By Ken Lain, the mountain gardener Question: What Does Bean and Pea Inoculant Do and Is It Really Necessary? Many sources recommend using an inoculant when planting the seed of legumes beans and peas, especially when planting in cool, wet…
Read MoreA true annual is a plant that completes its life cycle in one year. This means it goes from seed to seed and then dies during the course of one growing season. The whole mission of an annual is to…
Read MoreWhen a plant is called ‘herbaceous’, it means the core stems that hold the leaves upright during the growing season are soft, green or succulent, as opposed to the brown and woody stems of a lilac, forsythia or rose of…
Read MoreSummertime Melons in the Garden What we call cantaloupes are really muskmelons. True cantaloupes are hard-shelled melons from Europe. Honeydew melons are different from muskmelons in that the skin is smooth, the flesh is green, and the scent is markedly different.…
Read MoreThey Still Have Some Foliage Potatoes underground will continue to develop as long as there is foliage on top. So if you want potatoes now, dig what you need, but leave the rest in the ground. They’ll continue to grow,…
Read MoreIf We Pull Them Up Will They Come Back Next Year? Don’t pull them up. Shear off all the nasty foliage and throw it away (in case of foliar diseases). They may re-grow a bit yet this fall. Same goes…
Read More1.) Place a grow ring or peony ring over them before they start to grow in the spring (for support), or 2.) Cut them in half in early June. This delays flowering by a couple weeks, but keeps them shorter,…
Read MoreNO WAY, JOSE! Don’t let the lawn looking pretty good after the summer fool you into not doing anything to it for the fall. I would guess you have some thin areas that could use some over seeding. If you…
Read MoreNone! I know it’s hard to accept, but the spiders in the garden are our friends. They’re the good guys. They’re predators, and right now, they’re doing a fine job reducing the bug populations in our yards. So we do…
Read MoreYes, as a general rule of thumb, we’ll stop feeding roses as well as deadheading once we get into November. We want the roses to finish their blooming, stop growing, and begin to shut down for the winter. Leaving the…
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