Fall Vegetable Gardening: What to Plant in September

Are you the kind of gardener who thinks the season is over once your tomatoes ripen? Maybe life got in the way and you didn't…

Rhubarb Simple Syrup

Do you grow rhubarb, but don't know what to make with it? Perhaps you don't grow this edible perennial vegetable because …

Chive Flower Vinegar Recipe

Do you grow chives but don't know what to do with them? What about when the plant flowers? Do you ignore the blooms, cut them…

Easy Plants to Grow From Seed

Do you want to start plants from seeds, but lack experience or confidence? Don't worry, a lot of gardeners start out that way…

Saving tomato seeds? Isolate Tomato Flowers for True Seeds

If you're growing a particularly great heirloom tomato in your garden, chances are you will want to grow that tomato again, o…

Rooting Tomato Cuttings

Propagating plants in the garden is easy, and a cheap way to get free plants for your garden. Most of us only propagate ornamenta…

Seeds to Sow in Summer for Fall Vegetable Harvests

For most of my gardening life I thought that gardening happened in April and May when you sow your seeds and plant your summer ve…

When to Plant Tomatoes in Chicago

Often called the "gateway drug" into gardening, there are few plants that pull someone into gardening like tomatoes do.…

'Indigo Rose' Tomato: Another Blue Garden Tomato

If you're a regular reader of this blog you may remember that last year I grew some 'OSU Blue' tomatoes in my contain…

Blossom-end Rot is What's Wrong with Your Tomato Plant

About this time of year I started getting the same question from new gardeners. In particular, new gardeners who are growing thei…

'Boxwood' Basil

I've been thinking a lot about basil this spring and wishing I had land to grow a lot of basil. In particular, I really want …

'Purple Ruffles' Basil

The year before last I tried to grow 'Purple Ruffles' basil from Burpee seeds which unfortunately didn't come true. T…

OSU Blue Tomato

Over the winter Colleen from In the Garden Online offered me OSU Blue tomato seeds. Having never heard of this tomato variety an…

Cucumber 'White Wonder' From Burpee Seeds

When selecting vegetables to grow in my container garden the first thing I always consider is the color. While flavor and product…

Lettuce 'Sea of Red'

Up until recently I'd never been the kind of gardener who thought of vegetables as beautiful. Sure, I believe that vegetable …

Pollinating Cucumber Flowers

Cucumber plants are usually monoecious meaning the plants have separate male and female flowers on the same plant. The same is tr…

Chitting Seed Potatoes Before Planting

Potatoes are usually grown from what is called "seed potatoes," seed potatoes are not true seeds. They're potatoes …