How to Eradicate Early Blight on Tomatoes (Alternaria)

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February is the time for planting early vegetable crops. Garden peas (Pisum sativum L), and spinach (Spinacia oleracea) can be planted in the Piedmont region from mid to late February and will tolerate freezing temperatures. Peas planted early can be hardened to withstand a frost. However, the flowers are still susceptible to freezing temperatures and will need protection. A row cover can be used to protect the plants. Choose a row cover made of a spun-bonded polyester material that needs no support above the developing plants. For example, a light to medium weight spun-bonded polypropylene row cover will provide 4 degrees of frost protection down to 28 °F. Remove the row cover before the temperatures get above 75 °F as high temperatures under the row covers may inhibit the growth of the plants. Spinach can withstand temperatures as low as 20 °F.

REPEAT AFTER ME: early, middle, late. That’s the secret.

If you’ve seen Amy’s previous books on melons and squash, which like the newest volume are collaborations with photographer Victor Schrager, you know they are somewhere between scholarly and scientific and sensuous (which means they cover a lot of ground).You can therefore go at reading “The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table” from any angle: Dip in, perhaps, to grab a recipe (Amy’s Cream of Tomato Soup is calling to me, as are Tomato Bread Pudding and her oven-dried Tomato Chips).At another sitting, learn to grow tomatoes as expertly as Amy does (she tested an astonishing 1,000 varieties and profiles 200 in the book), or how to save the seed for next year’s crop.Come to “The Heirloom Tomato” one day with a supply of envelopes and stamps (or logged into your computer) an

THE ANNUAL RITUAL BEGINS: At tax time in the Northeast, we start our tomato seeds indoors, though many of you may be putting your seedlings out in the garden already or otherwise way ahead of me.

A READER WROTE IN THE OTHER DAY saying a storm had toppled her tomatoes, breaking off a fruit-laden branch or two. What to do with all those green tomatoes, she wondered? Well, there’s more than one way to ripen a tomato (and if all else fails there is always green tomato-apple mincemeat or chutney to be made).

TORONTO-BASED Gayla Trail was a rooftop gardener for many years, so growing things in pots was her norm (proof is in the photo below). But many of the commercial varieties of container and hanging-basket tomatoes, she says, don’t taste too good—they’re bland, and often tough-skinned. Long ago she started on the hunt for ones that are better.Now Gayla has a real backyard (“like a bowling alley,” she says), but she still likes the dwarf types for other reasons: They’re small plants and reach maturity early (60-ish days, versus closer to 80 for a beefsteak type). That means she can extend her tomato-harvest backwards into June (again, even in Toronto!).Other features she favors of these smallest of the tomato-plant world:“Dwarf types tend to have ruffled leaves,” she says, technically called rugose, which are handsome-looking, and some plants are “tumbling types” that are especially suited to making

Many fruit, nut, and landscape trees can succumb to root rot caused by three types of fungi and a group of water molds (that used to be considered fungi); these include the fungi Armillaria, Phymatotrichum, and Xylaria and the water mold Phytophthora.The trees show varying symptoms from these different di

You waged a winning battle against marauding pests. You warded off nasty diseases. You watered, pruned, fertilized, and propped those vines up.Now it’s harvest time, and

Researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University are partnering with us in our technology addiction project that stands alongside our 'Chained to Tech' garden design. At RHS Tatton Flower Show, researchers will be surveying guests to gauge their attitudes and perceptions towards our garden.

At some point you’ve probably noticed tiny little piles of sand and soil next to pavements, sidewalks, or near the edge of buildings. This displaced dirt is likely to be the handiwork of pavement ants.Although originally from Europe, these pavement

Just before Christmas, Clare Matterson, director general of the RHS, wrote to ask if I would be RHS Hampton Court’s Iconic Horticultural Hero for 2023, which was both shocking and flattering in equal measure! Because of that, I was able to design a garden for the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival.