Urban Gardening Tips

Dear urban gardener.

As I rebuild this website, I’ll be adding specific tips for the urban (or small suburban) garden. I’ll show you how to garden in small spaces or containers and get decent success.

As such, this page is a bit “ugly” at the moment as I rebuild my website (long story)

If you subscribe for updates in the sidebar, you’ll get notes when I post – and you can unsub at any time.

• How To Make Your Own Grow Bags of Compost
  Yes, you can use old pantyhose or garbage bags, fill with soilless mix and grow your garden in them. Here’s how. OK, so it’s silly season in the greenhouse research area. Use Old Pantyhose Some researchers have taken old nylons (looks to be about that size anyway) filled them with compost and started growing in them. Their results indicate ...
• Nine Steps To Get Your Poinsettia To Bloom Again
  Getting poinsettia to bloom again is not complicated but it does demand specific cultural controls. We’ll assume you’ve grown your poinsettia since last Christmas and you’ve fed it properly with lots of light — it has grown into a small shrub and you want to get it to bloom again. Here’s what you need to know. Short Day Plants Poinsettia are ...
• 6 Butterfly Garden Design Rules
  These are the easiest and most important things you can do to attract butterflies to your garden Photo by Justin DoCanto on Unsplash Do Not Use Pesticides The first thing to understand is that butterflies are the adult form of caterpillars. So in order to get the butterflies you have to encourage the first stage of their development — caterpillars. Spraying with chemicals to prevent ...
• Questions and Answers About Potted Tulips
  Practical bulb growing tips to keep that urban garden looking good Long-lasting potted tulips (and other bulbs such as potted daffodils, crocus, and hyacinths) will last a lot longer if you follow these directions: Buy potted tulips in as young a stage as you can find with buds just formed but not even fully emerged. Watching them grow ...
• 5 Kinds of Privacy Landscaping
  From fast and easy to more permanent solutions for your private garden When it comes to privacy landscaping, there are several options to provide for those private moments you don’t want to share. Angeles Balaguer At Pixabay 1: Annual Vines The first and quickest option is the annual flower trellis or fence. Using something like a morning glory, you can screen off an ...
• Container Vegetable Gardening? Do These Five Things
  Do these five things properly and you’ll get a good harvest. There are only five variables that you have to worry about to be a success at container vegetable gardening. And isn’t it nice that it’s this easy? 🙂 Our back porch container garden with a double string trained tomato plant #1 Pot size This is one place where ...
• Advantages and Disadvantages of Raised Bed Gardens
  Raised bed gardens have their supporters, that’s for sure. Here’s the deal from my point of view gathered over 30 years in the nursery industry. I’m not going to sugar-coat this article because I know there are a lot of folks who really think raised beds are the greatest thing since sliced bread. In many ways, ...
• DIY Pressure Treated Wood For Raised Garden Beds
  Here’s how to make your own cheap pressure-treated wood for basic gardening raised bed projects. A friend, who happens to be a technical paint expert and I were chatting over coffee one day about some diy garden construction I was about to take on (building a lot of raised beds) Rather than using chemical laden pressure ...

Container Gardening

• How To Make Your Own Grow Bags of Compost
  Yes, you can use old pantyhose or garbage bags, fill with soilless mix and grow your garden in them. Here’s how. OK, so it’s silly season in the greenhouse research area. Use Old Pantyhose Some researchers have taken old nylons (looks to be about that size anyway) filled them with compost and started growing in them. Their results indicate ...
• The Basics Of Growing Vegetables In Containers
  There are a few simple things you have to understand to ensure success when you’re growing vegetables in containers. Vegetables are 90% (or more) water If you allow your containers to dry out, you’re going to reduce or eliminate your vegetable harvest. A perfect example is the tomato. We want to grow it everywhere and containers answer that ...
• Container Vegetable Gardening? Do These Five Things
  Do these five things properly and you’ll get a good harvest. There are only five variables that you have to worry about to be a success at container vegetable gardening. And isn’t it nice that it’s this easy? 🙂 Our back porch container garden with a double string trained tomato plant #1 Pot size This is one place where ...