How to Grow More with Greenhouse Maintenance

Perfect for small spaces, theseVertical Pegboard Garden Ideas to Grow More Plants combine creativity and functionality, allowing you to nurture a flourishing array of plants while adding a touch of artistic charm to your surroundings.

In this episode, Emma the Space Gardener talks to Mission Specialist Susan Young. Susan’s new book, “Growing Beans: A Diet for Healthy People and Planet” aims to get us to look beyond green beans, as growing and eating shelled beans – fresh and dried – has numerous benefits for us and our home planet. 

Jill Edmondson, University of Sheffield and Jonathan Leake, University of Sheffield

In this article, we’ll cover the various Broccoli Plant Growing Stages and provide you with valuable insights and pictures to help you along the way.

ONE OF THE FIRST FRUITS that Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge planted when they took ownership of historic Beekman 1802 farm in Sharon Springs, New York: gooseberries.  Now the city-turned-country pair are having a bumper gooseberry year—and Josh joined me on the radio to talk about that and other aspects of “The Heirloom Life,” the subject of the duo’s breakfast slide lecture in my town August 17 to help celebrate my next garden Open Day. I’ve pre-ordered a couple of copies of the “Beekman 1802 Heirloom Dessert Cookbook” (due out in September) to share with some lucky winners, so read on for a chance to win–and some gooseberry lore, recipes and more.

IN OUR CHAT on my public-radio program, I learned why not to till when prepping a planting; how to help a desired species outpace an unwanted one by learning to manage and influence natural processes; and what the word “naturalistic” means today.what’s ‘naturalistic,’ anyway?Q. How did the native and natural become your specialty, Larry—did the education in landscape design come first, or the nature and science?A. My first experience in the landscape world was working in traditional horticulture—first a job, and then going to school for it. However my interest in it always came from the naturalistic end.As a kid, I grew up in the urban Philadelphia and I don’t think I even knew there was such as thing as a garden designer, until I got a job with a landscape firm, in the summer between high school and college.But the thing that always interested me was na

If you said Heuchera, you’re right. Perhaps you’re going to reshuffle some shady beds this spring, and know that Heuchera, with their great foliage, can help make garden pictures work–but wonder which ones, and how best to use them. I invited George Coombs, trial garden manager at the must-visit Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware, with 50 acres of native-plant display gardens and 500 acres of natural land, back to the radio show to help make the best choices and grow them to perfection.George knows from Heuchera, having trialed 83 varieties side by side (the exhaustive results are in this pdf). “I say to people, ‘I’m doing Consumer Reports for plants,'” he explains. Though there are countless varieties on the market, many are duplicative in appearance or just not distinctive. “I can honestly say that when it

I invited my favorite fruit expert, Lee Reich, author of many exceptional garden books, including “Grow Fruit Naturally” and “Weedless Gardening” and “The Pruning Book,” to come talk figs on my public-radio show and podcast. (I’m giving away a copy of “Grow Fruit Naturally;” enter by commenting in the box at the very bottom of the page.)I often refer to Lee as “the unusual fruit guy,” because one of his first books I read was “Uncommon Fruits Worthy of Attention.” Lee lives with blueberries and paw paws and medlars and kiwis and of course figs and more not far from me, across the Hudson in New Paltz, New York, on what he calls his farm-den (as in half-farm, half-garden) loaded with unusual fruits.Learn wh

DESPITE THAT 1940s Harry Truman-ism, “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen,” that’s exactly where harvest time sends us, especially if we grow our own edibles. Who better to ask for inspiration now than Deborah Madison—often called the Julia Child of vegetarian cooking? Listen to our conversation (my newest podcast) about her latest book, “Vegetable Literacy.” Along the way you’ll get wisdom on her must-have garden herbs; a recipe for her versatile, rich-in-a-good-way Romesco sauce; and even Deborah’s unexpected secret weapon for gopher control.Madison’s massive 1997 volume “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone” (Amazon link) is probably on your shelf, or should be, and this year she published her 10th cookbook–another comprehensive, beautiful must-have. It’s arranged not in the usual manner (appetizer to dessert) but taxonomically, by plant family.  (Remember my story about it, and her recipe for cauliflower pasta with red pepper flakes and more?)

FIRST, A LITTLE SCIENCE LESSON: Fungi don’t have chlorophyll, so they cannot make their own food (like plants do), nor can they ingest it (like animals), except through absorption from their surrounding environment. Most fungi are saprophytes, meaning they feed on dead or decaying material, like the leaf litter of the forest floor—or the debris in your compost heap. Their second critical role: Most of the plant kingdom depends on symbiotic fungi called mycorrhizae, which inhabit the plants’ roots, to live. (Thank you for patiently listening to that.)I MADE PIZZA THE OTHER DAY (no, not a mushroom pizza), something I do a lot from scratch, and when the yeast acted oddly I did what any 21st century human does: I looked for an explanation online. I still don’t know what caused my yeast to misbehave, but here’s what I learned: The kind of yeast you bake with (or make beer or champagne with) are unicellular fungi, technically sp

“If you know the basic science and a few techniques with home dairy,” says Alana, author of “The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making” (Amazon affiliate link), “the whole world opens up and you can make a zillion different things.”That first book has been lavished with praise from food stars including Mollie Katzen, and Alana just delivered the manuscript for “The Homemade Kitchen,” due out in fall 2015. She’s a keen gardener whose grow-your-own passion and cookbook writing both began in 2008 with a job selling vegetables in our local farmer’s m

Background: Barry Glick–a serious plantaholic who’s even a vegan and is sometimes also referred to in mock botanical Latin as the Glicksterus maximus–is a native of the Philadelphia area, and has been gardening since childhood.  In 1972, he purchased 60 acres of a 3,650-foot-high mountaintop in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, that became Sunshine Farm and Gardens (which you can stroll though and shop from at sunfarm.com).  Barry’s a garden writer and a longtime lecturer—but most of all I love how he was described in one magazine article I read recently:“The Flower Child Who Became the Flower King.”snippets from my q&a with barry glickIN THE TEXT BELOW, I harvested just the briefest details from conversations with Barry before, after and during the show taping, so be sure to listen in as well as read (the podcast player is just above), for extra unexpected goodies. Examples: the fact that a Number 8 “camel-hair” brush—which Barry uses for hand-pollination of hellebores—is actually made fro