Garden as it actually exists now. Green background is temporary grass clipping mulch, brown is more long term pine mulch. White graph paperish area is not yet tilled or planted. Corn is in the ground but future will include raised beds in this area. Raspberries are in ground and will stay there.


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I've been reading up about growing strawberries, and pretty much every resource says that you should pinch off the flowers of June-bearing varieties the first year so that you can get a bigger crop the following year and none the first year. They also say that flowers should be pinched off of everbearing varieties until mid-late June ( Read more... )

Hello again!  I have a couple of questions on growing strawberries.  I bought a Topsy-Turvy for strawberries today and I was wondering around how much young strawberry plants cost?  Are they annuals?  And if I live in Zone 7, when should I plant them and hang them up?

In my yard is an old root/storm cellar. It hasn't been used in a decade (we moved in 3 years ago). The roof forms a dome that was covered with grass, but was too steep to mow. It's fairly close to my back door, and I thought planting my strawberries up there would be a good solution. No need to mow, and close to the kitchen. Brilliant, except that ( Read more... )

I'll be moving to a new apartment in a couple of weeks. This will be the first apartment with actual space to have a small container garden so I'm ridiculously excited. I grew up with a plot at the local organic community garden, but when it comes to indoor plants I'm completely lost ( Read more... )

question about strawberries ( Read more... )

For those of you up north needing a fix of greenery to get you through what remains of winter, here are some pictures of my container garden.

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It's beginning to be caterpillar season again in my area. I had forgotten about them until I saw the first one this year and suddenly I remembered trying to sit out on my porch and read quietly but being interrupted by caterpillars raining down on my head. One of the downsides of having a nicely tree shaded porch.

This guy is known as the Eastern ( Read more... )

I was having an okay day yesterday when I came home to see something absolutely wonderful - my strawberry plant is putting out it's first flower! (Technically it's three plants in one five gallon container.) Since I've stuck to herbs before this, I've never had any flowers. Generally I don't even like flowers, but this one makes me want to go squee ( Read more... )

In the past I've always grown everbearing strawberries, because the family likes to have them fresh for desert throughout the growing season. But I'm thinking that I would like to make a nice big batch of strawberry jam. Common sense dictates that having a large harvest at one of perhaps twice in June would make the most sense. So the question, ( Read more... )