Poles for pole beans must be anchored well — two feet into the ground — or they’ll blow over in a summer thunderstorm. Instead of going to all that work, tie three poles together at the top, spread them tepee fashion, then push the bottoms into the soil and plant around them. Children love the natural tepee they form. Read the rest of this entry »
Too lazy to put in pea fences?
Prop up vines with piles of hay, a la Ruth Stout.
Plant dwarf peas, those that grow only fifteen to eighteen inches high, in rows five to six inches apart or in a six-inch wide trench. Plants will intertwine and hold each other up. Read the rest of this entry »
Have all the advantages of vertical growing without the bother of pruning and tying: grow your tomatoes in cages. Buy them commercially or construct sturdier ones yourself. Use concrete reinforcing wire with six-inch mesh. (Wire used for cages should have openings large enough for your hand to reach through for harvesting.) For each cage, cut a section of wire five feet three inches long: the three-inch pieces can be hooked to the other end of the mesh to form the cylinder. Each cylinder holds one plant. You can make the diameter of the cylinder larger (three to four feet) and put three plants inside. Open the cylinders and store flat in winter. Read the rest of this entry »
How you handle wining crops, such as peas, pole beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and melons depends on your attitude toward the garden as well as the space you have available. As you plan the layout of next year’s plot, choose a system that suits your gardening style. Read the rest of this entry »
Lazy gardeners, here’s an opportunity to sit in the shade and watch thousands work for you. Try beekeeping. Bees love to work, and you’ll see a steady stream of the worker (female) bees rushing in and out of the hive from dawn to dark, storing honey and pollinating blossoms in your garden and orchard. To get all this, plus 100 or so pounds of honey each year, you’ll have to put in about six hours of work a year. Chances are you may spend more time than this with your bees as you get fascinated by the complex social structure that develops in the hive. Read the rest of this entry »
You’re growing cauliflower, and you’re too lazy to tie leaves over the forming head to keep it white? Partially break a few leaves and let them rest on the developing head, for easy blanching.
When harvesting cabbage, cut the head instead of pulling the plant out of the ground. You may get another crop of smaller heads. Read the rest of this entry »
“I never bend over to pick bush beans,” John Page says. He explains that, since most of the beans come at once, particularly in determinate varieties, there’s no sense in courting a backache simply because you hope to get the few beans that will appear after the main picking. “Just pull out the bean plant, take off all the beans while you’re standing up, and throw the plant in the compost.” Have a second planting under way for another harvest. Read the rest of this entry »
“The best solution to tedious harvesting chores,” says a lazy gardener, “is to have lots of kids! Corral them to shell the peas, cut the beans, husk the corn, and skin the beets.” Family bees can be fun.
But, alas, the kids grow up. Lacking a crew of children, plan a social occasion to mesh with the height of raspberry, pea, or bean season. Bill it as a harvesting party, and have a gay time with picking, shelling, and freezing in the same way that folks had with husking bees in times past. It works best with friends who have no garden. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave two hands free for harvesting raspberries, blackberries, and highbush blueberries. Tie the gathering bucket around your waist. Pick more berries in less time.
Don’t bother to wash raspberries. It makes them soggy and is a waste of time. Just eat. Read the rest of this entry »
Mortar is used not only to ’stick’ bricks together, but also to keep bricks apart. There is a slight variation in size between bricks, which would make laying very difficult if there was no way to adjust for the different sizes.
Also, bricks are one of the few building materials that ‘grow’ slightly with age, and if there was no separating medium, the brickwork would fail. Read the rest of this entry »
Garden walls give a pleasant sense of enclosure, trapping sun, excluding wind and guaranteeing privacy. They look best when in harmony with the house materials and style.
Walls are perfect backgrounds for plants that like shelter, or which drape easily or climb. Read the rest of this entry »
Older people, or those with physical disabilities, are unable to cope well with stairs or changes in level unlessvery well- designed paths are made for them. The beauty of ramps is that they can be attractively landscaped to snake around the garden, incorporating considerable height changes —without a steep gradient.
When designing ramps for access to different levels of the garden, remember that people in wheelchairs need enough room to manoeuvre comfortably. Find out the recommended dimensions and other standards for wheelchair facilities from your local authority. Read the rest of this entry »
Changes in levels in a garden can be treated in a number of ways. However, the most popular are steps and ramps.
Any set of steps must be comfortable to use — the general rule of two times the height (riser) plus length (going or tread) equals 610 mm, plus or minus 20 mm (for example, [2 x 150] +300 = 600) will ensure comfortable steps. Most people like to use steps that have a riser of 150 mm to 175 mm with a tread of 250 mm to 300 mm. As the tread width increases, the rise lessens. Each step in a flight must be the same as the others otherwise they may be dangerous to use. In some situations other dimensions may be appropriate. Read the rest of this entry »
A successful landscape needs a garden style which appeals to you, and this is often linked to the house design. It can also be influenced by the kind of plants you like, or by your garden site and its climate.
There is a variety of garden styles, from formal to cottage garden, each with its own atmosphere and character. A predominantly natural or wild garden might look best in the country, or, alternatively, it could turn a town garden into a green oasis and bird sanctuary. A Mediterranean courtyard style would suit a small garden or echo Spanish-style architecture. You may like a formal garden for its symmetry, or an oriental garden for its serenity. Read the rest of this entry »
Bird song fills the air, and the yearning to plant consumes you. Here’s where restraint is needed, before the elixir of damp earth intoxicates you. Chant “Wait, wait,” and check to see if the soil is dry enough to be worked. Scoop up a handful and squeeze. Open your hand. If the soil sticks together, it is still too wet. If it crumbles when poked, it is ready.
Never work wet soil, especially clay. You may ruin its structure for the entire season and end up tripping over solid, sun-baked clods instead of early lettuce. Read the rest of this entry »
After preparing the seedbed, run string attached to two stakes across the garden. Line up one edge of a steel garden rake next to the string and drag it the length of the row For a wider row, lay out two strings to the desired width and drag the rake between them.
Broadcast seed in the raked area, slightly closer together than you would in a conventional row. Press into soil with the back of a hoe or rake. With the rake or hoe, pull soil from outside the row to cover the seed. Read the rest of this entry »
Have you selected a new garden site, and now you want to prepare it? You can spade it, but that’s hard work. Try covering it with black plastic. In one month, and often less, all plant life under the plastic will die, and the soil will have a delightfully soft, moist quality. For a much more thorough job, put a hog or two in the area. Pigs will prepare the area more completely than a rototiller. They will eat all the weeds and their roots and will turn over the soil — and fertilize it. Read the rest of this entry »
How to avoid thinning or how to thin easily small-seeded vegetables like carrots, lettuce, and parsley is a problem all gardeners face. There is more than one solution:
Broadcast plantings can be thinned with a rake. Draw a metal garden rake across the wide row or raised bed when seedlings are little — under one inch tall. Let the rake tines penetrate the soil one-quarter to one-half inch. Read the rest of this entry »
Lima beans need warm soil. Pre-sprout seeds before planting to reduce chances of their rotting in the garden. Start them in deep flats in vermiculite or perlite. Limas are “iffy” in the North. One year we had a super crop of sweet, tender beans. The next two years August was wet and cold and the pods never filled, so we reluctantly decided not to give them garden space. Read the rest of this entry »
Soak seeds of beets, Swiss chard, and peas for fifteen or twenty minutes before planting. Soak parsley, New Zealand spinach, and celery seed overnight to hasten germination.
Make multiple plantings of lettuce. “I make nine plantings of lettuce each season,” says a Vermont gardener. “Sometimes I scrape snow away to plant the first batch.” He plants only a couple of feet of each variety at a time. “I don’t try to salvage overmature lettuce,” he declares. “I turn it under and plant some more.” Read the rest of this entry »
