Garden Wisdom Blog

Drying herbs for tea, or culinary use, is fast and easy. Harvest on dry days, preferably in the morning after the dew has evaporated but before the sun is strong, or pick at dusk. Rinse and pat dry, if desired. While herb bundles hanging upside down look pretty, this process can be messy and the herbs may attract dust or bugs. Instead, strip the herbs from their stems—which hold residual water—and dry them flat, preferably on a mesh screen or tray. Sprinkle the herbs no more than two or three layers thick on the screen. Store away from direct heat...

Whether you intend on planting potatoes in a garden trench, in containers, or even in your unused parking lot stall at work, your key to success is an understanding of how potato plants grow. The little spud that you plant (called a seed potato) is a tuber – part of the plant’s roots in which it stores energy for growth the following year. If you’ve ever left a potato out on your kitchen counter, you’ll know what eventually happens… The “eyes” of each potato sprout little growths called stolons. When these sprout below the soil, they grow vertically upward, and...

Lawn is unsustainable. For all its demands of water and mowing energy, it gives nothing in return. Space that could be used for growing food, or even simple wildflowers, is dedicated instead to endlessly demanding, non-native grass. On a suburban cul de sac, there may be ten or more homes, each a sprinkler system for irrigation and each with at least one machine for manicuring lawn. Several of these households may also sprinkle their lawns with chemical fertilizers that wash into the broader environment. So how can these spaces be converted into something worth caring for? Removing the sod by...

Like its close cousins in the endive group, all about radicchio varieties are members of the Chicory family. Radicchio has been in cultivation since the fifteenth century in Veneto, a region in the northeast of Italy. Most radicchio varieties are named according to the area within Veneto where they were popularized: Treviso, Chioggia, Castelfranco, and so on. (The Chioggia group are the familiar red & white, round heads.) It’s no surprise that radicchio’s strong Italian heritage has left it something of a stranger in the wider world of vegetables we know from northern Europe and the New World. But, like...

An empty lot and a bag of seed bombs: it’s the perfect Christmas gifts for gardeners. These little balls of seeds are easy to toss into neglected areas, creating tiny wildlife habitats for bees, birds, and butterflies. They also make great garden starter kits for those who are new to gardening. What is a seed bomb? It’s a ball of compost and seeds stuck together with clay. While seeds have their own little stash of nutrients inside them, placing them in a nutrient-rich seed bomb gives them an even better head start. These balls of seeds have historically been tools...