It’s really rewarding and doesn’t cost much to start new plants from bits of stem. One good, healthy original plant can make loads of new plants, all exactly the same as it. They’re clones and will have the same flower colours, how they grow, ability to fight off illness, and the quality of any fruit…
For as long as people have farmed, they’ve kept seeds, and it’s a really useful thing for today’s gardeners to know how to do. From any open-pollinated or heirloom vegetable, herb, or flower in your garden you can gather, dry, and put away seeds to use next year. With each generation, these seeds will become…
You can get houseplant tips all over the place – on social media, at the garden store, or from friends who mean well, but a lot of it isn’t true. Many common “rules” for houseplants are either so basic they trick you, come from old information, or are just incorrect. Experts in plant science and…
Pretty much any cook loves the thought of having fresh basil, parsley, cilantro, thyme, all right by the cooker. However, for lots of people who try to do this, they end up with long, thin plants that don’t give you much to use before they become sad, messy things that don’t add anything to your…
Lots of houseplant people get really worried about repotting. They’re afraid of hurting the roots, getting a pot that isn’t right, or accidentally making things go from bad to worse for their plant. Because of these fears, many wait until their plants are obviously doing poorly before they think about repotting. But actually repotting isn’t…
Most houses don’t have walls of windows and tons of sunlight coming in. North facing apartments, rooms in the middle of a house, offices with those bright fluorescent lights, and hallways that are far from windows are places where the majority of houseplants will struggle. But a lot of lovely, simple to look after plants…
Watering is often thought of as the easiest part of looking after houseplants, and it is at its core. However, more houseplants die from being watered wrongly than from anything else you could do to them. It isn’t that people don’t try; in fact, most of us water our plants often and with good intentions….
Lots of home gardeners, from late June to early August (when plants are really growing!) get into a rhythm of just getting by with watering, weeding, and picking what’s ready, but they don’t do a lot of important things that will make a big difference to how much and how good your vegetables are in…
Why a garden gives you food for four months, but another for six, is often all because of one cheap thing: a floating row cover. This is that light, see-through material (people also call it frost cloth or garden fabric) and it makes a protected, small climate right above your garden. This protects your plants…
Lots of people with gardens think the season for growing is over when summer is done, but actually, some of the yummiest and best vegetables are grown in the cool, shorter days of autumn, not the hottest part of summer. If you plant another set of crops in July or August, you can use the…
