General growing and maintenance guidelines. Your plants and how to care for them…
Just when I was at my lowest and had become fixed on the idea that we’d entered a terrible new Ice Age, spring finally made its move. Over this past weekend, the warmest parts of my zone 5b(ish) yard here in Toronto began to thaw and by Monday at least half of the garden was …
Questions about seed-starting and potting soil brands are some of the most popular that I receive. They’re tricky to answer because I’ve found that many of the best quality potting soils or soil-less mixes tend to be produced by smaller companies with short distance distribution. In terms of quality and ingredients, soil mixes vary widely …
Two weeks ago I posted a series of desert wildflower images that I took in and around Joshua Tree, California with the promise of more. When I started working on this second set, I realized I have enough for three posts, so I am limiting this one to a specific spot in the Mojave rather …
I have two criteria when choosing beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) to grow: they must be delicious at the tender, green bean (aka snap bean) stage and they must have something about them that is aesthetically pleasing. Over the years I have experimented with a lot of bean varieties and by these criteria ‘Trionfo Violetto’ and ‘Royal …
Chiltepin (Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum) aka (Capsicum annum var. aviculare) or bird pepper is a small, pea-sized chile that grows wild on 3-4 ft-tall shrubs in parts of Texas and Northern Mexico. Coming in at 50,000-100,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU), this pepper is ferociously hot and pungently flavoured. The heat comes on violently, yet diminishes …
I recently had the good fortune to visit the Mojave desert just after the area received a few days of much-needed springtime rain. The rain was followed by warm, springtime temperatures and sun, and you know what that means… FLOWERS!
I kid. A little hyperbole on a Thursday afternoon. The leaves on this particular plant expand as much as 25″ across! Those of you living in warmer climates must wonder why in the heck I have such a large agave indoors! They’re big, heavy, and their spines are painful. At this size they are not …
Ground control to Major Tom. Perhaps it is the trippy name or the reference to outer space, but David Bowie comes to mind whenever I look at the little cluster of earth stars aka cryptanthus that I keep in a terrarium. In reality, the common name of this unusual Bromeliad family plant has a much …
You Grow Girl is celebrating 14 years online this month! As you can imagine an awful lot of articles have been posted in that time and with so much to choose from it can sometimes be tricky to find what you’re looking for. To make things easier, I have been slowly building an archive of …
Fresh sage blossoms are a tasty garnish in savoury, tomato-based beverages. Fortunately, it feels like my toothy saga is nearing the finish line. After a few consultations, I opted for an extraction of the offending tooth. It had a significant crack, and due to an experience Davin had some years ago and the options presented …
Continuing in a running theme of hot peppers that aren’t hot, I present to you another exceptional variety, ‘Pimenta Biquinho’ aka Little Beak Peppers. Hailing from Brazil, these funny little peppers are round with a distinctive, tapered point or tail that resembles a birds beak (hence the name). Like ‘Trinidad Perfume’, another not hot, hot …
I grew my first multiflora tomato variety back when I had the rooftop garden. Multifloras (aka compound inflorescence) are tomato varieties that produce legions of fruit, usually cherry-sized, per cluster. In a hot year, some multifloras have been known to produce as many as 50-100 fruits on a single cluster! I can’t recall which variety …