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Posts Tagged ‘First Frost’

Are you short on gardening space or maybe no garden at all? That doesn't mean you can't grow a variety of healthy vegetables. Just imagine picking your own juicy tomatoes, crunchy cucumbers, and crisp green peppers. Here's how to grow a vegetable garden in a pot so you won't have to rely on your imagination.Vegetables have 3 requirements: sunlight, good soil, and water.A minimum of six hours of sunlight is necessary for most vegetables. The exceptions are leafy greens such as lettuces, spinach, and chard. Even those do better with more sunlight. A sunny spot in front of a south facing window will work. However it's better if the plants are outside on a patio, deck, balcony, or front porch.Good soil means fast growing healthy plants. Use potting soil not garden dirt. Dirt compacts easily and may have fungus and diseases. It also may not contain the nutrients plants require. Choose bigger pots over smaller pots, they won't dry out as quickly. Add a time released fertilizer to the potting soil and mix well.Water is critical. Keep in mind how you will get water to your plants. If the pots are on a deck consider running a hose from downstairs. .. more »

A rose by any other name is still a rose, or so the saying goes, but cilantro by any other name could be called Chinese parsley or coriander. A quick search on some popular food recipe websites and in the matter of seconds I was able to find hundreds of recipes. Cilantro can be used three times, well sort of. You can harvest the leaves and add them to do your dish as an herb, or you can harvest the fruit also called coriander seeds which have a lemony-citrus flavor when crushed or you can harvest the roots which have an intense flavor and are most notably used in Asian cuisine. Which ever way you go, there is no doubting that cilantro should be part of your vegetable garden.No need to worry about when to start your seeds indoors because cilantro won`t do well using this method. The reason being is that cilantro does not transplant well, so any growth you would have indoors would more than likely be lost once you moved it to the outdoors. Start your seeds outdoors at least one week beyond the final frost. You can then plant cilantro every 3 weeks up until a .. more »