by Stephanie Suesan Smith | May 11, 2011 | weed control
Vegetable garden, herb garden on the Kirchberg plateau, Reinhausen (Gleichen) One of the biggest frustrations in a garden is how fast grass can invade and take over. This is especially true in a new garden when you have just tilled the existing grass under and...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | May 9, 2011 | entomology
Asian Tiger Mosquito Image by WikiImages from Pixabay The picture I grew up with of mosquito control is of a slow-moving vehicle spraying poison out the back while children ran along behind and played in the spray. This does not exactly conform to best practices for...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | May 6, 2011 | weed control
Vegetable garden, herb garden on the Kirchberg plateau, Reinhausen (Gleichen) Nemracc, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons If you have weeds in your garden, they generally fall into three categories: grasses, broadleaf...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | May 4, 2011 | weed control
Weeds in a garden of Purple Cabbage by Max Pixel One of the things I spend a lot of time doing every spring and summer is identifying weeds for people. Now, a weed is just a plant that is growing where it is not wanted. Sometimes, though, it has to go, and until you...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Apr 25, 2011 | eggplant
Eggplant, along with tomatoes and potatoes, is part of the deadly nightshade family. Many people enjoy growing the purple or white globes and making such things as eggplant parmesan, ratatouille, and fried eggplant. If you are one of those people, here is how to...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Apr 15, 2011 | gardening101
I frequently receive comments that someone would like to have a garden but they do not have the space. It doesn’t take a lot of space to grow a few vegetables. In square foot gardening, Mel Bartholomew developed an easy-to-use method of intensive cultivation...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Mar 30, 2011 | tomatoes
Healed graft on tomato Photo by Caryrivard As I mentioned in my last post, Territorial Seed Company is now selling grafted tomatoes. According to research being done by Ohio State University, tomatoes that are good to eat can be grafted onto rootstock that is disease...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Mar 28, 2011 | tomatoes
Healed graft on tomato Photo by Caryrivard When I first heard of grated tomatoes, I thought it was a marketing ploy. Why graft a plant that only lives one season then dies? It turns out, though, that grafted tomatoes address real problems that market farmers have. ...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Mar 14, 2011 | entomology
A juvenile root-knot nematode (Meloidogyne incognita) penetrates a tomato root on Jan. 24, 2013. Once inside, the juvenile, which also attacks cotton roots, causes a gall to form and robs the plant of nutrients Photo by William Wergin and Richard Sayre. Colorized by...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Mar 7, 2011 | public service announcements
Summer squash by nociveglia at https://www.flickr.com/photos/40385177@N07/5982144657 Ever plant a garden and get way more produce than you can use? What in the world possessed you to plant the entire packet of squash seeds, cucumber seeds, or beans? Your...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Mar 4, 2011 | tomatoes
Tomatoes can get a large group of diseases. In my area of Texas, tomato plants that are sold as transplants have the letters VFN on their tags. That stands for fusarium wilt, verticillium wilt, and nematodes. Plants that have VFN on their tags are resistant to...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Feb 28, 2011 | Farm safety
Coiled rattlesnake We as gardeners are more at risk for bites and stings from venomous critters than most folks. We move leaf litter that might hide a copperhead snake, reach in the shadows where a black widow spider might lurk and are around bees and wasps a lot....
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Feb 23, 2011 | entomology
Ladybug larva One of the interesting things about practicing integrated pest management (IPM) is that you get to learn about the relationships between the insects that you consider pests and the insects that eat them. The lady beetle, or ladybug, is one of the good...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Feb 21, 2011 | Farm safety
Fertilizer is safe when used properly. If used improperly, however, it can have serious negative effects upon you, your plants, and the environment. Some of these effects are quite unintentional. I remember when they banned phosphorus in detergents because of algae...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Feb 19, 2011 | gardening101
It is time to fertilize lawns and gardens in North East Texas. Hopefully, you had a soil test done in December or January. These results will contain detailed recommendations for what fertilizer to use and how to apply it. If you don’t have a recent soil...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Feb 17, 2011 | entomology
Scale insects photo by https://www.flickr.com/photos/treegrow/ When I was a teenager, my parents bought a peach orchard. I heard my Dad talk about spraying the trees with dormant oil and thought that was really weird. Who oils trees that are still alive? Scale...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Feb 14, 2011 | gardening101
Seedlings ready to harden off If you do vegetable gardening, chances are you buy some plants from nurseries or other growers. Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants are the most commonly bought starts. Just because someone else started...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Feb 11, 2011 | herbs
Most people think of parsley as that green stuff on their plates in restaurants. It is actually a very useful herb. It is also very nutritious. Parsley is easy to grow and can be grown in containers indoors during the winter for year-round availability. Different...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Feb 9, 2011 | Brussels Sprouts
Brussels Sprouts photo by Visitor7 Brussels Sprouts are a cool-weather crop. When they get hot, the plant produces flowers and the little sprouts are ruined. Brussels Sprouts are a Northern European vegetable related to cabbage. No records exist of them earlier...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Feb 7, 2011 | gardening101
Vegetable seeds. Photo by Lynn Ketchum. Eying those seeds leftover from last year and wondering if they will work? While the seed germination rate goes down the longer they have been alive, you can do a simple test to see if the leftover seeds will grow. ...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Feb 5, 2011 | squash
Winter Squash photo by Paul Asman and Jill Lenoble Winter squash is grown much like summer squash. The difference is in the harvest. Summer squash is picked while it is immature and the rind is soft. Winter squash is picked when mature and the rind hard. Winter...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Feb 2, 2011 | squash
Yellow summer squash is a warm-weather squash usually planted around the last freeze date in an area. Zucchini squash, while technically a summer squash, has a post of its’ own. Yellow squash is a Cucurbita, just as zucchini squash, cucumbers, and...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Jan 31, 2011 | squash
Country people joke that we keep our cars locked in the summer so someone won’t put a bag of zucchini in the front seat. Zucchini is easy to grow and produces large amounts of vegetables, so you only need a few plants to feed your family. Even then,...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Jan 28, 2011 | potatoes
Sweet potatoes ready to harvest photo by User:Vmenkov Sweet potatoes, also called yams in the United States, are related to the morning glory. They, like the Irish potato, came from Peru and Ecuador originally. Sweet potatoes are part of the root of the plant and...
by Stephanie Suesan Smith | Jan 26, 2011 | collard greens
Collard Greens Many Southerners consider collard greens a delicacy. My Daddy’s family ate them and he enjoys them. My mother’s family did not, and Mom never fixed greens, except spinach, when I was growing up. I can take them or leave them, but I can...
