Independent gardening advice for real gardens, balconies and windowsills.
Practical advice on growing food and flowers, improving soil, and making the most of small spaces. Start anywhere — the garden will meet you.
Gardening under a permanent thick mulch of crude organic matter is recommended by Ruth Stout (see the listing for her book in More Reading) and her disciples as a surefire way to drought-proof gardens...
This chapter illustrates and explains my own dry garden. Any garden plan is a product of compromises and preferences; mine is not intended to become yours. But, all modesty aside, this plan results fr...
_Frames_. Make deep hotbeds for winter lettuce and radishes. Construct frames for use next spring. See that vegetables in cellar, bins, and sheds are safe from freezing. Trench or store celery for spr...
Get ready for winter. Blanch rest of endive. Bank celery, to be used before Christmas, where it is. Gather tomatoes, melons, etc., to keep as long as possible. Keep especially clean and well cultivate...
The usual spring-sown, summer-grown bulb onions and scallions only work with abundant irrigation. But the water-short, water-wise gardener can still supply the kitchen with onions or onion substitutes...
set about procuring manures of all kinds from every available source. Remember that anything _which will rot_ will add to the value of your manure pile. Muck, lime, old plastering, sods, weeds (earth...
The insects most commonly attacking the apple are the codlin-moth, tent-caterpillar, canker-worm and borer. The codlin-moth lays its eggs on the fruit about the time of the falling of the blossoms, an...
Without any question, the apple is far and away the most valuable fruit, both because of its greater scope of usefulness and its longer season--the last of the winter's Russets are still juicy and fir...
The matter of properly applying manure, even on the small garden, is also of importance. In amount, from fifteen to twenty-five cords, or 60 to 100 cartloads, will not be too much; although if fertili...
The tender, peppery little leaves make winter salads much more interesting. _Sowing date:_ I delay sowing until late August or early September so my crowded patch of arugula lasts all winter and doesn...
Keep the garden clean from late weeds--especially purslane, the hot- weather weed pest, which should be always _removed_ from the garden and burned or rotted down. Sow spinach, rutabaga turnip, bush b...
Heirloom pole beans once climbed over considerable competition while vigorously struggling for water, nutrition, and light. Modern bush varieties tend to have puny root systems. _Sowing date:_ Mid-Apr...