Calamondin Citrus – An Indoor Edible Plant
Name: Calamondin citrus often called a calamondin orange. Type of Plant: These are a cross between a mandarin orange (Citrus reticulate) and a kumquat (Fortunella margarita) and like a kumquat they are a pleasing combination of edible skin and sweet and sour flavors....
Growing ‘Winter Gold’
Imagine: A plant that is ordinary most of the year, but becomes startlingly beautiful as fall goes into winter. Name: Ilex verticillata ‘Winter Gold’ Type of Plant: A deciduous shrub that grows to 6 or 8 feet tall and wide. Nice, small dark green leaves all summer but...
A November Thank You Note
Dear Autumn Plants, Our growing season celebration is winding down rapidly. Some of you quietly slipped out a couple of months ago without even so much as a backward glance. Others have continued having fun, but can’t help occasional yawns of yellowing leaves. I...
Garden Dinner: Using What You Have
Tonight I went into the garden and picked a leek, some mustard greens and kale, broccoli, red peppers and salad. I felt blessed to have such a selection on November 7th – and with a hard frost expected at the end of the week, I was especially aware that the...
Rosemary Cocktail
Rosemary Comes Indoors If you’ve grown rosemary in a pot outdoors in the summer, you’ll want to bring it indoors for the winter. Once inside, don’t let it get super dry. Herb people say that “A dry rosemary is a dead rosemary,” and indoors...
I Love the Mad Hatter F1 Peppers
Name: Capsicum baccatum Mad Hatter F1 hybrid pepper. Type of Plant: A very productive pepper plant with a unique shaped fruit. This pepper was chosen as an All-American Selection for 2017 and with good reason. Why I love this plant: The All-American Selections people...
Winter or Thanksgiving Garden Dishes
These are the dishes that I mention on the November 23rd Plantrama podcast. They are what a vegetable gardener might have on their Thanksgiving table. A green bean with canned soup casserole for Thanksgiving? Are you kidding me? If you have a vegetable garden...
A Most Charming (and Edible!) Annual
Name: Tropaeolum majus – aka nasturtium Type of Plant: A warm weather annual that is the definition of cheerful. There are trailing varieties that are perfect for growing as an “understory annuals” around the stems of taller plants like zinnias, salvia and dahlias....
Not All Ideas “Come True”
We gardeners have a saying about seeds: when you get a plant growing from seed that is the same as the parent plants, we say that the plant “comes true” from seed. Hybrids often don’t grow true from seed in that you’ll get plants that resemble...