How to Keep Skunks Out of the Yard

March 11, 2014

...g you can do is just make your yard inhospitable. Working with skunks Once plants are well established skunks aren’t much of a problem. Where I don’t want to have to take all these preventative measures (such as the front yard) I’ve got fruit trees, native plants and cardoons–things skunks can’t uproot. The two vegetable beds I have in the front yard have to be encased in bird netting since there’s no way to fence in the entire front yard (it’s a...

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A Cheap Soil Testing Service

Mr. Homegrown

September 22, 2009

Gardening, Soil

7 Comments

...y of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Plant and Soil Sciences Soil and Plant Tissue Testing Laboratory. A standard soil test is $9, $4 more for the standard test plus organic matter. The standard tests includes heavy metals. That’s a bargain, and you don’t have to be a resident of Massachusetts. They also offer compost, fertilizer and plant tissue tests at reasonable prices. Read a review of UMASS soil testing by master gardener Amy Thompson a...

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Physalis pruinosa a.k.a. “Ground Cherry”

Mr. Homegrown

April 30, 2007

Gardening

10 Comments

...names get so confusing. The back of the Tompson & Morgan seed package mis-labels this plant as the “Cape Gooseberry” (“Cape Gooseberry” is actually the very similar Physalis peruviana). Physalis pruinosa is part of a genus Physalis of the nightshade or Solanaceae family, which includes edible plants such as tomatoes and potatoes, and psychotropic plants such as datura and tobacco. Many plants of the nightshade family combine edibility and toxicit...

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Going to Seed

Mrs. Homegrown

June 24, 2016

Back to the Garden, Gardening, Nature Awareness, Vegetable Gardening

14 Comments

...f perfect, unconscious beauty like that. Once the seeds are eaten, and the plants are brown and empty, I cut the stalks down at their base, but I don’t throw anything away. Everything stays in the yard, on or in the ground. The plant which fed us and the bee and the finch will now finish its work feeding the soil. Feeding the soil is its deepest work. And–never worry!– some seed always manages to hit the ground despite all the competition, ensurin...

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Nursery Customers From Hell

Mr. Homegrown

April 19, 2013

Gardening, Thoughtstylings

19 Comments

...Dos Gringos in DC) a woman laughed at it and said I should just get a new plant. What a meanie. I told her no, I want this plant to grow and she asked if I had been giving it nutrients. D’OH! I didn’t know that was something I was supposed to do. Well, it’s been maybe a month and a half now and The Gringo has grown to about 3.5 inches and is sprouting out. YAY! It’s alive! The man behind the counter was much nicer and saw the potential…but The Gr...

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