Check out all our blog posts on Outdoor gardening.
Last July I walked out to my patio at 7 a.m. with coffee in hand and found my best Genovese basil looking like someone had held a lighter to it. The bottom leaves had brown, papery edges. Two of the middle leaves had dark, water-soaked blotches. And the whole plant had that slumped, tired look that tells … Read more >>
My first spring in upstate New York, I killed a whole flat of tomato seedlings in one night. It was May 12th, the sun had been out for a week, and the garden center had been selling tomatoes since the first of the month. I planted 18 of them, went to bed happy, and woke … Read more >>
My first vertical garden was a disaster, and I still keep the photo on my phone as a reminder. I nailed a wooden pallet to the fence on the south side of my Zone 6 backyard, stuffed it with strawberries and lettuce, and stood back feeling pretty clever. Two weeks later the top row was crispy brown, the … Read more >>
I killed my first oyster plant with kindness. It sat on a bookshelf in my Zone 6 living room, those purple-and-green striped leaves looking gorgeous, and I watered it every Sunday morning like clockwork because that’s what I did with every other houseplant on the shelf. By March the lower leaves were mushy at the base, the … Read more >>
The first summer I grew a lotus in a half-barrel on my back patio, I panicked in July. Three big round leaves went butter-yellow in a single week, and I was sure I’d killed a $40 tuber. I dumped half the water out, added fertilizer, moved the barrel twice, and generally made everything worse. Turns out two … Read more >>
The first summer I grew lotus in a half whiskey barrel on my back patio, I thought I’d killed it by the Fourth of July. The pads came up gorgeous and blue-green in June, then by mid-July the edges started crisping like paper left too close to a campfire. I panicked, dumped the water, and repotted the … Read more >>
The first summer I grew a lotus in a half-barrel on my patio, I was convinced I had killed it. The floating leaves yellowed at the edges, the first standing leaf flopped over like wet paper, and nothing bloomed all July. I had done everything the tag said — sun, water, a tuber buried in … Read more >>
The first summer I grew a lotus in a half-barrel on my patio, I woke up one July morning to find three gorgeous, plate-sized leaves scorched black around the edges. I panicked. I had babied that tuber since April, and I was sure I’d killed it. Turns out I hadn’t. Two of those leaves were simply old, … Read more >>
The first year I built a 4×4 raised bed, I planted it like a checkerboard with no plan at all. Broccoli sat next to tomatoes, onions crowded my beans, and by mid-July the whole thing looked like a traffic jam of leaves. Cabbage worms found the brassicas in about a week, and my basil never … Read more >>
Few houseplant problems make my stomach drop faster than finding a black patch on a favorite jade plant stem. I’ve seen it happen after a wet winter week near a chilly window, and I’ve also caught it early on a jade that sat in a decorative pot holding leftover water. A black stem does not … Read more >>
