Gardening

Prepare your waterfall, fish pool, and water pumps for winter

Unless you’re living in USDA Hardiness Zone 10 or warmer — in which case you might be firing up the patio heater for those cooler evenings — right now you’re getting ready for winter. The weather across the country has already thrown some unanticipated winter curve balls, so I’m a ...

How to keep your bulbs safe from deer, rabbits, and other pests

Bulbs are perfect, self-contained packages for gardeners. They're equipped with everything necessary to make flowers grow and bloom. Problem is, that makes them a prize for predators, too. "The perfect lunch box," says Leonard Perry, an extension professor with the University of Vermont. "Put them in the ground this fall and ...

Plant a garden without using your shovel

If you are up for starting a new garden, vegetable or ornamental, but can't stand the thought of all that digging, there's a solution: You can start a new bed anywhere in your landscape without lifting a shovel. No-dig gardening is easy and it works. And fall is a good time ...

Ginkgo trees are beautiful in autumn

It’s one of those blue-sky days in Virginia, rare and exquisite - a perfect day to check on the ginkgo grove at the State Arboretum of Virginia at Blandy Experimental Farm in Boyce. For weeks, I have swung by there, watching the slow departure of chlorophyll from the leaves of the ...

50 million footprints play havoc with the grass on the Washington Mall

Fall brings the Washington Mall to its annual low point. This is when many of the turf panels have been beaten back by so many feet over the previous six months that calling it turf is an act of generosity. Some of the rectangles of lawn are no more ...

Onions of great flavor and questionable character

Italian Red Torpedo, Yellow Globe, and Spanish Sweet White onions harvested from the garden a couple weeks ago are finally dry enough to store in mesh bags for the winter. I grow a variety of onions, because they have different flavors. They keep for at least six months if placed in ...

Hoop houses extend urban farmers’ growing season

On the vacant lot in Michigan where her childhood home once stood, Carolyn Meekins grows seedlings for Asian greens, red kale, and green beans in a plastic-covered greenhouse known as a hoop house. The structure warms and protects the tender, young plants, allowing Ms. Meekins to plant earlier in the year. ...

Variegated forsythia in the fall

I’ve never before gardened anywhere cold enough for forsythia. (Can you tell I devote far too much time trying to dream up advantages to this nasty climate?) My Iowa-gal wife has regaled me with stories about growing up with them, her dad’s love of them, harbingers of spring etc., and any ...

The Old Farmer’s Almanac still resonates with readers

Here are three words you might expect to cause instant seizure with an Internet search engine: Old. Farmer's. Almanac. And yet, those canny New England Yankees who publish the annual Old Farmer's Almanac have put out No. 218 in seeming blithe indifference to the seismic shifts that have rocked traditional ...

Community Supported Agriculture is great for farms, environment, and locavores

The Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, farm nearest my house has switched from its summer to its fall menu. Instead of organically grown peppers, green beans, melons, and other warm-weather crops, members are filling their baskets with autumn vegetables — cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, leeks, potatoes, winter squash, pumpkins, onions, garlic, and ...