Like many gardeners I go kicking and screaming into winter. Grey skies, slushy sidewalks and short days without time spent in my lush and colourful garden is a bummer, plain and simple. However, when I bundle up and venture out despite my reluctance, I discover little glimmers of life in
The growing season is winding down with shorter days and cooler temperatures, and our gardens are starting to look a little rough around the edges. It’s time to bring in the final harvests, tidy up, and put away what we can for the winter.
When to harvest? Before the squirrels do! September is upon us and overflowing baskets of garden goodies are everywhere. But harvesting in Zones 5 and 6 is not just an autumn endeavour. It's a season-long process that begins with the first herbs of April, rolls right into asparagus, ramps and cold
We all know what a home is – a place where you live, raise a family, each, sleep, play, socialize, perhaps work. A homestead is all that and more – it’s also a place where you grow and preserve food, raise animals, make compost, create biodiversity, build for the future,
Pollinators range from butterflies, bees, beetles, small mammals, birds and bats that are responsible for facilitating 90% of the pollination of our world’s flowering plants. They may feed off pollen or distribute seeds. These pollinators do a lot of work that benefits humans, as they provide us with fruit, vegetables,
Whether you use the most sophisticated and expensive in-ground irrigation with the latest tech, or your basic hose and nozzle system, you will need to shut things down for the winter. Not doing so can lead to broken hoses, burst pipes, a lot of waste and potentially great expense.
Autumn is a bittersweet time of year. The days are getting noticeably shorter yet garden-weary plant-lovers can now look forward to a winter rest. But before that can happen there is much to be done before putting your gardens to bed and putting your feet up with a hot toddy.
Microgreens are densely seeded edible plants that are harvested and consumed prematurely. Microgreens are a nutritional powerhouse, holding up to 40 times more vitamins and nutrition than their mature counterparts.
Personally, I love how a sprinkle of microgreens can instantly transform my go-to meal of nuked frozen vegetables (don't judge
Attention garlic lovers! Why buy grocery-store garlic grown half way around the world when you can grow your own right at home? It’s an easy-to-grow, low maintenance crop that produces two harvests - first the edible flower stalk (called a garlic scape) in early June, and then the fat, juicy bulb in
Tomatoes are relatively easy to grow if you can give them at least five hours of direct sun a day. You will be richly rewarded with an exquisite late summer harvest if you provide a stake to support their growth, feed them well with quality compost and prune them properly.
How early in the season can a vegetable garden be planted? Early!
You might be surprised to learn that there are many vegetables prefer growing in cool weather and actually grow poorly during the summer heat. In honour of our 10th Anniversary I highlight here my top 10 favorite
Garden plans come in all shapes and sizes, anything from a rough, hand-drawn sketch of a garden bed against a fence to computer generated drawings of entire landscapes.
No matter how simple or elaborate a design, the process of doing a garden plan is an important first step in
Growing your own seedlings is easy. All you need is a pot, a seed and a growing medium like potting soil; light, water and the seed will do the rest