Tips for Gardening Success in Drought
Mulching consentes moisture, since it slous evaporation from the soil. If dry soil is mulched, it tends to stay dry if rainfall is sparse. The time to mulch is when the soil is moist, even if you are not yet ready to plant. Shaded soil stays moist longer than soil in partial or full sun, a rule you can use to your advantage. When plants and rows are closely spaced so as to overlap only slightly , the soil is shaded. This means that moisture will evaporate from the soil at a slower rate. It...
Direct Sowing In The Garden
Some vegetables have large or quick-germinating seed, and it is preferable to direct sow them. Peas, beans, corn, and radishes are examples. Some vegetables do not transplant easily, or they mature so quickly that they are best direct sown in the garden. The time to direct sow in the garden depends on two things the individual kinds of vegetables chosen and the average date of the last frost of the area of the country in which you live. As a rule, hardy types that can withstand some cool...
Cold Frame
If you plan to start a good many seeds prior to transplanting them into your garden, there is nothing more satisfactory and helpful, short of a greenhouse, than a cold frame. You can buy a finished cold frame, one ready to assemble from a kit or as a partial kit with the hardware and specifications for the lumber needed, or you can make your own cold frame from an old storm window and whatever used lumber you might have lying around in your garage or basement. Cold frames have a top-to-bottom...
The Vegetable Garden Planner
Vegetable gardening is for the adventuresome, imaginative child in each of us. It's never dull. Mv vegetable garden changes constantly, seemingly by happenstance. Sometimes 1 select plant varieties on a whim, and the garden changes direction with the breeze Each year 1 add to the staples I'm sure we can't be without. I've learned there are more interesting, unusual, and rewarding plants than can be grown in a lifetime. The best advice for the beginning gardener is to follow your instincts, try...
Fertilizing Seedlings
Seedlings don't need a lot of fertilizer, particularly if a planting mix that contains compost or plant food is used. Over-fertilized seedlings put too much effort into growing lush foliage and won't produce good vegetables. If you sow your seeds in a soil-less medium vermiculite or perlite , transplant the seedlings promptly to a rich planting mix or add a weak fertilizer when watering to provide nutrients. Remember, some soil-less media also contain slow-release fertilizer. With these, you...
Pixie Hybrid II Tomatoes
Off-season vegetables are always a treat and a conversation stimulator, and one of the best is Burpee's 'Pixie Hybrid II'. This tomato is blissfully happy indoors, in pots and window boxes. It is a fast-growing variety and tops out at an average height of 18 inches. Crown outdoors in the summer. 'Pixie Hybrid li ripens in just over 50 days from the time seedlings are planted indoor growth takes somewhat longer. Careful planning, per the chart below, can keep you in tasty, bright-scarlet...
Designing a Container Garden
Containers are wonderful places to explore garden design and plant combinations. No matter what size vour container, it will be more attractive if something is spilling over the edges. The smaller containers are attractive with one plant variety, but large containers need to be planned. In a half whiskey barrel plant something bushy and upright in the center like three 'Pixie Hybrid II' seedlings and surround it with such cascading plants as nasturtiums. The contrast of growing habits will make...
Artificial Light
If you don't have a window with a southern exposure and strong enough sunlight to produce good seedlings, you can use a fluorescent light. Even with good southern exposure, if your plants are in the windowsill, a long spell of cloudy weather could interfere with good growth. Most of the time it's necessary to provide additional lighting so seedlings receive enough light for healthy plant growth. Although artificial light does not duplicate sunlight, there are lights that produce the right...
Vegetables
New York union Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore Cop right amp 1991 W. Allee Burpee amp Company I'KKNTICK II ALL PHKSS and culophon an- registered trademarks of Simon amp Schuster. Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data 'Hie Burpee American gardening series. V egetables Suzanne Fmlig Bales. 1. Vegetable gardening. 2. Vegetables. 3. Vegetable Pictorial oik . I. Title. II. Title Vegetable . SB32I.B245 1991 Dcsigiicd bv Patricia Fabrican Manufactured in thc United States uf America...
Raised Beds
The soil warms faster, I plant earlier, have better drainage, fewer weeds, and a more abundant harvest with more perfectly shaped root crops. If I'd only known, I would have done it sooner. liaised beds, like these above, allow J or better drainage and easier weeding. Designed with curved edges, they can be decorative and especially attractive. raised above round level. You can mound soil eight to ten inches high in rows 1 to 1 Vz feet wide, level the top, and plant, or build it 1 to 1 Vi feet...
Seed Tapes
Burpee's seed tapes make gardening easier than ever. The seeds are attached at the proper spacing to 15-foot paper tapes. The tape disintegrates after planting. Seed tapes make it easy to handle seeds. allow uniform emergence of vigorous seedlings. give seedlings the space they need for early growth. reduce the time, work, and loss involved in thinning seedlings. allow enough room for healthy root systems to develop, minimizing transplanting risks. permit sowing in perfectly straight rows or in...
Styles Of Vegetable Gardening
Vegetable gardens typically have been ostracized, stuck behind the garage or out back, unseen by all but the gardener. But take another look. There is nothing ugly about a vegetable garden. In fact, there is great beauty, lake pride in your efforts. Step back occasionally and look at the big picture. Not since the days of the victory garden, when vegetables were not as readily available at the market, has the vegetable garden been much praised. Put a chair or bench and even a table by your...
Steps for Preparing the Soil
Like all living things, plants need air, water, and sunshine and two of these three reach the plants through the soil. The better the soil, the better the harvest. Whether preparing a new garden or readying the soil of an established one, you start by spading or rototilling the soil to at least spade depth, 8 to 10 inches. This loosens and aerates the soil, providing a good home for your crops and assuring their development and healthy growth. Whenever possible, begin the preparation of your...
Season Extenders
Sooner or later every backyard gardener will look for ways of extending the growing season. This is usually done by protecting the plants before and after the last spring frost and after the first frost in the fall. Devices such as cloches, hotkaps. grow tunnels, and cold frames all help you get an early start on your crops. The general purpose of all of these devices is to improve the climate right in your garden by trapping the warmth of the sun during the day and holding it around the plant...
Childrens Gardening
Katie Hales and her lt lop. Huffy, enjoy lazy summer afternoons playing in a teepee covered with vines of scarlet runner beans, peas, and morning glories. Katie Hales and her lt lop. Huffy, enjoy lazy summer afternoons playing in a teepee covered with vines of scarlet runner beans, peas, and morning glories. Give a child the gift of working with Mother Nature. It will be the start of a love that will last a lifetime. The miracle of seeds that grow into huge pumpkins, tall sunflowers or tiny...
Tomato Cages
This is my favorite method of staking tomatoes. Cages are easy to store and last indefinitely. You can buy tomato cages 40 inches tall or make them with reinforced galvanized wire mesh 51 2 linear feet of 6-inch-square mesh 40 or more inches wide will make an 18-inch-diameter cylinder of good height. Secure cages to stakes to prevent toppling over. Place each cage around a single plant the shoots will grow and enlarge within the cage. As the plants grow taller, a second cage can easily be...
The Ornamental Vegetable Garden
With their sweet-pealike flowers and long, green pods, scarlet runner beans or any variety of peas growing on a fence or trellis behind a flower garden are both delicious and decorative. The tall, ferny foliage of carrot tops or dill, planted so as to surround flowers with quite solid shapes dahlias, lilies and daisies, for example , is very attractive it frames and highlights the flowers. The tall, blue-green, spiky leaves of leeks, the red-tinged, wide leaves of beets, and the flaming red...
Starting Seeds Indoors
By sowing Bibb lettuce or cucumbers indoors even though they can be direct sown in the garden , you can enjoy your crop weeks earlier and weeks longer, stretching the season. Some plants take a long time to mature. In most climates, tomatoes. peppers, and eggplants direct sown outdoors after the weather has warmed enough may not have time to produce ripened fruit before the fall frost. If you are a northern gardener, indoor sowing or purchase of bedding plants for some varieties is a necessity...
Burpeeana Cauliflower
The promise of seeds is the miracle of life in multicolored, multisized, and multi-shaped packages. Hold a seed in your hand and ponder for a moment That tiny seed has the complete nutrients to sprout. It will grow to a thousand times its size, needing only moisture and fertilizer after waking from its dormant state. Some seeds, those of tomatoes for example, will last for 18 or 20 years if kept cool and dry in their dormant state since the percent of viable seeds decreases over time, though,...
Tools
Today's gardening tools are a pleasure to use. They are light weight the weight is in the tool and not the handle , to make A homemade trellis for climbing vines. A homemade trellis for climbing vines. Growing tomatoes in cages allon s free circulation of air. discourages mildew and pests, and keep fruit off the ground and exposed to the sun. You'll enjoy a healthier tomato crop, earlier. Growing tomatoes in cages allon s free circulation of air. discourages mildew and pests, and keep fruit off...
Hybrid and Openpollinated Seeds
At Burpee we are frequently asked why some seeds are more expensive than others. The answer is that hybrid seeds are more expensive to produce than open-pollinated varieties. Hybrid varieties are particularly easy to grow and harvest, and there are many wonderful varieties available at good prices. Hybrid seeds are produced by crossing two different parents, and will grow only one generation of plants. The offspring from a hybrid revert to resemble the parentage, so saving seed from hybrids is...
Thinning
transplant them to another part of the garden, or move some to containers. For legumes, thin either by carefully hand pulling or snipping unwanted seedlings at the soil line with scissors or pruning shears. This avoids disturbing the shallow roots of the remaining legumes. All other vegetables should be thinned by pulling the extra plants carefully out of the ground. The best way to do this is to water the area first, give the moisture time to soak down to the roots, and then gently pull the...