Keep garlic handy and add a decorative element to your kitchen when you make this ornament by braiding freshly picked heads of garlic. Jim Gugliuzza demonstrated the craft during Lockport in Bloom on July 7 and 8 at his home at 684 Walnut St., Lockport, where he has a 700-foot lot with large vegetable gardens. Gugliuzza planted 12 kinds of garlic this year. Garlic is usually harvested around July 10, but he pulled some early to show us his braiding…
Summer begins and so do the garden walks! What an exciting week: Tomorrow is officially the first day of summer, and garden walks start this weekend! (If you’re going to show your garden on a garden walk this summer and would be willing to spread the word about Buffalo-NiagaraGardening.com, I will gratefully send you handouts. Call Connie Oswald Stofko at (716) 833-5187 or email me at Connie@Buffalo-NiagaraGardening.com.) Kicking off the garden walk season is the free 7th annual Lewiston GardenFest,…
by Colleen Morrissey, herb manager and container designer at Mischler’s Florist and Greenhouses If you love salad and enjoy gardening, plant a “lettuce bowl” container garden. It’s a quick and easy project. You don’t need much space, so you can have a “lettuce bowl” container garden on a sunny balcony, front stoop or just outside your kitchen door. Setting the container on a picnic table or other tabletop may discourage rabbits, slugs and other pests. This is also a…
There’s nothing like a freshly picked tomato, and tomatoes are easy to grow everywhere in the Buffalo area. You don’t even need a garden– a very simple container will do. Thomas Mitchell, a horticulture teacher at Niagara County Community College, shared tips on growing vegetables during a presentation at Plantasia, Western New York’s premier garden and landscape show held in March. Mitchell’s number one point was that you have to have good soil. I demoted that tip to number two…
Here are three helpful tips for autumn, courtesy of the free newsletter from Heimiller Greenhouses. Tip #1: How to deal with tar spot When it comes to tar spot, there’s bad news and good news and more bad news. The bad news is that tar spot is an ugly black fungus that seems to infect Norway maples, to a greater or lesser degree, every year, according to Lisa Heimiller of Heimiller Greenhouses. The good news is that while tar spot…
I don’t know why everyone doesn’t grow the Jerusalem artichoke, also known as sunchoke. This plant starts out from nothing and grows a dramatic ten feet tall in one season. It flowers in September, adding autumn interest to your garden. You can plant it in fall, so it gives you a chance to putter in your garden now. If that weren’t enough, it’s a food plant. The roots are delicious! I hadn’t heard of this marvelous plant until I got…
“All of this is to teach our children where food comes from,” said Tricia Miller, volunteer coordinator for the Giving Garden at Union-Pleasant Elementary School in Hamburg. “If children grow it and taste it, their willingness to eat it and try more things grows.” The garden at Union-Pleasant Elementary School started three years ago because parents were concerned about food in the schools, Miller said. They decided a garden would be a good way to educate children about healthy food…
First you notice the color, then you notice the fragrance when you visit the gardens surrounding the home of Barbara and Howard Sperry on Ashland Ave. in Niagara Falls. Sometimes Barbara likes to shake the lavender and other plants to better enjoy the aroma. The Sperrys shared their garden, along with many gardening tips, during the Historic Niagara Falls Garden Walk on Saturday, July 16. The event was presented by the Main Street Business and Professionals Association. Arts in the…
by Connie Oswald Stofko Jeff Leyonmark of Hamburg believes every gardener is an artist. In addition to gardening, they all seem to have other creative interests as well. They build or paint or cook. This artistic part of life is something that is important for Jeff to share with his children. “I want to bring art everywhere,” he said. He and his wife Wendy shared their garden with visitors on Saturday and Sunday, July 9 and 10, during Buzz Around…
A new tomato this year is the Tomaccio, which has an intense, sugary flavor when eaten fresh or dried. Not only is the fruit supposed to be delicious, but the plant is a stunning specimen for your garden– it can grow to be nine feet tall! The plants at Lockwood’s Greenhouses are already four feet tall, said Teresa Buchanan, general manager. They’re getting clusters of tomatoes, too. But don’t worry, it’s not too late to plant, Buchanan said. In fact,…
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