The Ecos Purple Potato

Thriving in the midst of crown vetch in my mother’s flower garden, the Ecos Purple potato benefited from its nitrogen fixing capabilities while demonstrating its perennial capabilities for over a decade. The Ecos Purple Potato Once at a plant auction at a horticultural event, I purchased a few tubers of a purple fingerling potato. The …

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The Wonderous Beauty of the Mirabelle Plum

  It started as a small seed packet. I really had nothing to go on. My Hillier tree manual gave it a subspecies heads up. It said variety syrica. This alpine plum was considered a cultivar species and protected in its homeland of France. Soon I was intrigued at the possibility of growing and using …

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Strength in Numbers: The Edible Forest Revisited

It is not a surprise that people have strong opinions about how plants grow and what plant belongs where. Everyone wants to rule the plant world. Plants are giving and flexible. It is good to be a ruler of your plant kingdom however you individually define it. Gardening is such a joy to do. You …

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Snow Fountain Becomes Snow Mountain

It began very innocently. Watch the bumblebees with my daughters and see if you could “pet” or touch the bees as they were pollinating the flowers on our weeping cherry in our front yard. This involved just lightly touching the bees back so they wouldn’t fly off on the flower they were pollinating. Simple and …

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Soilicious for Establishing Trees in Open Fields

My two year old peach and apple trees grown from seeds. Soilicious made it not only possible but highly probable that the trees were going to live through that critical first year without water or tending in any way. Forty years ago it was difficult for me to establish trees in my open pasture. Now …

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Nursery Confidential: You Might Be Surprised

You might be surprised at the shenanigans of the nursery industry. I wince when I think my own problems I encountered let alone scaled up versions of the same or different issues running a small business. Most are just odd things that occur but they all taught me valuable  lessons. When I closed my nursery, …

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Briana Apricot-From Seed-One Great Fruit Nut Tree

Briana Apricots Harvested this Year from Three Generations of Trees Mention growing apricots in the north and often you will hear “Not apricots, they flower too early”. But at the same time the question of its possibilities and practicalities arises. The apricot shares a long history with humans as both the seeds and the fruit  …

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Time to Prune: Stem Density and the Life of the Pawpaw Colony

Pawpaws are easy to grow but what happens in the course of thirty years could create a challenge. What is going on in that pawpaw grove?

Groundnuts Apios americana

Grow this vine crop that produces delicious high protein tubers. 10 Percent Off  : Use Coupon code TubersGood at checkout.