No place on Earth has more botanic diversity and more wild, intriguing and flat-out weird plants than South Africa. At least that’s what I’ve heard and read. I remember York College professor Marilyn Daly telling me once after coming back from a trip there that it was like being in the Land […]
One of my favorite spots on Earth is Colonial Williamsburg – that little Virginia town that’s been restored to its 18th-century roots. Our family took trips there almost every year when our kids were little. It was always fascinating to see just how people lived and thought back then – and you get […]
Penn State Extension’s Steve Bogash and I are almost done deciphering a 1,300-person online survey we conducted of new vegetable gardeners. Tons of new folks have been giving home vegetable gardening a shot in the last two years. It’s been gardening’s hottest trend. Mainly, Steve and I were trying to find out […]
One of the fringe benefits of being a plant nerd is that you no doubt have a whole yard full of fresh holiday decorations — free for the pruning. Take a walk around the yard and see how many plants you can “harvest” for both indoor and outdoor decorations. You won’t get […]
I’m sad to say the world today lost one of its kindest, most loving and most generous souls — my mom, Leona, who everyone knew better as “Matty.” Mom was 85 and had been going downhill with dementia for years. What a sweetheart she was to everyone. You know how some […]
November brought our first killing frost that knocked off most of the annuals and tender veggies. Yank ‘em and compost ‘em, if you haven’t done that yet. Fall weather also has brought a lot of questions about what we can still do in the yard. Tops on the list has been, “Is […]
You may remember me whining after getting back from a trip earlier this year to Ireland about how unfair it is that the Irish have such a great gardening environment and we’ve got groundhogs, Japanese beetles and 100-degree droughts. Just for that, I’m going back to give them a piece of my mind… […]
That brush we had with frost over the weekend was a final warning to get your tender-plant-saving done before it’s too late. I always save some of my favorite annuals, pot specimens and tropicals by moving them inside for winter. I don’t have a greenhouse. And if you don’t either, don’t let that […]
I’ve been hearing for the past two years about how many folks are giving vegetable gardening a try for the first time. That’s been great news for many reasons (cost savings, fresh food, better taste, better nutrition, more productive use of land than grass, good exercise, etc.) Especially gratifying is how many […]
If you’re at all familiar with Harrisburg’s Allison Hill neighborhood, you probably know it as a violence-plagued, drug-dealer-infested blight zone. Who’d expect to find a cutting-edge, fully functioning, 1-acre urban farm in the middle of it? I sure didn’t when I went over to Joshua Farm this past weekend with a group from Slate Hill […]