In absence of isolation, hand-pollination ensures that the corn plant’s flowers are not contaminated by pollen from another variety. Hand-pollination prevents hybridization and ensures that the plant produces seeds that are true-to-type.
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It’s essential to properly prepare fruit trees for winter. Tree guards are the best method to protect your trees.
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Anyone who has an orchard or garden knows how frustrating it is to work day in and day out only to find deer have eaten your lettuce, trampled your tomatoes, pulled up turnips and carrots, ripped the leaves off your young apple trees, or eaten the fruits off the trees.
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Protect your rare or stock-up sale finds with these three proper storage tips that ensure your seeds are viable when the planting time is right. It doesn’t take much, especially if you are storing seeds for two years or less.
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Radishes are wonderfully diverse with many different colors, shapes and sizes! Spring and summer varieties can be pink, red, white, golden, or purple. They can be shaped like bulbs, be more elongated like fingers, or even taper like carrots.
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Two of the most popular crops to start indoors and transplant out are peppers and tomatoes. These tips will help ensure that you will have healthy, happy plants after you introduce them to the great outdoors.
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Maximize space in your garden with trellises. Some crop types—like cucumbers, tomatoes, and pole beans—need the extra support a trellis can provide, and others, like melons and squash, don’t require trellises but can benefit from being lifted off of the ground. When fruits are suspended from a trellis and kept from the soil surface, they are less prone to disease, and going vertical means that plants can grow vertically instead of sprawling, opening up some garden real estate on which to plant other crops.
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There are many compelling reasons to start seeds indoors, but a few sprout to the top. It’s a great way to grow long-season crops in cool climates. It creates an opportunity to harvest fruits earlier. And did we mention it’s fun?
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Strategic planning is part of any good garden design, and companion planting is one of the best strategies to help gardeners do more with any space, no matter how big or how small.
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In 2017, we visited with Lou Ann Hall—gardener extraordinaire and Former Seed Savers Exchange retail seed program manager—to learn more about the lush and inviting small-space garden (100 square feet, give or take) she created that spring on the sprawling grounds of Heritage Farm in Decorah. Read on and learn how you too can make the most of even the smallest garden spot.
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