Weeds in the Garden and Flowerbed

If you're like me, you'd love to live in a gardening world where weeds don't exist. Imagine, walking outside to work in the garden and seeing a well-manicured, weed-free bed, border or vegetable garden.

I can hear you laughing now! Dealing with weeds in the garden is a fact of life so we may as well learn the best techniques for dealing with them and getting the weed population to a tolerable level.

One method for managing the weed population is Intergrated Weed Management (IWM). Here is a brief overview.

I will be going more in depth in the coming weeks about this subject, so stay tuned!


This blog presented in part courtesy of Canon.

Marigolds: An Easy Addition to the Garden
Marigolds are no longer just yellow and orange; add different hybrids to brighten your beds!
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Plant Sale Continues at School

This has been by far my most enjoyable semester since my return to school. It is somewhat of a reward for all the preceding (and difficult, for me at least) Horticulture classes.

Plant Sale
Our plant sale continues, though our quantities have dwindled substantially.It is rewarding to assist our great customers and learn about their gardening plans.

I met one fantastic lady who began gardening last year and ended up supplying many of her neighbors with produce throughout the summer. She is a perfect example of the new home gardening generation, as is the customer who is growing tomato plants on her balcony!

Our sale plants are those we grew from seed or propagated from cuttings. Some successful starts were the 'Creamy Vanilla' and 'Durango Red' marigold, great for planting in vegetable garden borders to discourage pests and those bad nematodes.

Alternanthera is an annual we propagated from cuttings that turned out really lush and purple! We have a variety of tomatoes, peppers and other annual flowers, more description to be published here later.

My purchases included chocolate mint, lemon balm, asters and yarrow. I will include photos and notes on their growth soon! Just ten more days until school is over for the summer, I hope to publish more regularly after that.

Please leave any questions or comments and perhaps we can delve into them soon. Don't forget to let us know what you are growing this year!

This blog presented in part courtesy of Canon.

Horticulture

The semester is winding down, only three more weeks in this one. We are currently having our Horticulture Department Plant Sale and are pleased with the interest from students, staff and faculty.

We had a record-breaking first day and have been consistently busy since. Much of the interest is generated by the new trend in home gardening which appears to be growing still.

If you are thinking of growing some vegetables, herbs or flowers for the first time this year, go ahead and give it a try. You will be in a growing demographic.(No pun intended)!

Take advantage of the plant sales presented by Horticulture departments at local high schools and community colleges! Often these plants are grown with lots of care and prices will be below retail!

This blog presented courtesy of Canon.

Those great, consistently warm days of spring are upon us and gardeners have many ways to express that pent-up gardening prowess!

Take a look here for some suggestions:

Please submit any gardening tips or questions and perhaps we can get a discussion going here. What are you growing this year?