Cold Climate Gardening

I’ve always been a fan of Mary Keen. Her Creating A Garden is one of my favorite books to drool–er–dream over in the winter. Now I see she has an online gardening column with the Telegraph called Cheat’s Guide. (Need to register unless you get it as an RSS feed.) “Knowing what you can get away with is my specialist subject,” she explains, “. . . These monthly columns will be a way of sharing that knowledge.” This month she suggests trimming your garden way back just before you leave on vacation, so it will be looking great when you get back. Not the usual take on gardening maintenance, but it makes a lot of sense, …

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This doesn’t have much to do with cold climate gardening, but I found this article fascinating. Apparently Nepalese farmers have been growing the same corn as native Americans for so long they think it’s native to Nepal–but it’s not. How did it get there? No one is really sure, but that fact remains that “in Nepal today, maize is grown on more than 800,000 hectares comprising 30% of the total cultivated land and remains the staple food of populations in the hill regions.”

Thanks to The Virtual Plant & Pest Diagnostic Laboratory for the link.

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