To eliminate any overwintering insects and diseases on fruit trees, apply dormant oil spray as directed on the package.…

Late winter/early spring is a good time to prune your deciduous plants for structure, or to remove damaged, diseased and dead branches. The structure of the plant is more visible during the dormant season, which allows you to make more…

A wide variety of containers can be used to start seeds indoors – the containers that your salad greens came in, yogurt containers, pots that you have saved from last summer, purchased pots and cell packs from the garden centre. …

Start tuberous begonia tubers indoors about 6 weeks before the last frost date.  Place them in a shallow container filled with a growing medium that is porous but moisture retentive and does not contain fertilizer or manure.  Coarse sphagnum moss,…

Hard to believe when the ground is thick with snow and the air is frigid, but spring is not far away at all. Now is the time to prune out any damaged, diseased or tangled / crossed branches and stems…

Now that the days are getting longer, it is time to start to feed your houseplants. Give them half the recommended dosage of plant food every other week rather than full strength every month.  Be sure that the growing medium…

The arrival of spring may show a vertical ‘split-like’ wound in the bark on the west or southwest side of a young or newly planted tree.  This wound, sometime called sun scald, is the result of the sun heating up…

Now is the time home gardeners are planning their vegetable gardens and ordering seeds, and some may be considering growing potatoes this year. The Ontario Ministry of Food and Agriculture (OMAFRA) has some cautions about growing potatoes in urban home…

Seed packages indicate the number of weeks needed to have a seedling ready for planting out.  Add on a week for ‘hardening off’ your seedlings.  To calculate the date for starting your seeds indoors, start with the date when you…

Students at the Colorado State University studied varieties of lettuce seeds to determine which were most resistant to bolting.  Batavian lettuce varieties, a cross between leaf lettuce and head lettuce,  came out on top.  The most resistant Batavian cultivars were…