Harvest Helpers Having dedicated garden harvest tools will remove a point of frustration for a lot of gardeners. Do you find that when it’s time to pick tomatoes you are raiding the recycle bin for old grocery bags? When the broccoli is ready to harvest, do you lose your favorite paring knife in the garden?…
Yard Long Beans This year while searching for a heat tolerant successor to plant after the potatoes were harvested, I discovered a gem. Yard long beans (aka: asparagus beans, Chinese long beans, snake beans) are a subspecies of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) making them siblings of the familiar southern staple blackeyed peas. The major difference being…
The Most Used Landscaping Tool For most homeowners there are only a few landscaping tools you’ll ever need. First and foremost is a dependable shovel. Not all shovels are created equal, though. Choosing the right shovel, of good quality, can mean the difference between a good day’s work and a day of inefficient misery….
Okra is a traditional crop in the south for good reason: it is one of a handful of veggies that not only survives, but thrives in our long, hot summers. Plant seeds directly into the garden, or transplant seedlings when the daytime temperatures are consistently above 80 and nights above 60. Plant okra in the…
Cover Crops For excellent soil health in your vegetable garden, incorporating cover crops should be a high priority. One of the worst things you can do for the soil is to let it stand empty for long periods of time (like winter or the gap between spring and fall crops), because that is when…