Growing & Gardening Tips

You walked out to check your tomatoes yesterday and everything looked fine. Today the top of a plant is stripped to bare green stems, with a scatter of dark pellets on the leaves below. That is the calling card of...

No garden bed? No problem. If you have a sunny spot on a patio, a balcony rail, or even a bright back step, you can grow a real crop of tomatoes in pots. The trade off is easy to understand....

You turn your back for two days, and suddenly there is a zucchini the size of your forearm hiding under a leaf. If you have grown this plant even once, you know the feeling. The good news is that timing...

If you have ever watched your pumpkin vines finally set fruit in mid October, you already know the heartbreak. The whole point is a porch full of orange by the last week of the month, and timing is the one...

If your onion tops are starting to yellow and flop over, they're telling you something: harvest time is close. Onions grown from seed are usually ready 100 to 120 days after sowing (about 80 to 100 days from sets), which...

The moment a cucumber goes from perfect to past itYou walk out to the garden in the morning, part the leaves, and there it is: a cucumber that looked small yesterday and now feels like a zucchini. That day or...

Not every onion grows everywhere, and no single onion does every job. Choosing the right one comes down to two questions. First, where you garden, because that decides whether a bulb ever forms. Second, how you want to use it,...

Squash is one of the most generous crops in a summer garden, but the word covers two very different vegetables. Summer squash and winter squash are not about the season you plant them, since both go in after your last...

Peppers might be the most rewarding crop you can grow, and they are easily one of the most varied. The same plant family gives you a sweet bell you can eat like an apple and a Carolina Reaper you cut...