Plant Gardens 101

Potato family
Solanaceae
Sal-pi-gloss’is. Chilean herbs comprising about 5 species, mostly covered with short, sticky hairs.

Description
Leaves alternate, broadly lance-shaped, margins wavy or slightly cut. Flowers in loose terminal clusters growing from the axils of small leafy bracts. Individual flowers large, showy, velvety, colors varying, generally veined with gold. Calyx of 5 sepals, joined three-quarters of their length. Corolla funnel-shaped, widely open at the throat, the 5 lobes notched. Stamens 5.

How to Grow   (more…)

Did you ever speculate how a being from another world might perceive Planet Earth? What would a stranger to our earth think if he saw a caterpillar right next to a butterfly? It is utterly a phenomenon.

A caterpillar has a long fat worm-like body sheltered in a furry banded coat. It slithers along the ground intake everything it can find. Eventually, it turns upside down and forms a protect. At this juncture, it looks nothing like the caterpillar or a butterfly.

In the shelter, the caterpillar just hangs out and transforms itself. All kinds of changes are winning place in the confines of that envelope. When the time is right, it eats its way out of the nest. It must do it with no help. Helping it can slaughter the butterfly. Then, miraculously, a stunning butterfly appears! (more…)

White flies are tiny, about the size of the tip of a pin, and a lone fly by themselves is hardly reason to panic, but thousands could be very destructive to your garden.

They more readily attack cucumbers, potatoes and tomatoes, and can literally wipe out your crop if not handled properly.

They usually gather on the underside of leaves of the plants and extract the sap from the plant, which could invariably kill the plant.

Here is how you can get rid of white flies from your vegetable garden.

The first step and most natural repellent and control for white flies is to attract their natural predators. As with most creatures in the insect world, white flies too, have natural predators. They include lacewings, ladybugs and praying mantids to name a few. Attract a few of these and they will definitely help you out. (more…)

Growing your own vegetables from seed is very easy. It is great fun to watch the tiny seedlings emerge from the soil mix and of course is a great deal cheaper than buying ready grown plants. It is not as quick though. The reason why it is cheaper is that you are doing all the work yourself.

So what do you grow them in? Well it all depends on what type of plant you are growing. Before we discuss what type of container you need, you also need to think about what type of soil mix you are going to grow them in.

My father used to just take some garden soil, put it in an old dirty plant pot and grow his seeds. It used to work but it was only his experience which allowed him to be able to identify which was the seedling he was after and which was a weed seedling. Why, well the soil he used was full of weed seeds. He also did not clean his pots which is never a good thing. (more…)

An area planted with spreading grasses. See also lawn.