Tips to Help Design a Vegetable Garden For people who have plenty of time and space, the traditional garden plot is acceptable. These garden designs can be created strictly with long rows or broken down into smaller ones. While traditional designs don’t always look like it, most can be a chore when it comes to the upkeep. To lessen some of the labor, however, mulch generously around crops as well as in between the rows to discourage weeds from eventually overtaking the garden....

What Causes Bitter Peppers? Your pepper harvest is in and the first sacrificial lamb has made its way into your best recipe; but, alas, why are my peppers bitter? This is common in the under ripe bell pepper family. Green bell peppers boast a sweet/bitter balance when mature, but if you leave them on the plant to ripen further, they develop gorgeous colors and a much sweeter flavor. If you are growing bell peppers and want sweet fruit, you often just need to wait....

What is Hybrid Bluegrass? In the 1990’s, Kentucky bluegrass and Texas bluegrass were crossed to create a hybrid bluegrass seed. This type of cool season grass is commonly known as heat tolerant bluegrass because of its ability to withstand high temperatures. Types of hybrid bluegrass seed include: Reville Longhorn Bandera Thermal Blue Thermal Blue Blaze Dura Blue Solar Green Hybrid bluegrass is fairly easy to grow, though it does take longer than other bluegrasses to establish....

How to Grow Porcelain Garlic Growing porcelain garlic is basically the same as growing any type of garlic. Porcelain garlic performs well in most climates, with the exception of extremely warm regions such as southern California, Florida, and Texas. It is well suited for cold weather and tends to be larger when grown in chilly northern climates. Plant porcelain garlic in well-drained soil sometime in the fall (between September and November) when the soil is cool....

Do Magnets Help Plants Grow? Healthy plants are impossible without adequate intake of water and nutrients, and some studies show that magnetic exposure can enhance intake of these essential items. Why do plants react to magnets? Some of the explanation centers on a magnet’s ability to change molecules. This is an important characteristic when applied to heavily saline water. The earth’s magnetic field also has a powerful influence on all life on the planet – kind of like with the old-time gardening method of planting by the moon....

What are Alpine Strawberries? Although similar to modern strawberries, alpine strawberry plants are smaller, lack runners, and have significantly smaller fruit, about the size of a fingernail. A member of the rose family, Rosaceae, the alpine strawberry is a botanical form of the wood strawberry, or “fraise de bois” in French. These tiny plants can be found growing wild along the perimeter of woods in Europe, North and South America, and northern Asia and Africa....

What is Yellow Nutsedge? For many gardeners and professional growers, yellow nutsedge is not only a nuisance plant but a menace. While it is true the plant can spread like wildfire, managing yellow nutsedge is just a matter of recognizing the plant and then applying some gentle organic products that are effective if used consistently and at the right time of the year. Manual cultivation and removal are also useful yellow nutsedge control in low population areas....

What are Golden Raspberries? Golden raspberry plants bear a mutated version of the common red cultivar, but they have all the same planting, growing, soil, and sun requirements. Golden raspberry plants are primocane bearing, meaning they bear fruit off the first year canes in the late summer. They tend to have a sweeter, milder flavor than their red counterparts and are pale yellow to orange-gold in color. Since they are less common than the red raspberry, they are usually sold as a specialty berry at farmers markets and the like, and command a higher price – a great reason for you to grow your own....

Zone 5 Hydrangea Varieties All the different varieties of hydrangeas, with their different bloom types, can seem a little confusing or overwhelming. Advice from other gardeners like, “don’t prune that or you won’t get any flowers,” may have you scared to do anything to any of your hydrangeas. While it’s true that if you cut back certain hydrangeas they won’t bloom the following year, other types of hydrangeas benefit from being cut back each year....

Keeping Poinsettias After Holidays With their brightly colored bracts swaddling the plants during the drearier days of late fall and winter, and just in time for Christmas, who doesn’t love the poinsettia? That being said, once the holidays are over, many of us are left with questions about what to do next. Do we keep the plant or toss it? After all, won’t there be another one available next year, like the ever abundant chrysanthemums lining storefronts and nurseries each fall....

About Bing Cherry Trees Deeply red, heart-shaped fruits with a taste of summer and the promise of pie. I’m talking about Bing cherries, of course. The variety was first introduced in 1875 in Salem, Oregon and has become one of the most economically important cherries. Bing cherry trees thrive in temperate regions and bear 4 to 7 years from planting. Learn how to care for a Bing cherry and you could be enjoying backyard fruit in just a few years....

Black Eyed Susan Vine Plant Thunbergia alata, or black-eyed Susan vine, is a common houseplant. This is probably because it is easy to propagate from stem cuttings and, therefore, easy for owners to pass along a piece of the plant. A native of Africa, the vine needs warm temperatures but also requires shelter from the hottest rays of the sun. Stems and leaves are green and flowers are usually a deep yellow, white or orange with black centers....

How to Protect Broccoli Plants from Cold Broccoli does best in cool conditions with temperatures between 60 and 70 degrees F. (16-21 C.). It can be damaged by a sudden heat wave or a sudden freeze. To keep the plants from being damaged by a late or early frost, allow the transplants to acclimate (harden) gradually to the outdoor temperatures. Transplants that have been hardened off will not be seriously damaged if the temperature drops down to 28 degrees F....

Why Plant Vegetables in a 5-Gallon Bucket? You don’t need a huge backyard to grow food for your family. In fact, you don’t even need a backyard at all. More and more people are container planting vegetables and getting plenty of food. In addition to saving space, using buckets for gardens also helps with a lot of other common gardening problems like young plants getting trampled, rabbits eating plants, poor soil, hard rains, weeds, and ease of care....

Can You Eat Garlic Mustard? Garlic mustard may have tasty potential, but it is a noxious weed. The plant secretes toxins that kill beneficial soil fungi, which most plants need to thrive. Garlic mustard is also extremely hardy and tolerant of a range of soils, making its spread easy. In some areas, it is such a nuisance that entire parties go out into the wild and pull the plants, bagging them for the landfill....

Canary Melon Information Canary melons (Cucumis melo) are also referred to as San Juan canary melons, Spanish melons and Juane des Canaries. Named for its brilliant yellow color that is reminiscent of canary birds, canary melons are oval with vibrant yellow skin and a cream-colored flesh. Melons may weigh 4-5 pounds (2 or so kg.) when ripe and are around 5 inches (13 cm.) across. Like watermelons and pumpkins, canary melons flower prior to fruiting....

Catchfly perennials are most suited to moderate weather in full to partial sun. Campion is another common name of Silene, which is also called sweet william catchfly plant. This flowering perennial will spread and add a swath of color to your garden. About Catchfly Perennials Silene is a genus of flowering plants with approximately 700 species. Many of these are attractive for the gardens of the Northern Hemisphere. Commonly found forms, such as the sweet william catchfly plant, provide easy-to-care for carpets of flowering mounds....

When it comes to landscaping a natural pond (any natural body of water within your landscape), be careful. Cattails for the pond can be both a headache and a delight, but learning how to control cattails can tip the scales dramatically in your favor. The Good Side of Cattail Plants From a naturalist’s point of view, cattail plants are a wonder of nature where every part of the plant can be used to benefit a variety of species, including humans....

Hardy Outdoor Succulents Succulents are endlessly fascinating due to their broad range of form, color, and texture. Their unfussy nature also makes them a gardener favorite and adds an interesting touch to the landscape even in non-desert zones. Succulents may be hardy in United States zones 3 to 11. The cold tolerant forms, or zone 3 hardy succulents, benefit from a full sun location with some shelter from wind and thick mulch to preserve moisture and protect roots....

Common Beargrass Plant Info A nature hike around western North America in late spring to early summer, you may see fields of slender, arching foliage with huge, fluffy, white flower heads. The plant is beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax), and the name stems from the fact that young bears seem to like to eat the tender stems. The plant is protected in some of its native range, so if you want to start growing beargrass in gardens, it is best to use seed or transplant an offset from a garden buddy’s plant....