Last month I blogged about giving up on plants. This month, I’m encouraging you to give some of them a second chance.
Dinner from my bountiful peppers!Photo: Erica Smith
Specifically, I’m talking about plants (vegetables or other) that you tried and failed with, and suspect that the failure may have been due to planting them in the wrong place, caring for them poorly, or maybe the happenstance of getting a bad seed or seedling. Sometimes our best-laid plans just don’t work out for, you know, reasons.
About five years ago I got some seed for Giant Aconcagua peppers and grew them in two subsequent years. Here’s what I said in this blog at the time, in an early October post:
I tried again with the Aconcagua sweet peppers, and had the same problems as before: a) the seedlings are slow-growing and weak; b) the peppers take forever to turn. I did get a couple of red ones, and the pale green ones are quite tasty and nice and big. I may try one more time, getting the seeds going at the end of January or the beginning of February, to see if I can produce seedlings rugged enough to go into the ground in May.
I didn’t try again, though, because I thought these peppers were fussy and not worth the effort. This year, for whatever reason, I decided to give it another go. Wow, what a difference. I didn’t bother to start them super-early, and I’m glad I didn’t, because the seedlings started in mid-March grew as fast as all the other peppers, though they still began life with slightly paler leaves and a floppier structure. But they took off, getting to three feet high far earlier than they’d done before, and this time producing heavily with ripening in August rather than September or October.
Not the best photo, but you get the idea or how many peppers are on this plant. Photo: Erica Smith
And these are BIG peppers.
Photo: Erica Smith
They are not all 9 inches long, but most are close. They are more similar to a stretched-out bell pepper than a thin-walled Italian frying type, so great for all kinds of dishes.
I recommend these if you want a big pepper in your life. They absolutely must be supported, which you can do with the kind of medium-sized wire tomato cage that isn’t big enough for most tomatoes. And keep up with pruning or tying up branches! I lost a whole branch of green peppers in a thunderstorm because the weight got to be too much for the plant.
Why didn’t they work for me as well before? It could have been a set of weak seeds that didn’t have the best genetics for quick growth. Or I put the plants in spots that didn’t get enough sun or water, or had too much weed competition. Or a combination of those factors.
Seed catalogs use language that’s designed to make you jump at a particular plant variety, and we all know that, so given a poor performance, we say it was all hype, and we should never have believed the glowing description. But sometimes there’s truth behind the sales pitch, and we just need a second chance to find it.
Now, if I’d bought another seed packet and had the same poor results? Likely I’d have given up. Some plants just don’t work in a particular climate or setting, and enough trial and error lets us discover that. But one failure is not enough to declare the experiment over.
By Erica Smith, Montgomery County Master Gardener. Read more posts by Erica.
I think we’ve all been there. Everything else in the vegetable garden is going well, growing as it should, producing bountifully, getting the better of challenges. And then there’s the one plant that just… isn’t. (Or more than one that just aren’t.) Maybe, though, given a little more time, a little more fertilizer, a little more effort, a little more love… it might pull through? Or is it taking up space for no reason? Worse, is keeping it around bad for your more successful plants?
When, in fact, is it the right time to commit plant murder?
I can’t help joking, but of course we all hate killing plants that we’ve tried hard to nurture, maybe even growing them from a tiny seed. But let’s face it, there’s only so much space in a garden, and the season will be over soon. We don’t want to waste the time and square feet that we have. Most of the plants in an edible garden are annuals, and with these we need to make decisions soon. With perennials, maybe you can wait until next year to see if conditions improve.
How do you figure out when and if you should pull a plant out of the garden? Well, it’s like a detective story in reverse; first, you need to be an investigator, and then a potential killer. Find out what’s wrong with the plant; assess how bad the problem is and what the consequences might be; and then make a decision based on the facts.
The HGIC website is a good place to start. If the plant in question is a vegetable, I suggest starting with the Vegetables Grown in Maryland page, select your vegetable, and visit the “Growing ___ in a Home Garden” article. From there, you can explore the list of potential problems. If you can’t figure it out from there, or from more searching online, you can contact the Ask Extension team, or ask your county’s Master Gardeners.
The problems you might encounter with plants include:
PESTS
Pest problems are often fixable. Follow the advice given at HGIC or on other regional Extension websites, and you are likely to be able to control the pests sufficiently to get a crop. However, there are a few instances where giving up on the plant is a better option.
The pest has killed the plant or come close to killing it. For example, squash vine borer can take out a squash plant in days, and if you don’t remove the pest in time, or it has destroyed most of the main stem, you will not be able to revive the plant. Flea beetles can eat most of the foliage of young eggplants, to the point where they can’t survive. But don’t jump to the conclusion that a few holes mean a devastating invasion.
The pests keep coming back even when you remove them. This happens often in community garden situations or when you have close neighbors growing the same plants. Maybe you can work together to get rid of the pests, but if that’s not an option, you might consider switching to a less susceptible crop.
There is a solution, but you can’t implement it right now. This is particularly true of animal pests—maybe you need to fix a fence or fill a hole, and it’s best done in the off-season. Or you have overplanted a bed, making it difficult to reach plants to remove pests. The easiest fix may be to remove the temptation and limit the pest’s options in the process.
Squash bug damage in plants I couldn’t get to because I overplanted my small garden. Photo by Erica Smith
Remember that not dealing with insect pests as soon as possible means that they are able to complete their life cycle and make more pests! If you do remove a plant that is infested, try putting it in a black plastic trash bag and leaving it out in the sun until the pests are dead. That way, you haven’t just chased them off to attack another plant. You can then put the bag in the trash or even add the contents to your compost if the plant isn’t also diseased. Speaking of which…
DISEASES
If you suspect a plant disease, diagnose it and read up on its prognosis. Does it kill a plant fast, or is it slow-working? How lethal is it and how fast does it spread? Again, it’s likely you can keep plants going for a while, for example with a common fungal disease like early blight on tomatoes, but there are cases where plant removal is advisable. If you do pull plants, put them in the trash rather than adding the debris to your compost.
Diseases that spread quickly. If you see the disease spreading to other plants, and it can’t be stopped by removing affected foliage and other plant parts, you may need to pull the plants that are diseased. This is especially true in truly destructive diseases like late blight (luckily, this is uncommon in Maryland!), but also with more common issues like bacterial leaf spot, which has devastated some of my recent pepper crops. Remember, most diseases are specific to particular species or families, so you don’t need to pull out your whole garden because one type of plant is affected.
Diseases that will prevent a plant from producing. Examples include bacterial wilt that kills a cucumber overnight (easy call), or mosaic virus that lets a squash plant continue to grow but will kill it before it has any viable fruit (harder to make the decision to pull). In perennial plants such as fruit trees, you may lose a crop one year but not the next; on the other hand, if the disease comes back for several years running despite treatment, why are you still trying? (It took me a couple years of fire blight on quince to decide I wasn’t meant to grow it.)
Multiple factors, including disease. A disease alone might not be enough to make you decide to pull a plant, but if it’s also battling pests or drought, or producing very little for some other reason, it might not be worth keeping.
This pepper damage was likely caused by bacterial leaf spot. Not worth keeping the plants going if the result looks like this! Photo by Erica Smith
OTHER
Failure to thrive. This is a generic term for “just not cutting it”: looking puny and sad. Maybe the seed you grew this plant from was the worst one in the packet; maybe it got stressed from being in a pot too long; maybe the soil conditions in that particular spot are poor; maybe we’ve had crazy weather and the plant just can’t cope. Some TLC and fertilizer may help, but not always.
Bolting. Cool-weather crops often last into the summer, but there’s always a point when they want to go to flower, and no amount of pruning will stop it.
Failure to produce correctly. Maybe the plant looks healthy but it isn’t making what it’s supposed to make. Root vegetables that don’t make roots; beans that don’t bean; broccoli that won’t head up. A little extra time and some fertilizer may help, but possibly not. Pull the plant; do a soil test and plan an appropriate fertilizer regimen next year; look at conditions generally (enough sun? enough water?).
Need the space for something else. In a small garden, we sometimes have to make choices about what hangs in there and what gets ousted. If you want to grow kale and there is nowhere else to put it but where the tomato plant is covered with early blight and producing many fewer fruits, it may be time for the tomato plant to go.
This fish pepper has been looking sad all season. Might be a soil issue, or stress due to root crowding in the pot. Or something else. I still don’t want to pull it out, so I gave it some fertilizer and a pep talk. Photo by Erica Smith
In general, remember that failures are a learning experience! Sometimes we learn about a fundamental flaw in our garden or in our practice; sometimes we learn that a particular plant isn’t for us (but give it another try first!); sometimes we can just chalk up failure to a bad year or one fixable mistake. Pulling a plant is also an opportunity to put another plant in its place. (Probably not one of the same species, because the problem may affect it too.) Succession planting is made easier by thoughtful but relatively quick decision-making; get out that sick squash and you may still have time to put some bush beans in, or to get the space ready for fall planting.
And as gardeners, we always continue to hope things will be better next time!
By Erica Smith, Montgomery County Master Gardener. Read more posts by Erica.
Wildlife can be cute, but also destructive! Photo via Adobe Stock
You’re happily growing lettuce in a salad table, watching the little seedlings get bigger, and then one day half of them have been dug up and tossed aside. Or you’re about to harvest your kale and then realize it’s full of holes and little green caterpillars. Or your eggplant leaves are suddenly nothing but lace. Maybe someone is stealing your tomatoes, or—more insultingly—taking a bite out of each of them. Or maybe everything is just… GONE.
Pest issues are not unique to container gardening, of course—all veggie gardeners deal with them. But just as containers have their pluses and minuses in every aspect of food growing, they sometimes provide specific challenges and benefits when it comes to dealing with pests – whether insect or animal.
By the way—let’s acknowledge here that the creatures we’re talking about are just trying to get along and feed themselves. They don’t know that they’re putting us to extra trouble (even if it really seems like squirrels in particular are just trolling us). It would be great if we could jall just get along without harming each other. So the proposed solutions below don’t go as far as hurting or killing anything (if you want to use pesticides against insects, that is up to you, though please be sure to carefully follow the label instructions). These methods all follow four principles: Location, Exclusion, Deterrence, and Distraction.
PART ONE: INSECTS
Here’s a typical scenario from Home and Garden Information Center’s Emily Clark-Waterson:
I planted kale in a flower box in the spring in a new self-watering flower box container, hanging off my balcony railing. It grew beautifully and I was able to clip young leaves and let them keep growing until the summer weather got too hot. I planted it again in late August for a fall harvest, except this time I started to notice some leaf damage and found a type of Imported Cabbageworm. These moved fast and left little to be harvested. They like to hide along the midribs. Lesson learned: Always cover your brassicas with insect netting or floating row cover to help prevent this. A small piece of tulle from a craft store works well, or you can purchase various-sized mesh bags to put over containers. I won’t be making that mistake again.
How many cabbageworms can you find? Photo: Emily Clark-Waterson
They really can be camouflaged in the leaves. Photo: Emily Clark-Waterson
This one has eaten well! Photo: Emily Clark-Waterson
Prepared for pests this year with tomato cages and tulle held together with clothes pins. Photo Emily Clark-Waterson
This is a great example of Exclusion. In fact, covering plants with materials like this solves the majority of insect problems—and it’s so much easier and cheaper in a container than covering a long row in an in-ground vegetable garden. Here are some other examples of plants in the brassica family being covered to protect them:
Insect mesh and hoops over Asian greens. Photo: Lily Bruch
Floating row cover over brassica plants keeps caterpillars and other pests away. Photo: Robin Ritterhoff
Plant covers work against other insects as well, for example, to keep flea beetles off of eggplants. But in this case, growing in containers provides another advantage, one of Location. Erica Smith has had success over the years by growing eggplant in containers on her deck, which keeps them well away from the flea beetles in the soil below. MG Robin Ritterhoff also uses this method, making sure to replace at least the top third of the potting soil every year in case beetles are lurking. But MG Lily Bruch says her eggplants still get eaten despite growing on a deck, so she uses row cover and also plants marigolds in hopes of Deterrence. Sometimes strong-scented plants either confuse or annoy insects and keep them away from your vegetables. It’s worth trying, since flowers also bring in much-wanted pollinators and other beneficial insects.
And what if the insect eating your plant is actually beneficial? MG Mary Anne Normile writes:
[It’s a tough call] when Eastern black swallowtail caterpillars feed on container parsley. I love the butterflies, but the caterpillars can denude a parsley plant in short order. No good solution unless you have another desirable (to the caterpillars) plant to relocate them to, except possibly to have a fresh batch of parsley seedlings on hand to plant for the short period after the caterpillars stop feeding and the end of the growing season.
If you have room, you can plant extra herbs in the parsley family, such as dill and fennel, which the swallowtail caterpillars will also enjoy. (Also make sure to have lots of nectar-producing flowers for the adult butterflies.) You could also cover up a few of the parsley plants to keep them just for you.
When pest problems arise in container plants, make sure you address them quickly, because it’s easy to lose your entire crop in very little time.
PART TWO: ANIMALS
(Yes, insects are animals; let’s not be pedantic.)
Erica here:
This is a photo of the gate to my old vegetable garden:
This is a typical squirrel move. Didn’t even eat the whole tomato and left it in an obvious place just to taunt me.Photo: Erica Smith
And this year, I have a squirrel who loves Swiss chard:
It ate every single seedling out of the deck planter, leaving the lettuce alone, and then climbed into my garden and snacked on the beet leaves. Oh well, no Beta vulgaris for me this year!Photo: Erica Smith
Mary Anne writes:
I have had squirrels … dig up freshly planted basil in containers. They seem to love fresh soil. They don’t eat the basil, they just dig up the plants and sometimes toss them out of the container. I replant them and sprinkle the surface of the soil liberally with cayenne (the cheapest stuff, not Penzey’s), repeated after a rain, and that deters them. Once the basil plants are large enough, the squirrels don’t bother them.
Squirrels do instinctively dig in fresh soil, sometimes burying nuts, but other times looking for food or following up an interesting smell. Lily reports that they dig up her lettuce seedlings; her solution is to cover the container with a metal grid or chicken wire.
Chicken wire to exclude squirrels Photo: Lily BruchMetal wire grid to exclude digging squirrels Photo: Lily BruchPicnic food tents resting over a container is enough to keep the squirrels from digging up new lettuce seedlings. Photo: Emily Clark- Waterson
Lest you think this section of the blog is all about squirrels, they are, in fact, one of the worst pests for container gardeners (and veggie gardeners in general). They can climb anything, and they eat a wide variety of foods. And they are determined. They may be the hardest animal to stop once they start bothering your garden. Except possibly for raccoons—and former MG Nancy Moses had both of them!
Here’s Nancy describing the year she planted vegetables in containers on her second-story deck—in a yard surrounded by a six-foot fence but that backs up to woods.
The squirrels and raccoons climbed over our chain link fence, up the 13 steps to the deck, taking over the territory as their own. The resulting poop was unpleasant! The light-weight, conniving, hungry squirrels politely climbed over the netting held up with metal stakes in each tomato-growing pot; and the raccoons knocked over the pots and anything else in their way toward achieving their goal of mass destruction and hunger gratification.
Nancy says that after that, “You could say that I quit; but I view it now as having just politely surrendered.” And honestly, how can you blame her? She tried the principles of Location—putting the pots up on a high deck—and Exclusion. Maybe the netting could have covered the plants more thoroughly, but the raccoons still would have knocked the pots over. The only real solution would have been Total Exclusion, meaning a fence that completely surrounded and covered the pots, which does not lead to enjoyment of the deck by humans.
So back to those principles. Location often works (in less extreme circumstances) by keeping plants in pots up high where some animals won’t venture. Most deer (we can never say all) won’t climb up steps and some won’t even venture close to a human home. Rabbits are short and don’t climb, so higher planters are unreachable. A balcony location keeps even groundhogs off, though probably not squirrels and certainly not birds.
Exclusion with row cover or netting can keep some less determined animals and birds away. Fences are another solution—you can fence off part of a deck or patio, or put your containers inside a fence in the yard (or use them as part of your regular veggie garden). Again, if you have serious squirrel, raccoon, or bird issues, only a garden enclosure with a roof will help.
Deterrence can mean using strong-scented plants to warn away animals that don’t enjoy those smells. It’s no guarantee, but maybe will stop the casual visitor.
Colorful planters hold strawberry plants up high, and a “citronella plant” scented geranium as one of the strongly-scented deterrent plants to offend visiting herbivores. Photo: Erica Smith
In extreme cases, you can revert to growing only these sorts of plants. Herbs like rosemary and thyme, onions and their relatives, and hot peppers may be unattractive to animals.
There are other methods of deterrence if you want to try automatic water sprayers, constant noise, or bird scarers of various types. Avoid sprays that are meant to repel deer if they contain any ingredients you wouldn’t want to consume.
Distraction means giving our animal friends something else to think about. Some garden writers advise providing an alternate source of food, such as edible plants closer to the animal’s habitat, but be wary of bringing in an entire extended family that will reach your closer-to-home plants eventually. Also, be sure to keep compost containers secure if they hold food scraps, and keep fallen produce cleaned up. (We have not talked about rats so far in this post, and let’s not start now.) But do make sure animals and birds have a water source they can visit—sometimes they are eating your vegetables because they’re thirsty.
If possible, try to provide natural sources of food by planting shrubs and trees (preferably native to your region) that grow seeds, nuts and fruits. If you don’t have room yourself, use our resources to learn about native plants and try to convince neighbors or anyone else who controls plantings in your neighborhood to grow them.
Dealing with pests can be challenging, but it feels great when you rise to the challenge! Growing in containers can sometimes help you combat pests, such as when you can easily cover a pot or place it somewhere the pests can’t get to. And if you need to take a season off to regroup, it’s so much simpler to just empty the pots and put them away, rather than having to close down a big garden. Do some research, find some solutions, and come back refreshed to try again!
Share your struggles and triumphs in the comments—and best wishes!!
By Erica Smith, Montgomery County Master Gardener. Read more posts by Erica.
2026 is Grow It Eat It’s Year of Container Gardening! Growing in containers (pots, planters, boxes, bags, etc.) is one of the best approaches for vegetable gardening beginners. It’s also a terrific way to sneak in a few more plants even if you already have a garden. The key word in container gardening is flexibility. Nearly everyone can find a place where they live to grow something edible in a container.
Container plants on my deck
Maybe you live in an apartment, but have a balcony or patio, or even just a sunny window. You might have a small backyard with no room for planting, but you’ve got a deck, or a spot on a driveway or other paved area. Some people even put containers on an accessible rooftop! (Make sure it can support the weight of multiple pots full of soil if you’re going this route.)
The other big advantage of growing in containers is that you control the soil mixture. Don’t use soil directly out of the ground for containers; it’s too dense and will be full of bugs and weed seeds. You can buy potting soil at any garden center or big box store, or if you’re ambitious you can buy the ingredients and mix your own to order. Different plants may prefer different combinations of peat or coir plus compost, perlite or vermiculite, or other materials. Commercial potting mixes are usually pretty good for all common garden plants, though.
Because you’re not adding weed seeds to your growing mix, you will barely need to weed your containers, which is a great advantage. Pest problems may be lessened as well.
There are some basic rules to follow when growing in containers:
Use the sun. Most edible garden plants require plenty of sunshine. Find the sunny spots in your growing area and place your pots there. If you don’t have a spot with more than six hours of sun available, you should still be able to grow some spring crops like peas or spinach (especially if the lack of summer sun is explained by trees that don’t leaf out until late spring), and lettuce grows well in only a few hours of direct sun or indirect light all day. But look around! Maybe you have a sunny location you hadn’t considered.
Fertilize. Container plants need nutrients, and they will only find them in potting soils for a short while. Establish a regular feeding schedule according to package directions, and stick to it.
Water. This is very important! Plant roots dry out much faster in containers than in in-ground or raised bed gardens. Rain doesn’t always reach the soil through the leaves of plants. Check the soil regularly to see if it’s moist, and if not, give your plants a drink. On hot summer days, you may need to water daily or even more than once a day. If you go away, arrange for someone else to keep your container garden watered.
The other important rule is to use appropriate containers. They should be food-safe (designed to hold edible crops), well-drained (make sure they have holes in the bottom and are not sitting in a saucer unless you’re prepared to empty it), and large enough for the crop.
These containers are definitely large enough for tomatoes!
Get bigger pots than you think you’ll need. Guidelines will tell you to use a pot of at least five gallons to grow tomatoes; unless you are growing dwarf tomatoes, your plants will be spindly and minimally productive in that size of container. For an indeterminate tomato plant, ten gallons would be better. Grow eggplants or peppers in those five-gallon pots.
A variety of container types in a trial garden
Where do you find these containers? You don’t necessarily have to spend tons of money. Check discount stores; join freecycle/buy-nothing groups; source five-gallon food-grade buckets from restaurants and grocery stores. If you’re handy, you can build your own salad table or planter out of wood. Fabric growing bags are another great low-cost option; many online gardening retailers and garden centers stock them.
What plants can you grow in containers? Just about anything, if the container is big enough. You may want to seek out vegetable varieties that are bred specifically for growing in small spaces.
Start a new adventure this year! We’ll post more about specific container plants, techniques and methods, and solving problems as the year goes on.
By Erica Smith, Montgomery County Master Gardener. Read more posts by Erica.
As I write this, it’s a cold rainy day in early December, and I’m thinking about okra.
This sounds bonkers. You can’t even buy okra in grocery stores right now, and the only crop I’m harvesting from my garden is turnips. But I firmly believe that we should think about summer vegetables in the winter, at least for purposes of garden planning. The time to consider your okra seed purchase is not August, or July, or even June, when you might want to be planting it. If you’re ordering from a seed catalog (and you will get a far better choice of varieties that way, since stores usually offer one or possibly two kinds of okra seed), you need to plan ahead. Okay, maybe not as early as December. I’ve been thinking about okra because I plan to feature it in my own community garden plot next year, and I’ll also be in charge of a bed at the Derwood Demo Garden.
Frankly, we’ve underserved okra at Derwood in the past. We tend to think of it late in the planning process, or maybe not at all, and stick in about three plants in some less-than-ideal location. Okra will not be productive if it doesn’t get enough space to grow, or enough sun, and even under better conditions three plants are not sufficient for a decent harvest. Give it what it needs, however, and it will thrive. Okra is one of those rare crops that truly loves our hot, humid summers.
The other thing okra needs, that we’ve found hard to provide at the demo garden, is frequent harvesting. The pods grow fast and turn hard and inedible, and picking once a week is definitely not enough; we end up composting half our crop. We’ll need to get to the garden more often, but I doubt it’ll be more than twice a week, so as I’m looking at varieties to order seed, I’m concentrating on those that claim pods are tender even at larger sizes.
Not everyone loves okra (more on that below) but if you do, it is worth growing your own. Here are some things to think about as you peruse the seed catalogs and plan your garden:
Some catalogs also only have two sorts of okra available. That’s okay, they are probably well-tested ones (Clemson Spineless and Red Burgundy, I’m looking at you). But if you want to have a broader choice, check out catalogs that feature heirloom varieties, or that originate in the south, where okra is a beloved crop.
Read the descriptions carefully. Some varieties are meant for small gardens or container growing, and max out at two or three feet; some will be eight feet tall and three feet wide. Most are in the middle. The pods also vary considerably in length and thickness. Colors vary as well (green, red (anywhere from burgundy to orange), or green with red highlights).
You can start seeds either in pots or directly in the garden, but read up on seed scarification. Okra seeds are tough and will need to be soaked and/or nicked or roughened up before they will germinate.
Okra likes it hot, so wait until late May or early June to put it in the garden. Or later, if you’re pulling out a spring crop and have bed space available. Check days to maturity to figure out how late you can start a variety; you’ll want to start harvesting at least by mid-August, so for a 60 day crop, plant by mid-June.
Give the plants full sun and plenty of space (about 18 inches apart for larger varieties). They are fairly drought-resistant when full-grown, but of course they need watering well as seedlings.
Okra flowers are gorgeous, by the way, so make sure you enjoy them!
Harvest frequently. Every other day is ideal. You can save up the pods for a few days in the fridge and cook them all at once. If I’m not certain whether a pod is too tough to eat, I give it a squeeze; if it makes a cracking sound, it goes in the compost.
All right, but isn’t okra slimy? Or, to use a perhaps even less attractive word, mucilaginous? It certainly can be, if it’s not treated right. Maybe in soups and stews that’s okay, especially in whatever favorite okra dish you may have grown up with, but if the sliminess turns you off, here are some ways to mitigate the mucus.
Young okra is great eaten raw in a salad, with dips, or as a snack while standing in the garden, and it’s fresh and crunchy and not slimy at all.
Traditional breaded and fried okra is terrific and if there is slime, you don’t notice it. Probably you don’t want to eat it this way every day, but it’s a fantastic treat. You can also use an air fryer to avoid all that oil.
If you’re frying okra without a crisp coating to distract you, here’s a secret: keep it dry. Wash it and then rub it thoroughly in a dish towel to get rid of any moisture. Make sure the cutting board and the knife are dry before cutting into the okra. You can either toss it in oil and seasonings before putting it in the pan, or place it in an oiled pan and season there, but make sure no water-based liquid touches it. The slime doesn’t develop in its absence. Air fryers work here too.
I hope you’ll join me in thinking about okra for next summer!
By Erica Smith, Montgomery County Master Gardener. Read more posts by Erica.
Okay, gardeners. We can see the finish line. It’s been a busy gardening season, but we are almost ready to wrap things up for the year. Almost.
October and November are the wrap it up, clean it up months. Now’s the time to give the last of your withering vegetable plants the heave-ho.
I know there is still one tomato out there, but it’s a brick. Let it go. Toss healthy plants on the compost pile and bag and trash the rest.
Are you one of those garden daredevils who cheat the season with late plantings of cool weather crops? Good for you. Just be ready with frost protection such as floating row covers or a deep layer of straw.
Floating row covers extend the growing season. Photo: UME/HGIC
Cut back any perennials that had serious disease or insect problems, but leave the rest standing to provide food and shelter for birds and overwintering pollinators and beneficial insects.
Mums have sensitive crowns – the part where the roots and stems meet– so treat them gently. After their fall show, leave them standing to increase their chances of coming back. Not all hardy mums are hardy.
Use leaves as mulch around trees and shrubs and in your vegetable and flower beds. Use a fine layer on your lawn and toss the rest in your compost pile.
Collect fallen branches to start a brush pile for wildlife. Put larger pieces on the bottom and smaller ones on the top to create cover and resting places for creatures great and small.
Yes, you can still sneak in some bulbs. Remember to plant them three times as deep as they are wide. In other words, a 1-inch daffodil bulb goes into a 3-inch hole.
You can plant trees and shrubs until the ground is frozen, too. Earlier is better to give roots a chance to get established. Just make sure you water them deeply every week.
There’s still time to plant trees such as this native black gum (Nyssa sylvatica) with brilliant fall color. Photo: T. David Sydnor, Bugwood
Here’s a fact sheet that tells you how to plant trees and shrubs and lists plants that are best planted in the spring.
Also deep water any tree or shrub you planted earlier this year to send them into the winter well-hydrated. Water until we get a ground-penetrating frost, usually around Thanksgiving.
Water any newly planted trees and shrubs to help them overwinter. Photo: M. Talabac, UME
Want a live Christmas tree? Save yourself some colorful language by digging the planting hole now before the ground freezes. Drop in a few unopened bags of mulch to avoid losing Bowser or any holiday guests in there.
We’re almost to the cuddle up with cocoa season. Taking care of these few last-minute garden tasks will let us smile and sigh under the afghan, reveling in a job well done.
By Annette Cormany, Principal Agent Associate and Master Gardener Coordinator, Washington County, University of Maryland Extension.
Spring bulbs define possibility. Dive into a binful at your local garden center and hold one in your hand. It’s all in there – roots, leaves, stems, and flowers – all the razzle-dazzle of spring in one neat package.
And now’s the time to plant. So get thee to a nursery or online store and start dreaming of a brilliant spring.
Pick big, firm bulbs. Avoid ones with soft or dark spots. Store them in a cool, dark place with good air circulation until you can plant them by October’s end.
Alliums’ spheres add drama to the spring garden. Photo: Christa Carignan, UME
There are dozens of bulbs to choose from with bloom times from February to May. Snowdrops start the season, popping their dainty blossoms through the snow. Crocus follow and are often snow-dusted as well.
Then comes an avalanche of other bulbs: daffodils, hyacinth, tulips, and more. Less well-known but equally rewarding are camassia, scilla, starflower, winter aconite, cyclamen, chionodoxa and allium. Even the names are delicious.
Grand sweeps of tulips are a sure sign of spring. Photo: Judy Kofoet
How do you decide what to plant? If your garden is graced by deer or squirrels, pick bulbs they don’t like such as daffodils, hyacinth, allium, fritillaria, and scilla.
And remember that drifts of bulbs look best. So instead of a few bulbs, plant a dozen or more in a sweep. Go for the ooh la.
Bulbs’ leaves need to die back naturally since the foliage feeds the bulbs for next year, so keep that in mind when choosing a planting site. Hide the fading foliage by mixing bulbs with perennials that are already filling out.
Siberian iris’s fountain of foliage is ideal camouflage as are the unfurling leaves of ferns or hostas. Practice pairing, planting bulbs to come up through a froth of white candytuft or creeping phlox.
Think outside the box and use bulbs anywhere you want a splash of color. Combine them with low groundcovers under trees. Naturalize bulbs on a hill or in a woodland. Tuck them into a rock garden or container.
Daffodils are a great deer-resistant bulb. Photo: Joan Willoughby
What do bulbs need? Plenty of sun, soil that drains well, and reasonably rich soil. To our clay and rocks, add compost and bulb fertilizer and loosen the planting area to a depth of 6 inches or so.
Then plant your bulbs about 3 times their width deep. A one-inch bulb goes three inches deep while a two-inch bulbs goes six inches down. Dig the hole with a trowel and pop in your bulb, pointy end up.
Space bulbs according to the guidelines on their packaging. Top with soil, water, and mulch.
Aftercare of bulbs is easy. Dig and divide them every few years either after the foliage dies back – when they’re easiest to find – or in the fall if you’ve cleverly marked their location.
Can you garden without bulbs? Yes, but why would you? They are just the ticket for jazzing up your garden beds.
By Annette Cormany, Principal Agent Associate and Master Gardener Coordinator, Washington County, University of Maryland Extension.
