My basement seed starting experiment was going full speed ahead. Tomato, pepper, romaine, spinach and cauliflower plants were plugging along happily when I noticed a few tiny bugs crawling around on the table under the seed trays. I identified them as clover mites, which, as I now know, love to snack on plant material. I really didn’t want to spray… Read more »
It makes me crazy not knowing the names of plants I own. It is much more difficult to find care recommendations. And inevitably someone will ask me the names of these unnamed mystery plants. My lorem ipsum plants. A few weeks ago, I picked up 35 gorgeous, beautiful succulent cuttings. No names. Now I’m working on piecing together genus/species on them…. Read more »
People are trying to be good gardeners. Then they get a droopy coleus and just need a little nudge in the right direction. They think they should instinctively know how to take care of plants and that there must be something wrong with them. That they have a black thumb. I hate to see this. There’s a lot to learn. It… Read more »
Healthier diets! Fresh tomatoes! Less stress! Better life! There are so many benefits of gardening, so we’re building raised garden beds for growing vegetables this summer. There is a ridiculous amount of research on why gardening is good for you and here’s some of it. A study conducted in the Netherlands showed that gardening can reduce the level of the stress… Read more »
The colors in this photo mean spring to me. Succulents have started to grow again, and a few leaves dropped off my jelly bean plant/pork and beans plant/Sedum rubrotinctum. The plant these fell off of is about a year old and have become leggy and not so pretty. I have visions of six new healthy, strong plants dancing in my… Read more »
If you could choose one, what would be your superpower? When asked the question, so many people choose flying — peacefully gliding through the sky with a view for miles. And avoiding all traffic. All along, we’ve been surrounded by creatures that already have this superpower — birds. So I’m going to investigate. I used to think birding was too slow and boring… Read more »
My lettuce seedlings are doing extremely well under grow lights. I had been having the same problem I often have with seedlings — sad, spindly growth, even after a few weeks. I put a new batch of romaine ‘Freckles’ seedlings under lights 20 days ago. Just after my last update, I noticed that the roots of the seedlings had reached the… Read more »
When I started baby spinach and romaine lettuce seeds for a fall harvest, the seedlings were spindly and sad. This has happened to me more than once while trying to start plants from seed and I never knew why. In the past, I’ve planted these sad sprouts outside (where they failed) and eventually just gave up on growing from seed…. Read more »
I got a cutting of stephanotis and I tried to root it. It did not work. I blame it on Orphan Black assassin Helena. No one strikes fear in my heart more than Helena, and now she’s struck in my garden. *whimper* Maybe I’ll just buy a finished plant. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sara Tambascio… Read more »
Every winter, just about the time the cold, snow and grey make me want to jump out the window, I start seeing shoots of green and pops of blues, yellows and reds around the neighborhood. I want to have one of those houses with a ton of early spring flowers to help people remember that winter won’t last forever. So I bought… Read more »