Everyone wants the harvest to last as long as possible. In a good root cellar, many vegetables easily will keep 5 or 6 months. You don’t have to process vegetables going into the root cellar. It’s a true low-energy food preservation system. A steady cool temperature (35°-45° F.) is the main requirement. Read the rest of this entry »

The temperature in a root cellar is always a compromise. It’s never equal in all parts of the cellar. Most vegetables never get the perfect temperature.

The temperature near the ceiling of many root cellars can sometimes be 10° F. or so higher than near the floor. This variance creates temperature zones in the root cellar. Your vegetables will keep better if you understand the temperature zones of your root cellar and store crops accordingly. Read the rest of this entry »

No two home root cellars function the same. You’ll have to learn about yours through trial and error. You’ll know better than anyone else which crops will keep a long time in your root cellar and which ones won’t.

Never put anything directly on the floor because vegetables need air circulation from all sides. If you set them on the floor, they will become moist underneath and start to rot much sooner. Set your boxes, barrels, and baskets on boards on the floor so air can circulate under them. Read the rest of this entry »

Building your rows up to form raised beds can help you grow better root crops. Sometimes in heavy clay or shallow soils it’s a hassle getting long, straight carrots or parsnips, or large, well- shaped beets. The answer is to create a raised bed and heap extra topsoil onto the row from the walkways. It sounds like a lot of work but it’s not.

No matter what kind of soil you plant root crops in, get the seedbed smooth and as free of clods and rocks as possible. In rocky, clumpy ground, all the seeds won’t poke through the soil at the same time. This is a problem when you rake-thin and weed the first time.

Coaxing carrots with 0-20-0

To coax the best root crops possible from your soil, add a little phosphorus fertilizer to the seedbeds before planting. Broadcast a common commercial fertilizer such as 5-10-10. Use about 1 quart for each 100 square feet and mix it in the top 2 or 3 inches of soil. Read the rest of this entry »

Down-to-earth storage

It’s easy to keep root crops from the fall garden for months in your root cellar. Keep these points in mind:

Your late crop should be as late as possible. The later you can harvest and store them, the longer they’ll keep.

Pull or dig your storage crop after 2 or 3 days of dry weather. Leave the crop out in the sun for an hour. The vegetables will dry quickly and the soil on them will fall off easily.

Don’t wash or brush the vegetables. As soon as you dig them, “top” them right in the garden, but don’t cut the tail roots of your carrots or beets. Leave about an inch of stem on beets so they don’t bleed. Cut the tops close on other root crops. Wash the roots when you’re going to use them, not before. Read the rest of this entry »

Without a doubt, the most popular garden crop in America is tomatoes. Approximately 35 million families grow them. They’re growing varieties that bear tomatoes from the size of marbles to the size of grapefruits; pink ones, red ones, and even yellow ones. There are tomatoes which grow in the coolest, cloudiest, and shortest growing areas and there are those developed to withstand the heat of hot southern summers. No matter where you are, there’s a tomato variety for you.

Almost everybody grows tomatoes by setting out transplants. How you treat these young plants and transplant them has a lot to do with your harvest. For more and better tomatoes, here are my best planting tips:

Shop for the best plants

I’m amazed each spring when I stop at the greenhouses and nurseries and see people selecting tomato plants that are too tall and leggy! Perhaps they think that bigger means better; but with tomato transplants that’s not the case. Read the rest of this entry »

Delicious out-of‑season eating without canning, freezing, or even a root cellar.

Our Thanksgiving meal is not complete without a serving of home-grown winter squash. We store Blue Hubbard, Gold Nuggets, Butternut, Acorn, and Buttercup in the root cellar. For Thanksgiving, we choose our favorite, Blue Hubbard. I have yet to taste as flavorful a squash.

Winter squash is getting more popular with gardeners. Perhaps it’s because they require very little work, yield well, and keep for months in a cool place. You don’t even need a root cellar.

If you have a small garden, try the Gold Nugget. This winter squash takes up as much space as a zucchini plant and yields a bundle of small, delicious squash. We cut them in half and bake them— they’re wonderful. Read the rest of this entry »

Vegetative propagation involves raising plants from cuttings and by methods like layering and division.

• Division Used mainly for hardy perennials (herbaceous plants) but also for other clump-forming plants (for example, many alpines). The method is to split a complete clump into a number of smaller pieces, complete with roots and top growth or buds. Do this while plants are dormant, in autumn or early spring. Usually the centre portion of a clump is discarded, as it’s the oldest part and declining in vigour. The young vigorous outer parts are retained for replanting. With most herbaceous plants, division for replanting should be of a size which fits into the palm of your hand. Before dividing a clump shake off most of the soil from around the roots. You can split large tough clumps with an axe. The two divisions can be split further in the same way. Read the rest of this entry »

Virtually all shrubs can be propagated in this way. The following respond particularly well.

• Azalea Peg down shoots into a peaty soil. Roots form slowly, taking about 12 months.
• Camellia Best rooted in peaty soil. Takes about 12 months.
• Lilac (Syringa) Roots in about 6 months in sandy soil.
• Magnolia Takes 12 months to root. Peg into peaty soil and keep moist.
• Rhododendron Best rooted in peaty soil. Roots form slowly, taking at least 12 months. Read the rest of this entry »

Success with this method depends upon providing the right conditions. Warmth and humidity are essential for good results in every case.

• Alpines Take small cuttings as soon as ready in spring. Best rooted in greenhouse.
• Chrysanthemum Outdoor and greenhouse kinds. Remove 5cm/2in-long cuttings from as close as possible to crown of plant. Root in greenhouse.
• Dahlia Start tubers into growth in heated greenhouse early in year. Take 8cm/3in-long cuttings from the tubers and root in warmth and humidity.
• Delphinium Remove 8cm/3in-long shoots from as close as possible to crown of plant in spring. Root in greenhouse. Read the rest of this entry »

Because of their slow rate of growth compared with most other types of house plants, orchids are seldom potted more than once a year, and are very often left for two years before it is necessary to disturb them. However, certainly after two years the compost will have broken down and need replacing as the food value becomes exhausted, the plant will have outgrown the pot, and its roots will have become potbound.

There are several indications that a plant is in need of repotting. The compost may be decomposed and this can be determined by pushing a finger into it. If this can be done easily the compost needs replacing and the plant should be repotted. If the leading bulb has reached the rim of the pot or is protruding over the edge leaving no room for future growth inside the pot, or if the plant has pushed itself up above the pot rim, it has outgrown its pot. The foliage may have turned a yellow green which indicates starvation, the food in the compost having been used up. Bulb- less orchids such as Paphiopedilums or Phalaenopsis, which do not progress across the pot in the same way as those with a horizontal rhizome, are best repotted when their roots have filled the pot, or are showing above the rim. Read the rest of this entry »

Description: A biennial plant with a massive, spindle-shaped root and branched stem up to 1 m high. During its first year it forms a leaf rosette, in its second year an erect, grooved, profusely and horizontally branched flower-bearing stem. Leaves are alternate, ovoid to slightly cordiform, grey and downy on the reverse. Flowers arranged in terminal cymose panicles; bracts around the flowers are red to slightly violet, with hooked spiny hairs. The fruit is an achene. Flowering time from July to August. Read the rest of this entry »

Description: A biennial plant, forming in its first year a rosette of basal leaves from which rises in the second year the flower-bearing, hollow stem, branched in its upper part, up to 1 m high. The thick tapering root is usually simple or sparsely branched, and spindle shaped. The fruit is a small greenish-brown achene. The leaves, like those of other wild parsleys, are segmented, with a triangular outline; there are many cultivated parsleys with deeply divided, curly leaves. Read the rest of this entry »

Description: A perennial plant about 30-70 cm high, sometimes living as long as 100 years. The fleshy yellow root is usually 20-25 cm long and about 2 cm in diameter, with two to six branches. The root shape sometimes resembles the human figure. From the root rises a simple stem bearing near the top a rosette of three to five palmately compound petiolate leaves. Read the rest of this entry »