Always harden off transplants for eight to ten days before you set them out in the garden. Expose them to short, then gradually longer periods outdoors. (If you purchase transplants, find out if they’ve been hardened off. If not, make sure you do it.)

If seedlings are in flats, slice the roots into squares with a knife about a week before transplanting. Repeat the process before removing from flat.

Feed transplants with fish emulsion the day before setting them out. If possible, transplant on a cloudy or drizzly day. Or set out seedlings in the late afternoon or early evening. It’s more comfortable for you, and the plants will thrive without requiring shade or constant watering. Read the rest of this entry »

For your perennial vegetables and fruits, pick a spot separate from or on the edge of (second best) the main vegetable garden. The easiest way to get a bed started is to stake it out the season before you plant. Cover existing sod with a thick layer of newspapers, magazines, or cardboard. A friend of mine declares that covering sod is the best use she’s found for cast-off issues of the Congressional Record. “They’re so thick nothing will grow through them,” she says. So they don’t blow away, pile something on top —hay, wood chips, sawdust, branches, whatever. By spring, the sod will have decomposed and added green manure to the soil without a struggle. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve harvested peas and turned under the plants while they were still green and tender, you have put green manure in your soil. Any green plant spaded or tilled back into the soil can be called green manure. Some green manure crops are grown just to be plowed back into the soil while they are still green and rich in organic matter. Alfalfa, buckwheat, and annual ryegrass are a few examples. There are many others.

You might hear green manure crops being called “cover crops” or “catch crops.” These names indicate two of the jobs of a green manure crop:

1. To cover bare soil at the end of the season. This protects it from erosion over the winter. Read the rest of this entry »

Generally, however, the vascular bundles in a straight piece of grass stem — Maize (Zea mays) being a good example — do not run parallel to the sides but weave from the inner part of the stem to the outer, returning inwards after the leaf traces have branched off. So the vascular tissue forms a series of spirals through the stem. As well as having a different arrangement in the stem, these vascular bundles are different in their individual make-up, there being no layer of cambium between the xylem and the phloem. This means that they cannot develop a woody, strengthening tissue as can dicotyledonous plants. There are exceptions, however, as in the palms and allied woody-stemmed monocotyledons. Read the rest of this entry »

The leaves fall to form a deep carpet beneath the trees, adding to the dead twigs, flowers and unripe fruit remnants already there. Every year trees shed more than 3,000 kg of waste products in every hectare of woodland and all this breaks down, together with the herbs of the forest floor to form a deep layer of litter. As this litter breaks down so the minerals and other organic substances which were stored in the leaves are released once more, and the resulting layer of humus acts as a natural fertilizer. Read the rest of this entry »

Trees and shrubs within semi desert areas have their own defenses against drought. These usually take the form of a deciduous habit, the plants losing their leaves as the hottest season commences, together with the ability to store water within their roots and occasionally their trunks. The famous Baobab (Adansonia digitata) of Africa has an almost bottle-like stem. Other plants spend the difficult season completely dormant. Read the rest of this entry »

Plant Slips on Raised Beds for big Potatoes

To grow sweet potatoes, start with “slips,” which are tiny plants sprouted from sweet potatoes. Here’s how I grow the slips I need each spring.

About 7 to 8 weeks before the average last frost date I get some sweet potatoes from the market. I cut them in half lengthwise and lay the pieces cut-side-down in aluminum cake plates filled with moist peat moss. I put a shallow covering of moist peat moss over the potato pieces and wrap the works in a plastic bag.

As soon as the slips appear, I take off the plastic and put the plants in a sunny window. After our last frost date, I pull each slip and plant it separately. It will grow to a full-sized sweet potato plant.

You can also get slips by sprouting a section of sweet potato in a jar of water. Like sprouting an avocado pit, most of each piece should be submerged in water on the kitchen windowsill. 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 »

I have a new technique for coaxing my horseradish bed to produce the straightest roots I’ve ever seen. Straight roots are the easiest to clean and process.

First, let me explain that I harvest most of my horseradish roots quite early in the spring.

The taste is real hot in spring and I like hot horseradish.

I fertilize after the harvest and let the plants get about 6 inches tall. Then I till half the bed as deeply as I can. This chops up the roots and mixes the pieces into the soil. Many of the pieces are near the surface where they will quickly sprout and grow again. The important thing is that my roto-tiller leaves the soil so soft and fluffy that the roots have an easy, unobstructed path down into it. Read the rest of this entry »

The best way to grow an asparagus bed is to plant 2-year-old roots which you can order from a seed catalog or pick up at a garden store. One-year-old roots may be cheaper, but the savings are not worth waiting an extra year for your first harvest. I think the 2-year-old roots are more reliable in transplanting.

If you live in the North, set out asparagus roots in the early spring. In the South, set them out in the fall because it can be so dry and hot in the summer that the plants may not make it through.

Asparagus will grow in most types of soil, but since it must have dry feet, it does best in soil that drains well. Place the plants about 2 feet apart with 5 feet between rows. Twenty-five to 30 crowns will produce enough asparagus for a family of four once the bed is established, which takes three seasons. Read the rest of this entry »

Plant your berries in a sunny location for the sweetest berries and the healthiest plants. Try for an open spot on a slight south facing slope. Low spots on your property could be trouble since cold air flows like water down a slope and will collect in pockets. Frosts will hit these low spots first.

Strawberry plants are usually set out in the early spring (March or April) in the North, but southern gardeners often have the best luck with fall planting.

Soil

Fertile, well-drained soil is a must. If you have heavy clay, make raised beds. These keep plants from sitting around with wet feet” which lowers production. Raised beds also prevent plants from being heaved out of the ground by frost during the winter. Add plenty of organic matter to help loosen up clay soil. 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 »

Planting techniques vary slightly according to whether you buy plants in containers from garden centres or bare-root plants (as lifted from the field) supplied by nurserymen. There are also various ways of planting bulbs. Get the technique right and plant at the right time: your plants will then be off to a good start. Some plants will need supports against the wind.

Four planting methods

These are the techniques for planting the major groups ofgarden plants: trees, shrubs, conifers, climbers, perennials, bedding plants and blubs. To get plants such as trees, shrubs, conifers and fruits off to a good start, especially if you have a poor or difficult soil, consider using a planting mixture. Read the rest of this entry »

Most flowering plants are not much at risk as long as they are well cultivated. Among the principal sufferers are bulbs, and plants grown under glass, where pests and diseases particularly flourish.

Five troubles affecting roots

A number of insect pests live in the soil and feed on the roots of plants. Usually you do not know they’re there until leaves and shoots begin to wilt.

• Chafer grub Long fat creamy-white grubs with brown heads which feed on the roots of many flowers. If suspected, water the soil with pirimiphos-methyl or dust with gamma-BHC.
• Cutworm Soil-dwelling caterpillars about 4cm/I 1/2in long, creamy brown, which feed on roots and the surface of stems at soil level. Many border plants liable to attack. Symptom: wilting. Dust soil with gamma-BHC insecticide. Read the rest of this entry »

Crop rotation will help to prevent a build-up of the serious troubles listed here.

• Cabbage root fly Maggots eat fine roots of cabbages and relations, until all that remains of root system is a blackened rotting stump. Wilting occurs. Treat soil with chlorpyrifos/ daizinon or pirimiphos-methyl when sowing and planting.
• Carrot flyMaggots tunnel in the roots of carrots and parsnips. Treat seed drills with chlorpyrifos/diazinon or pirimiphos-methyl; carrots should be lifted as soon as they are ready to avoid damage from maggots. Read the rest of this entry »

Phalaenopsis are extremely beautiful orchids, with species to be found in India, down through Borneo and Malaysia to New Guinea, with the largest concentrations in the Philippines. They grow mainly in the steamy lowland forests where there is a constant moist atmosphere and very little direct sunlight. The plants grow upon host trees as epiphytes and often grow downwards.

Phalaenopsis do not produce pseudo bulbs but their leaves are extremely thick and fleshy and grow from the base of the plant. Usually one or two new leaves are produced from the centre of the plant in a season. An average sized plant in cultivation may have between three and six leaves at any one time and in some species they can grow to over 1 m (3 ft) in length. They may be plain dark green, or beautifully mottled and barred in silvery grey. The roots of the Phalaenopsis are the most attractive of any orchids; in the wild they attach themselves firmly to the bark of their tree, and run along its surface for some distance. These very fleshy roots are flat, silvery grey with a green or purple growing tip. In cultivation they will adhere to anything with which they come into contact. The flower spikes appear from the base of one of the younger leaves and can carry from just a few, to many, well rounded flat blooms. Read the rest of this entry »

Where several plants are grown together the principle remains the same but the method is enlarged, using troughs to hold several plants. The more plants that you grow in close proximity to each other in this way, the greater is their surrounding microclimate. There is a whole range of decorative plant troughs, from inexpensive plastic containers to shiny copper types, all suitable for a few orchid plants.

A constant check on the temperature is essential and one should always have a minimum/maximum thermometer close to the plants. These are easily obtainable for a small outlay from any garden shop. Read the rest of this entry »

Dividing and back bulb removal

If required, the plant may now be divided or have a few of its back bulbs removed. The back bulbs are the oldest and leafless bulbs which have discarded their foliage and have been supporting the younger bulbs and their new growths. These bulbs are of great benefit and should not be removed unless they outnumber the green bulbs in leaf. In this case the excess back bulbs become an encumbrance to the plant and should be removed to restore the balance of the plant. A plant which is growing in more than one direction, as indicated by the new growths, may be large enough for division into two plants if at least four bulbs, including both green and leafless bulbs, can be retained on each piece. The pseudo bulbs are joined together by a hard woody rhizome which is visible on Cattleyas, for example, but hidden on Cymbidiums and Odontoglossums. In the latter its position can be determined by gently pressing the bulbs apart. To divide a plant or remove an unwanted back bulb this rhizome must be cleanly severed with a sharp knife or pair of secateurs. As a general rule for most of the bulbous orchids, never reduce a plant or divide it to less than four good bulbs, otherwise it will be greatly weakened and will take several years to restore itself to flowering size. However, there are a few exceptions, such as the Pleiones, where the old bulb decomposes quickly and plants never consist of more than one green bulb each year. Read the rest of this entry »