep them from growing out of control and becoming a tangled mass of vines. They regrow quickly, so don’t be afraid to give them a severe cut. Honeysuckle Vines Trumpet honeysuckle (L. sempervirens) and Japanese honeysuckle (L....

How to Attract Bumble Bees How do you attract bumble bees? Attracting bumble bees to the garden isn’t difficult and it doesn’t require a lot of time or a large growing space. Even if you have a few potted plants or a window box, you can attract bumble bees. The most important thing is to provide the right types of flowers. Otherwise, a muddy or damp area provides drinking water for the bees, and a small brush pile with dry grass or twigs makes a good nesting habitat....

What is Hydrocooling? Very simply, the method of hydrocooling is a way to rapidly cool produce by running near-freezing water over fruits and vegetables immediately after they are harvested. Without hydrocooling vegetables and fruits, once they have been harvested, the quality of the produce begins to decline, hence its shelf life. So how does hydrocooling work exactly? How Does Hydrocooling Work? Temperature and relative humidity begin to affect the quality of produce immediately after being harvested....

Read on to learn how to grow and plant spinach in the garden. Before Growing Spinach Before you jump into spinach planting, you’ll want to decide which type you’d like to grow. There are two typical types of spinach, savoy (or curly) and flat leaf. Flat leaf is most commonly frozen and canned because it grows more rapidly and is much easier to clean than savoy. Savoy cultivars taste and look better, but their curly leaves make cleaning difficult as they tend to trap sand and dirt....

You can propagate crepe myrtle trees as well, for planting crepe myrtles in your landscape or giving them to others. Let’s look at how to grow crepe myrtle from seed, how to start crepe myrtles from roots or crepe myrtle propagation by cuttings. How to Grow Crepe Myrtle from Seed Once flowering ceases, crepe myrtles produce pea-sized berries. These berries eventually become seedpods. Once brown, these seedpods split open, resembling small flowers....

There’s really no such thing as easy desert gardening, as gardening always requires a fair amount of work. However, the following tips will help you save water, time, and money. Desert Gardening 101: Know Your Desert Deserts are defined as areas with sparse precipitation, but all deserts aren’t created equal. Low elevation deserts typically have mild winters and scorching hot summers, while high desert climates are warm and dry during the summer and freezing cold during the winter....

Things That Can Kill Your Seedlings Growing plants from seeds is a rewarding endeavor that reaps big rewards. Caring for seedlings after germination isn’t hard, but attention to such things as damping off, nutrition, temperature, water, light and transplanting will guarantee stout seedlings that survive the rigors of outdoor living. Even the most experienced gardener can benefit from some seedling care tips to boost their success. Those little green shoots poking through the soil send our hearts soaring with thoughts of fresh produce and the joy it brings to our summer entertaining....

How to Plant Hyacinth Bulbs in Pots Container grown hyacinths are not difficult to grow. Hyacinths bloom in the spring, but their bulbs take a long time to establish roots, which means they should be planted in autumn. Pick out enough containers that your bulbs can fit in them close together but not touching. Numbers will vary with the size of your bulbs, but this should equal about seven bulbs for an 8 inch (20 cm....

Old Man Cactus Houseplants This cactus can go outside in USDA zones 9 and 10. Native to Mexico, they need hot, dry climates and bright sunlight. The long hair is used by the plant to keep itself cool in its natural habitat. As an outdoor plant, they can get 45 feet (13 m.) tall but are generally slow growing as potted plants. Old man cacti are mostly grown as houseplants and stay small and easily kept in a container for their entire lives....

Beneficial Insects for a Garden When people talk about insects, they often have mosquitoes or flies in mind, bugs that you wish were not in the yard. But many bugs help your plants thrive. In fact, beneficial insects for a garden are a gardener’s best friends. Some insects, like bees and butterflies, pollinate flowers. Other beneficial insects chow down on destructive bugs like aphids and scale insects. Another group of insect, termed parasitoids, live on or inside an insect pest, killing it as they feed....

Iresine Plant Info Bloodleaf (Iresine herbstii) is also called chicken-gizzard, beefsteak plant, or Formosa bloodleaf. Iresine bloodleaf plants are native to Brazil where they thrive in warm temperatures and bright sunlight. In their native environment, the plants reach heights of up to 5 feet (1.5 m.) with a spread of 3 feet (91 cm.), but when grown as annuals or potted plants they only grow 12 to 18 inches (31-46 cm....

This is a harrowing time in history and some of you may not want to know more about Irish potato information, but it is important to learn about the history of Irish potatoes so it is not repeated. So, what is an Irish potato anyways? Read on to learn more. What is an Irish Potato? This is an interesting bit of Irish potato information, but the potato actually did not originate from Ireland as its name suggests, but rather South America....

Are Cocoon and Chrysalis the Same or Different? Most people understand that a cocoon is the structure a caterpillar weaves around itself and from which it later emerges transformed. But many also assume that the term chrysalis means the same thing. This is not true, and they have very different meanings. The main difference between a chrysalis and a cocoon is that the former is a life stage, while a cocoon is the actual casing around the caterpillar as it transforms....