Plants
Growing Microgreens Indoors and in Winter
No matter the season, you can have something that you’ve grown on your plate – microgreens! Growing microgreens is easy, quick and satisfying for the off-season gardener. The greens add a nutritious touch of freshness to salads and sandwiches and growing microgreens is a fun project with children. Microgreens usually go from seed to plate…
Read MoreGardening Love and Lunacy
Let’s face it: gardening in a northern zone means November is about as depressing as gardening gets. I mean, I love my plants, and watching the last little flowers on my rose bushes, obedient plants and a few other late-blooming soldiers succumb to the frigid temps actually makes me sad. I know there is nothing…
Read MoreAsk a Master Gardener: When to Plant Amaryllis Bulbs?
Happy Halloween! I admit, I shuddered a bit to see Target being transformed into a Christmas wonderland this week, but at the same time, it was a good reminder: time to plant amaryllises! This edition of Ask a Master Gardener attempts to demystify what is admittedly a fairly easy process—it just requires some planning. Q:…
Read MoreHerbal Happy Hour
Few things brighten up a winter kitchen like a cheerful container of herbs on the windowsill, but those savory stems take on glamorous appeal when used to class up some classic cocktails. More than just looking pretty, however, these everyday herbs add interesting dimensions when infused into otherwise ordinary tipples. This winter, wow your guests…
Read MoreGarden Zone Experiments
What’s your garden zone? Do you ever try to cheat it? Purple passion flower scales a trellis on the side of Beth’s home. I rarely do. Most of the plants I grow that belong in warmer zones have two fates: I allow them to perish with the first frost or freeze; or I place them…
Read MoreA Nightmare Awaits
Your heart’s racing, hands shaking… still you reach for the doorknob. The hinge creaks. Cobwebs stretch and snap as a widening crack of light seeps in, crawling along the floor and up the back wall to illuminate something you thought you had long since forgotten, something you wished would just disappear. But there it sits,…
Read MoreCan You Grow Food Indoors?
Author Kim Roman says, yes, you can. In her new book, How to Garden Indoors and Grow Your Own Food Year Round (Creative Homeowner, 2022), Roman gives encouraging and pragmatic tips for how to grow food indoors using hydroponic and soil-based systems. A gardening teacher and expert in square-foot gardening, Roman lives in Maryland (USDA…
Read MoreSaving and Storing Dahlia Tubers
Since dahlias are native to Mexico, it’s not surprising that they can’t survive our winters here. What makes them so popular with northern gardeners, however, is the fact that they grow from tubers, which we can dig up and store inside during the winter. This makes them “perennial” in some respects, because we can…
Read MoreWhat to Plant in October
In October, many gardeners’ thoughts turn to clean-up and buttoning down for winter. But don’t scrub your trowel just yet—many plants thrive when planted in the fall, even in the North, and our weather for the first 10 days of the month looks lovely. Here are a few to add to your shopping list to…
Read MoreAsk a Master Gardener: Veggie Garden Clean Up
Hello and happy pumpkin spice season to those of you who celebrate! (I definitely do.) This summer went by quickly, but what could be better than pumpkins, hooded sweatshirts and fall colors? How about potato leek soup with frost-kissed leeks from the garden, or an entire stalk of brussels sprouts? I hope you’re savoring harvest…
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