Home & Garden category, Page 9
Grow your own microgreens
Growing microgreens is a great way to get some homegrown veggies into your diet during the winter months. Microgreens are the young shoots of various plants, harvested soon after the seedling develops its first set of leaves. Microgreens are somewhere in between the “sprout” stage and the “baby greens” stage...
Cover your ground, for your plants’ sake
Nature abhors bare ground, and so should you. Her response to naked earth is to clothe it, a job at which many weeds excel. Bare soil is too easily blown and washed away by wind and water. Rainfall pounding on it seals pores, making it much harder for water to...
How to enjoy an extended parsley harvest
Question: We grew a few parsley plants in containers this year. I have three curly plants and two flat-leaved plants. Now that cold weather is here, what should I do with the plants? Will they survive the winter? I don’t think we can eat all the parsley before it would...
How to grow garlic (psst, plant it now)
There are good and bad things about being obsessed with garlic. On the bright side, it’s tasty, really good for you, and when cooked, fills the house with the aroma of love. (It repels vampires, too, right?) On the downside, after eating too much, that “lovely” fragrance permeates from pores,...
Fall’s the best time to harvest discounts at garden centers
Fall is the best time of year to get new trees, shrubs and perennials into the ground before cold weather sets in, and it’s often the best time to buy them, too. Garden centers traditionally mark down their off-season inventories rather than muscle them indoors for overwintering protection. Now is...
How to grow figs, pick the best varieties for cold climates
You might be surprised to learn that figs (Ficus carica) thrive in Western Pennsylvania, with a little help and winter protection, of course. Though many varieties of this fruit have been selected for improved cold hardiness and early ripening, you’ll want to select a warm location with southern exposure to...
Phipps’ annual fall flower takes ‘Japanese Inspirations’Video
Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens’ fall flower show is like the season itself — a brief but welcome respite before the return of a long and cold winter in Pittsburgh. “Japanese Inspirations” is the theme of this year’s fall show, which celebrates not only the nearly 2,900 chrysanthemums that dominate...
Pick the best native shrubs for birds
Question: We have a new area to plant along the property line with our neighbors. We’d like to plant some native shrubs that produce berries because we’d like to help feed the birds in the wintertime. Do you have any suggestions of berry shrubs we can include in the border?...
Dahlias hold special significance for Ross gardener
It is a yearly ritual for me to photograph Amy Krut’s dahlia garden at the end of the season. We became friends on Facebook, and after seeing just about every inch of her landscape filled with the late blooming beauties, I knew I had to photograph them. The low angle...
How to thresh dry beans
If you grow beans for drying in the garden, harvest time is here. Dried beans are ready for harvest as soon as the pods turn completely dry and begin to crack open. After the dried pods are harvested, you’ll need to thresh and store the beans for later use. Threshing...
Some maples (sugar) are more desirable than others (Norway)
It’s not easy to figure out which maples you want on your property. The good ones are the sugar maples, their leaves ablaze each fall in yellow, red and orange. The less desirable ones are the Norway maples, their leaves green well into fall. I don’t hold that lingering greenness...
Is that compost squash surprise edible?
Question: I have a question about volunteer squash plants in my compost pile. More than likely they are from butternut seeds. A few look true, a couple have narrower crooked necks and one is gigantic! Are they edible? Answer: Some plant families are self-pollinating, including beans, peas and tomatoes. That...
10 best shrubs to plant this fall
The bright orange flowers of a kerria shrub showed up for a second time at the end of the summer. It was a wonderful surprise as the blooms have a showy, intense color. Kerria is easy to grow in part shade, and it’s underused in the landscape. The flowers are...
3 ways to deal with deer in the garden
Four-legged, fur-covered garden pests are many. From voles and groundhogs to chipmunks and squirrels, sometimes it seems like backyard critters enjoy our gardens more than we do! But, no four-legged garden interloper is as problematic for Western Pennsylvania gardeners as deer. As the white-tailed deer population expands and suburbia continues...
To keep enjoying your garden’s flowers, consider drying them
Cut flowers have an intense but brief vase life, lasting generally about a week. Yet they can be preserved as attractive and long-lasting arrangements when properly dried and displayed. Air-drying is the simplest and cheapest way to go about it, but other methods may be better for locking in the...
3-step plan for limiting fungal diseases in next year’s garden
Question: We had a terrible issue with different plant diseases in this year’s garden. So many of our perennials and vegetables developed spots or mold on the leaves. I know it was a really wet spring and that makes this sort of thing worse, but is there anything we can...
Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank provides farming lessons, fresh produce
Tony Miga is supervising the installation of tall, three-legged supports for pole beans in the 1-acre plot at Chatham University’s Eden Hall Campus. The director of the farm on the Pittsburgh-area campus is working with three students growing vegetables for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank’s Green Grocer truck. The...
3 ways to propagate herbs
I grow many herbs in my garden. I use them for cooking and for making my own herbal tea blends. While I do purchase herb plants from the nursery, I also try to save money by propagating my own herb plants. Thankfully, propagating most common herbs is easy. Depending on...
Yes, you can grow fresh figs in most parts of the country
Seems like just about everyone likes the idea of growing figs. Perhaps it’s some primal attraction for this ancient fruit. The rich, sweet flavor of the tree-ripened fruits is definitely part of the reason. Figs can, in fact, be grown over much of the country. Although the plant is subtropical,...
Pruning techniques for burning bushes
Question: I have two gorgeous, big burning bushes in my yard that are really, really in need of trimming. I don’t want to trim before they put on their autumn show, but I need to know when is the best time to trim and how much can I really cut...
Plant a tree the right way
There’s an old saying that goes, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is today.” Fall is the best time to plant trees as the temperatures and day length are conducive to root growth instead of top growth. They can be planted...
Now is the time to plant those new trees
While walking through Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, horticulturist Richard Liberto pulled me aside to passionately describe the story he hoped I’d tell. He runs Liberto Designs and works at Best Feeds Garden Center’s Babcock Boulevard location in Ross. After seeing a year of landslides, sinkholes and an early season...
Garden center luncheon program includes talk by Doug Oster
Everybody Gardens editor Doug Oster will discuss “The Magic of Fall Planted Bulbs” during an Oct. 1 luncheon at the Greensburg Country Club. Lunch followed by Oster’s talk will begin at noon, as part of Greensburg Garden Center’s annual meeting. “We are very happy to have Doug joining us for...
Mexican sunflower attracts pollinators galore to garden
Late every summer, I’m amazed at how different my flower garden looks than it did in the spring. While I grow many perennials that produce beautiful blooms, the show-stoppers in my garden are often the annuals I plant. I always make it a point to grow cosmos, sunflowers, marigolds and...
Moving plants indoors for winter? Ease them into it gently
Moving houseplants indoors with the onset of cold weather is not your typical furniture-shifting exercise. It requires planning, since houseplants for the most part are tender tropicals and need time to acclimate to a changed growing environment. “Bring them in over a two-week period,” said Kate Karam, editorial director for...
