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When designing a container vegetable garden, choose small vegetables that require little room to grow, plant the larger vegetables in the back or center of the container, and grow smaller vegetables and herbs around the perimeter of the container. Grow peas, spinach, carrots and herbs in a container withadvice from a sustainable gardener in this free video on gardening. Expert: Yolanda Vanveen Contact: www.vanveenbulbs.com Bio: Yolanda Vanveen is sustainable gardener who lives in Kalama, Wash. Filmmaker: Daron Stetner

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Strawberries may be planted at various times. Home gardeners often plant in August, but this is not the best time. Commercial growers, who must obtain high yields, usually plant in early spring, as soon as the soil is workable. Early planting is very important, as the plants then get off to a good start under favorable moisture conditions during the cool weather of early spring and produce early runners, which are more productive than those growing in late summer and fall.

Late fall planting also has something in its favor. For several years I have compared late fall (October 20 to November 10) planting with spring planting, and in most cases the fall-planted beds have outyielded the spring-set beds. Plants set out in the fall get off to an earlier start and produce more early runners that bear the heavier crop a year later.

Fall-set plants must be mulched the first winter. In the spring the mulch is raked off and the planting managed the same as one set in the spring. The blossoms should be picked off and the bed allowed to fruit the following spring.

There are many good varieties of strawberries. Generally speaking, the high-quality sorts do not produce the highest yields, but they do produce enough to be satisfactory for the home garden. Dessert quality and reliability are most important in a home garden variety.

Strawberry plants should be purchased from a specialist, preferably one nearby. Although plants shipped early from growers usually arrive safely, plants ordered late and shipped long distances during a hot spell may overheat, with disastrous results.

If the plants arrive before the ground is ready for planting, the bundle should be opened and the plants heeled-in in a moist, shady place in the garden. Each bundle of plants should be opened and the roots spread out so they are in contact with the soil.

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Gardening garden, Gardening, home improvement, plant care

Do you know what the pH of your soil is? Checking a soil’s pH has become so much easier today with new tools.

Above all, don’t guess at pH. Use an electric bridge device if possible. We tend to assume that all peat, oak leaf mold, etc., is acid. This is not true. The brown runoff from newly fallen oak leaves is acid, but once the soluble tannin has been leached away, the residue is alkaline. The same is true of certain peats. German, Swedish, and Canadian peats are usually acid, but domestic brands may be highly alkaline. Always check your peat for pH before using it. Use a soil test kit, or have the peat tested in a soil laboratory.

Note the comment on tannic acid. There are good and bad soil acids. Tannic acid is good, but aluminum acidity, from the commonly-used aluminum sulfate is bad. The stuff is often recommended because it is used commonly to acidify the soil in greenhouse plants. It works, but at the expense of roots, which are eventually killed by aluminum acidity. This is not important in finishing a hydrangea pot plant for Easter sales, but is fatal to rhododendrons after a year or two.

For acidifying, use sulfur, ammonium sulfate, ferrous ammonium sulfate (see above) or potassium sulfate. Very light doses of magnesium sulfate (Epsom salts) will supply the small amount of magnesium needed for good growth. However, don’t overdo this. Speaking of magnesium, its role in plant nutrition is only recently coming to light. Apparently chlorophyll is actually a magnesium chelate which keeps other elements in photosynthesis moving properly.

We never see calcium deficiencies in the Midwest. Our waters supply lime, often too much. Test the pH of the water as it comes out of the hose, and reduce the alkalinity as necessary.

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Gardening garden, Gardening, home improvement, plant care

Deadheading flowers in container gardens is a process of removing the spent flower heads to promote more flowering growth. Deadhead flowering plants all season long for a container garden full of blooms with helpful advice from a professional horticulturist in this free video on gardening….

Gardening Videos Container Gardening, flower pots, Gardening, gardens, plant care, Planters, plants

Winter is a good time to add sawdust to your compost pile. Add a little complete fertilizer to hasten decomposition. Mix well with the leaves and other material. Any kind of sawdust will do. Shredded twigs from line clearance crews may be used for this or for top dressing garden paths.

A glass covered box over your Christmas rose will protect the flowers from the weather and give you boutonnieres that are wonderful conversation pieces. Incidentally put plenty of peat in the soil when planting. Once they are planted, leave them alone. I can hardly wait to see how many of the hundred and some Lenten roses I planted under the Norway maple are going to bloom. They usually start the last week of February. They are two-year-old that I grew from seed. Some had ten or 12 leaves. This year’s crop did not grow nearly as well because it was so wet.

For Garden Color

The old chimney pot I bought last fall for a base of my homemade sundial looks quite antique at the end of the brick walk that goes to the back of the garden. It needs a plant or two of box or evergreen barberry to set it off properly in winter. Last fall the pastel colors of some selected plants of coleus around it really made a lovely picture. After all, that is part of the fun of gardening, trying to make interesting patches of color here and there around the garden to tempt you to photograph them. I admit I am always scheming to get such effects. Since I am a little impatient, it is sometimes necessary to move plants in full leaf or even in bloom to get the effect immediately.

In starting to plan next summer’s plants, regardless of the method of moving, should be braced against wind. The alignment of many trees is disturbed and the root system loosened in the soil by winds. This can easily endanger the plant’s chances of survival.

Rose planting is best if begun the last of this month and carried over into February. If your rose order arrives, of course, it it better to go ahead and plant the bushes. if the garden, I find I’ll need to add to the summer effects.

Coneflowers or rudbeckies are made to order for hot summer climates since they are all of native origin. ven the wild black-eyed Susan is worth using. And in the seed catalogs you will find one or more annual and biennial coneflowers including daisies.

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Gardening garden, Gardening, home improvement, plant care

Like hundreds of other plant lovers, spend many happy days in their flower garden. But, always when the last chrysanthemum had been cut down by killing frost there was the dreary time, between late fall and spring, when all growing things were withered and no flower bloomed.

After one of these ruthless frosts, which snuffed all color from the world and made it sad, Mrs. Preston decided to build a winter window garden in her home.

Since then she has had twelve months of color. A scarlet amaryllis, almost hidden by the foliage of an Easter lily, glows in the window. A novelty in gloxinias, called Lady Slipper, blooms year after year in the same pot with only a short rest period between flowering. Several potted geraniums bloom in their sea son and two of them (Nutmeg and Rose) have fragrant, spicy leaves which add greatly to their desirability and lend an interest even when the plants are no longer in bloom.

A Gloriosa lily, with strange flowers, has climbed 6 feet to the top of the window to crown it with its gold and crimson beauty. There are orchids, some of which bloom during the winter holidays to furnish corsages for friends.

“I used to grow gardenias in my window,” says Mrs. Preston. “Now I have something new. It’s called Fleur d’Amour. It looks like a gardenia, doesn’t it?” she said, pointing to a plant with shining leaves and white gardenia-like flowers. “It has a gardenia-like fragrance, too, that I find captivating.”

The most prized plants in Mrs. Preston’s winter garden, however, are her African violets. It would be difficult for anyone to find a more colorful collection. Some are the usual ones bought at nurseries but quite a number are those Mrs. Preston has raised from seed.

One of her seedlings, grown-up, was mentioned in a magazine that gave the plant special mention for being outstanding in foliage and bicolored blossoms. Many of the other violets were also grown from seed. On the second shelf, near the curtain, is one of several doubles. There are also a number of singles, red, pink and white.

The window garden faces the east and south. It affords abundant light all day. The rack on which the violet plants on the right are seen was constructed so as to give perfect drainage. Underneath the rack is a galvanized iron, water-tight pan filled with cinders. It absorbs any surplus water accidentally spilled in watering. This pan is always moist and so acts as a humidifier to offset the too dry atmosphere frequently found in our modern homes.

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Gardening design, garden, Gardening, home improvement, plant care

Layering is a safe, sure, simple way to increase many types of plants, and particularly the climbers and danglers with which this book is concerned. The first requirement is that the plant have long, lax or drooping stems - which vining plants do. The rest is easy, because the stem is not severed from the parent until the new plant is well rooted and can survive on its own. Humidifying devices, bottom heat, and close protection are seldom called for.

Garden plants layer readily, sometimes even spontaneously. And layering is equally easy for indoor or greenhouse vines. A wandering stem or runner is simply pinned down on the soil in a nearby pot, and severed when it is securely rooted.

Ground layering in the garden takes place at the base of the parent plant. Loosen and lighten a small section of soil, and mix in some peat or other humus to help hold moisture. Select a firm, semiwoody stem, and open the thick skin in one of several ways to speed up rooting. The stem can be nicked underneath with a sharp knife, or split and held open by a small piece of toothpick or match, or simply twisted just enough to break the outside skin and separate a few of the inside tissues. Some plants insist on rooting at or near a node, others don’t care where. And some softer stems don’t even need to be nicked.

Now, bend down the long branch and bury the portion to be rooted in the prepared soil, leaving the tip section of the branch sticking up. Anchor it with a stone, clothespin, or crossed sticks. When the buried stem is well rooted, cut the old branch between new and parent plant, and transplant or pot the offspring.

Simple ground-layering can be modified or embroidered so that more than one plant is produced from each operation. In serpentine layering the stems are covered with soil at intervals, with sections of the stem looping up in the air between. Multiple, or continuous, layering works on plants and vines that root readily all along the stem or branch. The entire stem is buried, except for the tip, and new plants that come up at intervals are cut apart and transplanted.

Air layering is a procedure for thick, upright, canelike stems. The stem is nicked or opened near a node or not, depending on the plant; and that section of the stem is enclosed in a ball of moist sphagnum moss. This is held in place by a firm bandage of polyethylene, a plastic that permits passage of air but holds in moisture, tied to the stem at each end of the ball with soft cord. Check occasionally to make sure the sphagnum has not dried out. When you see roots inside the plastic, cut off the stem just below that point and pot up the new plant, its root ball intact in the moss.

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Gardening garden, Gardening, home improvement, plant care, plants

Most Enthusiastic gardeners agree that gardening is a grand adventure with thrilling experiences at almost every turn. Yet as I look around among my gardening acquaintances. I am amazed to find that many miss much of the joy of their hobby by limiting their activities to the few short months of summer.

There are many ways the hobby of gardening can be an absorbing enterprise the entire year, and one of them is by allowing the seed and nursery catalogs to carry you through strange and exciting adventures during the winter.

There is an idea abroad among matter-of-fact gardeners that a seed or nursery catalog is merely sales literature for ordering plant materials. Their catalogs are discarded after their needs are ordered so as not to clutter up the house. They miss the pleasure and instruction which can be theirs from the correct use of catalogs.

To make clear what one gardener thinks is correct use, let me recount a few of the exciting adventures that have come my way during the years in which I have let seed and nursery catalogs be a part of my year-round living, but please overlook the perpendicular pronoun if it becomes too prominent!

Let us assume that this winter evening a raging blizzard prevents you from going out. A new seed catalog has arrived in the day’s mail. Your evening is not lost, because your catalog will provide you entertainment if you will approach it in the right manner. As you sit down in your snowbound living room, let us suppose that your catalog falls open to the muskmelon section and that your attention is directed to one of the new hybrids.

Its description is so enticing you wonder what gardeners did before the days of hybrids. Then begins a delightful journey into the past, and if I happened to be the snowbound gardener, the journey would go something like this: I would reach for my file of old catalogs to be reminded of some of ths; good old varieties perhaps no longer available. I could no doubt recall the first time I tasted the superb quality. Then my glance might fall on an old Maurice Fuld catalog, and fancy would surely run rampant, finally coming to rest, no doubt, on a Japanese variety-perhaps, with “the sweetness of `honey dew’ and the delightful flavor of a high quality pear.”

From here, I might travel the uncertain road followed by De Candolle throughout the world in his search for the muskmelon’s origin. I would see Africans on the banks of the Niger gathering and eating little wild plum-sized melons which Thonning named Cucumis arenarius; and inhabitants of Northern India eating the wild form, which Roxburgh called C. turbinatus. A variable plant with fruit from the size of a plum to that of a lemon, its flesh may be sweet, insipid (such as some of the modern kinds we grew the past sunless summer) or slightly acid.

My mental wanderings would next take me to the hills of Persia, now Iran, where in modern times the world’s best melons are grown. Then, if I had more time and did not get too sleepy, I could follow the muskmelon from its introduction into Europe, perhaps about the beginning of the Christian era, to the present, savoring many of my own cultures during the years that I have grown muskmelons. Eventually I would return to the new hybrid described in my new catalog.

As you can see the world of the landscape and garden does not only happen in the greenhouse or outside in the dirt.

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Gardening garden, garden catalogs, Gardening, home improvement, plant care

Landscape vine stems and trunks are long and high, and the leaves are far away from the roots that send them moisture. For lush, green growth water regularly, thoroughly, and deep, moistening the entire area around the roots. It may take several hours to dribble water from a soaker hose to saturate the soil around a large vine, less for smaller plants - but they require watering more often.

You can help keep soil cool and moist by mulching the root area with a fairly thick (two inches or more) layer of any available light, porous, moisture-holding material like buckwheat hulls, chopped sugar cane, salt hay or straw, horticultural peat. Well-rotted dehydrated manure is not only a good mulch but also leaches nourishment down into the soil. Compost or leaf mold is also topnotch, and will eventually work down into the soil and help lighten or condition it.

Except when they are in flower, most vines benefit from overhead misting or watering in early morning. A strong hose spray will clean the leaves of dust and soot, increase humidity, and dislodge resident insects. Don’t spray or mist in hot sun, in late afternoon where nights are cool, or during protracted periods of damp, dark weather.

Try not to let any vine, newly planted or not, go into winter with dry soil around the roots. This is particularly vital with evergreens; but any vine, shrub or tree is better prepared for winter if the roots are moist when the ground freezes.

Soil

Most vines will thrive in what is generally described as “any good garden soil.” But this may not mean the soil as it stands around your house. Good garden soil is neither too sandy nor too claylike; it contains a good proportion of humus material like leaf mold, peat, or compost to lighten its texture and increase its ability to hold moisture; yet it is sufficiently porous so that water drains through at a reasonably fast rate. In clay-like soils, drainage is improved by the addition of coarse, sharp sand, or even fine gravel. But don’t forget about the spider mites on house plants because they can destroy your plants.

Some vines will not survive in soil that shows an acid reaction in an accurate test; others require acid soil; still others will tolerate a limited range of acidity to alkalinity. Commercial kits are available for testing your soil. Or ask your County Agricultural Agent how to submit samples to your State Agricultural Service. If you send along the names of varieties you want to grow, the analysis will come back with a recommendation of how to adapt your soil to their specific needs.

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Gardening garden, Gardening, home improvement, plant care

Young or newly transplanted vines are more likely to survive their first winter in a cold climate if they receive some special protection. Questionably hardy vines, or those planted in exposed areas, may need protection every year of their life. In any case, a vigorous, well-grown plant has the greatest chance to resist winter damage.

All vines in general, and evergreens in particular, need plentiful moisture in the soil until it freezes. This is your best insurance against late winter and early spring “burning,” in which warmth and sunlight draw moisture from the leaves before the soil is thawed and the roots are ready to send up moisture from below.

For extra protection, mulch the soil over the vine’s roots with several inches of buckwheat or cottonseed hulls, salt hay or straw, ground corncobs or sugar cane, or similar material. Snow is an excellent mulch, while it lasts.

Or make an eight-inch mound of soil over the roots and around the base of the stems, and wrap the rest of the stems in burlap. In extreme climates, loosen the roots on one side of a deciduous vine, lay its trunk or stems down in a trench dug out from the other side, and cover the whole with soil until early spring.

Don’t plant vines and kentia palm in open areas where gusty winter winds can whip them loose from their supports. After a sticky snowstorm. gently push or shake off heavy drifts caught by upper branches. Or provide a windbreak of trees or shrubs, or a screen of burlap or evergreen boughs.

In any climate, keep in mind that plants can stand a gradual drop in temperature more readily than a sudden frost or freeze, particularly if it occurs very early or very late in the dormant season. When unseasonal cold threatens, the simple expedient of covering the top of a vine with a tent of newspaper or plastic overnight may often save its life.

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Gardening garden, Gardening, plant care