…here’s nothing like banana trees. They grow fast and tall. And because it’s fairly easy to bring them through the winter, you can get bigger and bigger plants each year. Just don’t expect any fruit—they need 18 months of warm weather for that. For me, the huge leaves are enough. When I first started with bananas, I grew them in containers. But now, I put most of them right in the ground and dig them up in the fall, right after h…
The staked stem of our Himalayan banana tree, growing in Burlington, VT. For many years, we have grown banana trees in our garden. Not for the fruit, but for the large, tropical leaves and the unlikely accent they add to our Vermont gardens. In fall, I dig up the plants and drag the heavy clumps — wrapped in burlap — into the basement for winter dormancy. The unheated basement remains at about 40 to 50 degrees F., which seems to suit the ban…
…nd what went into producing it. So how come I can’t have the right to know what’s in the food I buy in the store? That’s the goal of the Just Label It campaign, which last month submitted a record-breaking 1.1 million signatures to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in favor of labeling genetically engineered (GE) foods. And in polls by ABC, MSNBC, NPR, the Washington Post, Consumer Reports and others, consistently…
…a good County Fair exhibit and won a blue ribbon, which paid for my much of my investment in seed potatoes. The crop also kept my family in potatoes for most of the winter. Every pound of seed potatoes I planted yielded about 12 pounds of harvest. In other words, we dug up nearly four bushels or 200 pounds of spuds from just 18 pounds of “seed”. As these Flowering Potatoes show, the plant is especially beautiful when in bloom. The term “s…
Brugmansias, stealing the show. Every summer, the front border at our house is reserved for a display of annuals. It’s beside the sidewalk on one of Burlington’s main thoroughfares, so we want it to be special. This year, my partner designed a border that features brugmansias and other plants in hot colors, including a Chinese banana tree, cactus-flowered dahlias (orange), elephant ears (one black and one green with black veins),…
Save treasured tropicals for next season’s garden. They’ll be bigger and better! Panache canna I used to save quite a few plants through the winter. I had dreams of plants that would be more grand and beautiful with each passing year. Well, overwintering isn’t always as easy as it looks. In some cases, there are pests to contend with. My Meyer lemon tree was constantly plagued by scale insects. Bulbs and tubers can be t…
…tes hosts a trailer, brings it in when it is full, and returns with an empty one,” Cline says. Steve Cline sorts plastic pots and cell packs at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s recycling program, where they collect 100,000 to 140,000 pounds of horticultural plastic every year. Cline, former director of the Garden’s Kemper Center for Home Gardening, started the program in 1998. The botanical garden’s Pots to Planks program s…
Like many who lost tomato plants to late blight last year, I’m wondering: How can I make sure it doesn’t happen again this year? Plant a diversity of tomato varieties to reduce the possibility of disease. Like many gardeners who lost their tomato crop to late blight last year, I’m wondering: How can I make sure it doesn’t happen again this year? Unfortunately, there’s no silver bullet. The most important thin…
…en the earth-friendly ones. At first, I tried neem, a relatively harmless spray that does wonders on aphids and controls blackspot on roses. It worked to control the larvae the first year, but I had to spray frequently (every 10 to 15 days). The second year, I couldn’t keep the larvae under control. My lily crop was hit hard, and I got few blooms. Last year, I decided to resort to a systemic called imidacloprid. The results were instantaneo…
Flat-leaf parsley I used to do much more canning and freezing than I do now. With our household down to just two, we’re cooking smaller meals and don’t need to have as much food around. But there are still quite a few garden crops that I squirrel away in my freezer or pantry, and one of those is parsley. I can chop and freeze a huge basket of fresh-picked parsley in about 15 minutes. With a half-dozen sessions like that throughout the…