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.
How do we decide which weeds to live with, and which weeds to attack post-haste? It helps to understand why the weeds show up and what they want. And it makes a difference in your strategy whether you are doing individual spot-weeding vs. eliminating a large area at once (such as preparing to start a vegetable garden). No matter what the situation, there are three goals…
Way up here in the land of tall conifers, dry shade is a common gardening challenge. I’ve had success with the following plants in the shade of conifers, and they also work well in deciduous woodlands or in the dry rain shadow of north-facing buildings and garden walls. As with any new plantings, they will require summer water for several dry seasons until they have established a root system capable of competing with existing tree roots.
Fruit tree netting is something I had never used or considered using until this year. I had experimented with nylon apple maggot barriers before with moderate success, but their application is quite laborious and time-intensive. Now that I have tried tree netting I will never go back. Here’s how to use netting to protect your fruit.
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