Being relatively new gardeners (this is our fifth year of growing organic vegetables here in NJ Zone 6), we occasionally still have to research certain aspects of gardening before being able to write about them. Mid-summer planting was one of them. My mother has been gardening for most of her life, and I remember that […]
What Vegetables Can You Plant in Mid Summer? Read More »
What to do with an Overgrown Vegetable Garden At some point in the heat of summer, you may look at your raised bed vegetable garden and wonder when and how it ended up morphing into an out-of-control jungle. Tomato plants wrapped around each other and everything else, kales shading out parsley, eggplant cowering beneath a
What to Do with an Overgrown Vegetable Garden Read More »
What does Kale look like? (Kale vs. Collards vs. Swiss Chard) I recently opened my emailed copy of a certain big-name gardening newsletter to discover their big sale on kale. A well-timed message, but there was one problem. The newsletter had pictures of collard greens, not kale! This got me to thinking. Apparently, a lot
What does Kale look like? (Kale vs. Collards vs. Swiss Chard) Read More »
Mid July heats up NJ like no other! If you thought it was time to ditch the shovel in favor of sitting in front of the air conditioner, guess again, organic gardener. There’s a whole host of garden veggies that live for the scorching summer weather. What sort of gardening can you do in July
What can you do with your NJ garden in July? Read More »
It’s important to train your tomato plants to grow up and not drag on the ground. Of course, you can let your tomato plants drag along the ground if you want to, but this will probably reduce the amount of edible fruits and possibly transfer rot and disease to the plant. Method 1: Tomato cages. Cylindrical
Training Your Tomato Plants: Quick Tips Read More »
New Jersey is reputed as being the ideal climate for growing fine, fat tomatoes that burst with flavor. Even the most casual or inexperienced of NJ gardeners will probably put at least one tomato plant in come springtime to see what becomes of it. Tomatoes are most definitely a hot-weather plant, and do not fare
Tomatoes Planting Instructions for NJ Zone 6 Read More »
How to Harvest and Prepare Beets So People Actually Eat and Enjoy Them “Eww… beets!?” Remember saying that as a kid? There was nothing worse than beets for dinner, unless it was beets and liver (yes, my mom actually served this to us once… thank God for ketchup!). Now that we’re all grown up and searching
Picking and Cooking Beets Read More »
What’s happening in your NJ organic garden this July? We cleared the mesclun mix out, after enjoying a full spring’s worth of delicious, fresh salads. My husband took some cutting shears to some of the dead lower leaves on our tomato plants, and removed some yellowed leaves on our eggplant as well. The peas that
Organic Gardening: Updates from the Experimental NJ Gardeners Read More »
What NJ gardener doesn’t salivate at the thought of plucking the season’s first, plump red tomatoes from the vine? Unfortunately, while nearly every gardener from the garden state has tried their hand at tomato growing with some measure of success, there are some common issues that we all face. Tomato troubles? Try these preventive methods:
Jersey Tomato Plants: Common Problems Read More »
If you’re anything like we are, then you probably spent a good part of your summer watering, watching and waiting for those tomato plants to yield some firm, red fruit. And then just when you had all but given up, here comes a sudden windfall of tomatoes! So now you probably want to know what to do
Harvesting Tomatoes in NJ Zone 6: Q&A Read More »