Column: Smart Gardening Practices

smart gardening practices, bok choy

Have you ever wondered what the secret is to keeping your vegetable plants healthy and productive? Well, it all comes down to using smart gardening practices. They make all the difference in how well plants grow and handle challenges such as insect or disease problems. That is the topic of my garden column for today. It appeared in today’s edition […]

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Blossom End Rot – Not Just in Tomatoes!

blossom end rot, tomatoes

We gardeners are all familiar with blossom-end rot in tomatoes, right? Well, how about in zucchinis? 2017 marks the first time I’ve ever experienced this on my zucchini plants and I’m shocked! It’s been a hot, dry summer and apparently those plants decided the tomatoes shouldn’t have all the fun. Initially, I was seeing some small, yellowing and shriveling zucchinis […]

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Take a Liking to Lichens!

Take a close look at this photo. What you’re seeing on the branches of my apple tree are colonies of lichens. You may have noticed them in my latest video on spring pruning. You might already be familiar with it. However, lichens can alarm many new gardeners and homeowners. They are concerned that some sort of disease has attacked their […]

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Snow Mold on Lawns

Here in the Inland Northwest, we’ve been buried under a heavy blanket of snow for months. While it’s wonderful for insulating our plants against bitterly cold winter temperatures, it can cause an interesting (and annoying) problem that most of us will likely see once the snow has melted from our lawns: snow mold. Yup, that’s the weird stuff you’re looking […]

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Powdery mildew explained

powdery mildew

Powdery mildew is one of those annoying plant problems that all gardeners experience at one time or another. I often see it on my squash plants, phlox, bee balm and zinnias. The top photo is of a severe problem in my pumpkin patch a few years ago — no, that isn’t a rare pumpkin variety that has white leaves! The […]

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