Hello Everyone, I'm so excited about this year's gardening classes!   We will be in some of the very best gardens in Greensboro.  It will be a blast exploring them and learning from the successes and failures of the most knowledgeable gardeners around. Here is the final edition of the 2018 Gardening Course Schedule: 2018 Course Schedule Registration information is below and also at the bottom of the schedule.  This is a printable document.  Classes start March 11th!   Please register soon as I anticipate that these will fill quickly. (I may add more one date to each course if there...

What vegetable can you plant once and enjoy eating for 20 years?  Yes, Asparagus! If you love asparagus, planting your own is a pretty darn good investment!  I harvest crisp, delicious asparagus spears for 2 months in spring, and  then let the bed turn into a mass of beautiful ferns over summer to rejuvenate the plant for next spring’s harvest. Here it is in June after a morning of heavy dew on the mass of 6’ tall ferns.  I like using the etherial summer foliage in flower arrangements. Asparagus is super easy to grow as long as you give it the right home.  It needs a permanent...

It is that time of year when seed catalogs start filling my mailbox.  When the weather drops to freezing outside and the rain is coming down, I sit inside with a hot cup of tea and comb through page after page of beautiful photos planning what to add to my garden come spring.  What?  No catalogs? You can find everything online now and I’ll tell you where to look. Of course I have tried-and-true favorite seeds, many of which I save every year from open pollinated plants, but I always have to try a few new things each year.  Here is what is arriving in my mail now: Benary’s Giant Zinnia...

Having been raised by parents of European decent, it is impossible for me to imagine a garden that does not have fruit ripening every summer. I remember climbing our plum trees to eat loads of sweet ripe plums, and watching my brother’s young children dance through his tall berry patch with a fist full of warm blackberries in one hand, and blueberries in the other, so excited and happy, their smiles and clothes purple from the juice.  Refrigerated fruit, irradiated and neatly packaged from the grocery store is just not the same. Many different fruits grow well in our temperate climate – apples,...

As many years as I have gardened, I never get over the joy of going out to the garden to see what grew, what ripened, and what I can harvest to bring inside.  Whether it is  beautiful flower or luscious tomato, I am still like a kid finding the chocolate Easter egg.  This was a beautiful July harvest from several years ago. This year I planted a few heirloom (open pollinated) tomatoes, but more hybrid tomatoes.  Regardless of taste, it is just impossible to beat the productivity of hybrid tomatoes.  My 8 tomato plants produced over 150 lbs of tomatoes.  I dried, canned and froze...

It is June, the time of year when every kind of bug makes its way to my Summerfield, NC garden.  I have already seen big fat rust colored potato bugs with a brood of newly hatched babies, aphids on my hellebores, flea beetles on my eggplant, slugs on my hostas, cabbage worms on my kale and kohlrabi, and now the cucumber beetles and Japanese beetles have arrived! How do gardeners control these thugs without poisoning themselves or the bees and butterflies that are happily floating around the garden? The number one thing to understand is that bugs are your friends.  Most are beneficial to your...

Honestly, April and May ZOOM by me every year.  There are so many spring garden events, seminars, plant sales, and tours – and of course the annual trek to Big Bloomer Flower Farm in Sanford, NC.  (Check my website for a calendar of  local NC Triad gardening events:   https://learntogarden.anventure.com/ellen-blog/garden-events/) But I cannot wait to get out to my own garden!  Every day there are new plants peeking their first leaves out of the ground.  Every day new blooms appear that I have not seen for a year.  This year I added a totally new garden. Yes, I know that last year I said...

You know there has to be some EXCITING NEWS for me to sit at my computer two nights in a row to share this with you.  What’s up? I hate to jump the gun on the Greensboro News & Record’s announcement, but if you don’t get the Sunday paper you might miss it!  Just in time for Spring, our LOCAL newspaper is introducing a LOCAL gardening section in the Sunday Life Section.  Starting THIS SUNDAY, March 22, 2015 subscribers in the Piedmont Triad will be reading about gardening news that is specific, timely and relevant to our own area!   N&R Life Section Editor, Cindy Loman, explains...

Was their ever a date gardeners so eagerly await as the first day of spring?  It is confirmation that the worst of winter is truly behind us, and in the Piedmont Triad area it is definitely time to start planting our vegetable gardens! If this is the first year you have grown vegetables, the most important thing to do is prepare your soil.  You will need to break up our compacted clay soil, add some lime to raise the pH to about 6.5, add 6 to 8 inches of compost and till it in.  Test both your native soil and the compost you are adding.  Soil testing is FREE in NC!  You can very easily...

The first warm days of late winter have arrived, the robins are here, the grass is greening, the days are longer, and many of us (like me) cannot wait to put our first vegetable seeds in the ground!   Only now is it time to start those tomato & pepper seeds inside.  But this year before you plant a thing, you might want to step outside and take a look at the bigger picture.   How can I make my "edible garden" a thing of beauty? Every spring, my Dad planted a big, square, freshly tilled plot with rows of lettuce, turnips, onions & potatoes.  There were fruit trees in the garden...