Tomato season is upon us and, after deciding which tomatoes you’d like to grow, they need to be planted! For this project, we chose a Brandywine heirloom tomato to plant into a container, but the same steps work for planting tomatoes in the ground in a garden bed.
It’s April and tomatoes are here! We know you’re ready to get them planted since it’s sunny (wait… now it’s cold and raining…. wait! It’s sunny again! Wait…) ;) but your tomato plants won’t grow into incredibly prolific tomato producers if you don’t protect them until the night temperatures remain consistently above 50 degrees. Most of us at Swansons swear by protection tools so we can plant our warm-season vegetables earlier and encourage larger, stronger plants and better harvests. Here’s what we use and how to use them.
For many of us, the choice of which tomatoes to grow can be daunting. We've boiled down the tomato decision process into a few helpful questions and our suggestions: a secret (tomato) sauce, if you will, of how to make the right choice for your individual tomato needs. At the end of this post are a handy infographic and a link to our tomato variety list.
In this post, I’m repotting a very rootbound Marble Queen Pothos plant. I’ll walk you through all the steps for a successful repotting. These steps are essentially the same for all types of indoor and outdoor plants, so you can take these tips and use them for any potted plant.
No matter whether this is your first-ever vegetable garden or just the first time planting this year, if you take a little time to prepare before you plant, everything will go more smoothly and you’ll be more successful. Here are a few simple things to consider when starting a vegetable garden this spring.
Deep Harvest Farm on Whidbey Island grows vegetables and flowers that furnish some of the best restaurants on the island and provide seeds to select nurseries (including Swansons!). Our annual plant buyer, Liane, and I had the opportunity to tour their gorgeous farm and we want to share it with you. We think it’s special and we know you will, too!
One of the perks of working at Swansons is being able to visit PNW gardens. While the majority of gardens we visit are public, it’s always a treat to visit personal gardens and explore what local gardeners are doing in their private spaces. Nestled in an ordinary block north of Seattle, there is a floriferous wonderland called Fishtail Cottage. Complete with a white picket fence, romantic cottage garden flowers, and a bevy of animal greeters, you might feel like you have wandered out of the suburbs and into a modern fairy tale land.
I have been living in Seattle for almost six years and I admit, this was my first visit to the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden. The botanical garden features over 700 species of Rhododendron and many other fascinating plants as well. The garden encompasses 22 acres with a beautiful visitor center, gift shop, plant nursery, and trails for visitors to leisurely walk in the landscape.
An emerging idea as we blur the boundaries between ornamental and food gardening is the Food Forest. A project garnering recent attention is the Cascadia College (CC) Food Forest, on the campus shared by Cascadia and the University of Washington, Bothell (UWB). It is one of a few but growing number of college campuses in the U.S. which are maintained using sustainable practices and without pesticides or synthetic fertilizers.
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