Cold Climate Gardening

I was just looking at Richter’s on line and saw all the rosemary varieties. They sell plug tray’s of 120cts of many plants that I am always tempted to buy because it is such a great deal, but can’t really reconcile why I need 120 of anything. Part of me would love to sell […]

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I am growing cardoon this year - I grew artichokes last year, but it is my understanding that cardoons get much larger, and the flowers or thistles are beautiful. In order to eat them, you have to blanch them. It is traditional in the piedmont region of Italy to eat them dipped in […]

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Wow! I just checked out the best designed blog I’ve ever seen! Minnesota Gardener is beautifully laid out, just gorgeous. Regrettably, it is not devoted to gardening, because as author Lauri Mueller explains, “when I bought the url my intention was to make it a true gardening site with tons of info and shopping, etc. […]

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re: The pansy question. I guess I got in the habit of seeding them in early while working at a local nursery. Like all commercial growers, they were looking for early color to stimulate sales. It was by accident I found I could harden them off and plant them out a month before our last […]

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Our enclosed porch is pretty drafty and faces west, which is where the winds usually come from. I can’t imagine it being more than 5 degrees warmer than outside, which these days is getting below zero at night. Then again, I’ve never stuck a thermometer out there and checked. At any rate, there is a […]

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Correction to the rosemary hints. They can freeze–just not way deep like you’d get outside. I think something like 10F is the limit, maybe 15? Does your porch get colder than that? (Prescott AZ where I saw the planters full certainly sees that cold in the winter. They have some […]

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Lynda, you mentioned here that you were sowing pansies. This surprised me, as I normally don’t start pansies until the first week in March. When do you plant them out?

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