Let’s Get Kids Into Gardening
By David Wall, Mount Pleasant Master Gardener When I was in 4th grade, Mother decided I should have a garden. She picked a spot shaded in mornings, and said, “Have at it!” Well, a fourth grader trying to get bare ground with no gloves or tools didn’t do a very good job. I did manage to plant some carrots so thick they looked like weeds. So, I pulled the weeds, which ended my early gardening efforts! Needless to say, it was MANY years...
Plant Basil With Your Tomatoes
By David Wall, Mount Pleasant Master Gardener OK, now that you’ve picked out what tomatoes you want in your garden, you’re ready to begin concentrating on support actions such as fertilizers, weeds, etc. You might even be looking at some companion plants to help grow more, healthier, and better tasting tomatoes. Marigolds, for example, have a pungent odor that makes many pests move on to more favorable areas. One of the best companion...
Try A Roma Tomato This Year
By David Wall, Mount Pleasant Master Gardener Roma tomatoes are a determinate variety and grow more as a bush than a vine. The produce flowers at stem tips, and where tomatoes develop all at once. This results in a quick and highly prolific production cycle, which is great for canning. Fruit production ends by mid to late July. You can expect 55-62 fruit per plant. As a determinate, pruning is not necessary. Roma tomatoes average 3”...
Ways to improve Your 2023 Garden
By David Wall, Mount Pleasant Master Gardener Nearly every gardener keeps an eye out for way to improve the number and quality of vegetables they grow every year. The goal mostly centers on having a better garden this year than last! They recognize that better gardens and healthy plants don’t just happen to occur because you have good soil. They search for applications which will improve the soil quality and nutrients which, in turn,...
Try Corn in 2023
By David Wall, Mount Pleasant Master Gardener Some 7-10K years ago, the people of central America and Mexico developed what we know today as corn. I say developed, because corn doesn’t grow in the wild. These ancients took a wild, tough, ancient grass known as teosinte, somehow tamed it and developed it into corn. What most people don’t know is that botanically, corn is a grass. Nutritionally though, it’s a carbohydrate grain. However...
Consider an Indoor Garden in 2023
By David Wall, Mount Pleasant Master Gardener What? Are you crazy? Who ever heard of trying to grow a cucumber, pepper, tomato plant, etc., inside a home. Well, until coming to Mt Pleasant, TX nearly 20 years ago, I sure hadn’t. As it turns out, there are several advantages to indoor gardening. I’m not talking about a 300 plant indoor garden, but for a family, perhaps one each tomato, pepper, cucumber, melon, etc., plant would...
Trees Not wanted in Your Yard
By David Wall, Mount Pleasant Master Gardener Advice on what NOT to plant in your yard! Silver maple. Fast growing shade tree, with weak wood prone to breaking in wind. Roots love sewage pipes. Well known for cracking driveways & sidewalks. Ash trees. Sturdy, tough, well-liked tree, and property value increaser.. Unfortunately, the Emerald ash borer is on track to eliminate the species. Quaking Aspen. Not much of a problem in our...
Removing A Tree Stump
By David Wall, Mount Pleasant Master Gardener Over 60 years ago, the biggest oak tree in our yard came down in a storm, leaving a stump around 40” in diameter. Mechanized tree stump removal was not available, so Dad went shopping and came home with a can of tree stump removal costing nearly $20, which was high- cost in the mid-1950s. Today, professional, mechanized stump removal is quite common, but it isn’t cheap. A new stump removal...
Compost Your Garden NOW!
By David Wall, Mount Pleasant Master Gardener I start to get antsy every January, wanting to have everything for my gardens ready and in place for the soon-to-be growing season, onions excepted, which were put in the ground I mid-late January. One of the biggest items every year is the soil. Have I improved it from last season without resorting to tilling? Is there enough food for the vegetables to use in growth and producing? During...
Reusing Last Year’s Potting Soil
By David Wall, Mount Pleasant Master Gardener Many grow vegetables in 5-25 gallon pots using potting mix, soil mix or compost. At the end of the growing season, a question of whether the soil can be reused the following growing season. Answers range from no to yes, BUT. potting soil (Photo Credit: simpleandgrand.com/) First off, at end of growing season, get every growing plant or critter out of the pot. You don’t want anything...
