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An Uncoventional Organic Method for Killing Root Knot Nematodes

An Uncoventional Organic Method for Killing Root Knot Nematodes

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As you may have read in a previous post, root-knot nematodes recently became public enemy number one in the Hanbury House vegetable garden.  I was kind of depressed about it for a few days, struggling to find an Organic treatment to kill root knot nematodes in our garden.  Being a home gardener, especially an organic one, there are few options for dealing with nematodes in the soil. Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. When you click on an affiliate link…

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Spring Garden Gamble: Tomatoes in February

Spring Garden Gamble: Tomatoes in February

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As a seasoned gardener, I should know better than to plant tomatoes at the beginning of February, but H & H Nursery already had tomatoes in, including my favorite cold weather variety, Stupice.  For $1.99, I decided I could take a gamble on the weather on this one variety.  It is one of the few varieties I would call “Ultra Early.”  I can’t always find Stupice, and I don’t bother growing them from seed myself, therefore, I could not resist…

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Gardening Just Got More Difficult…Discovering Root Knot Nematodes

Gardening Just Got More Difficult…Discovering Root Knot Nematodes

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I had wondered why my daughter’s carrot crop was so pitiful this year.  While I was outside this morning, I pulled a few carrots out and discovered the reason, Root Knot Nematodes. I have managed to avoid any infestations of Root Knot Nematodes in my two decades of gardening, however, it looks like they finally ended up at Hanbury House.  I am guessing they came in on a little pepper or tomato transplant last Spring or the Spring before.  Those two…

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Our Alternate Bearing Mandarin Orange Tree – Feast or Famine

Our Alternate Bearing Mandarin Orange Tree – Feast or Famine

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Nestled in our backyard micro orchard is one of my favorite winter fruit trees, mandarin, that we planted in 2000.  At the time we planted it, my toddler son and I were going to two different farmers markets a week during peak mandarin season because we both loved them so much, eating as many as 4 or 5 at a time.  Now a days, it is easy to find “Cuties,” in the grocery stores, but they are nothing compared to…

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Black Sooty Mold on Citrus

Black Sooty Mold on Citrus

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I had the pleasure of helping harvest, along with a bunch of other volunteers, over 450 lbs of Bearss Limes, Valencia Oranges, and Satsuma Mandarins this morning with SoCal Harvest, a local charity group. While finishing up, one of the harvesters mentioned her orange tree at home was covered in what looked like road dust, soot, or black sticky dirt.  Based on her brief description, I told her it sounded like her tree may have a fungus commonly called sooty mold. She…

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Use It Up, Wear it Out, Make It Do…in the Garden

Use It Up, Wear it Out, Make It Do…in the Garden

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There’s a certain kind of fun in having the latest and greatest, but I’ve also learned that it’s often more rewarding to fix broken things, propagate, being resourceful, and making do rather than buying new.  This is just as true in a modern day garden, as it was in a frugal or vintage 1940s home or victory garden. Use it Up – Don’t throw out old seed packets just because they say they were packaged for last season.  Many seeds…

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Cute Creepy Crawly

Cute Creepy Crawly

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Happy Halloween from Hanbury House! I find lots of spiders in the yard all the time, and finally managed to get a couple of pictures of my favorite, the Bold Jumper.  According to BugGuide.net Bold Jumpers are classified as Phidippus audax, and can be easily distinguished by the green fangs and three markings on the abdomen.  The Bold Jumper is a highly variable species, and the markings on their back can come in white, orange, or reddish, but they always…

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Dividing Alstromerias

Dividing Alstromerias

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Although my gardening passion is mainly for edible plants, I feel having a variety of organic cut flowers to bring in the house or share is another good use of our growing space.  I create all sorts of floral arrangements, depending on what is in season.  One of my favorite flowers for arrangements is Alstromeria.  I like that they last a long time after being picked, come in a variety of pretty colors, and are a bit drought tolerant.  However,…

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After Dinner Gardening

After Dinner Gardening

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When my kids were little, I bought an odd gardening book from a used book store called The After Dinner Gardening Book, by Richard Langer.* I was curious and had to buy it just to see if it had some ideas for kid-friendly gardening projects that we had not already tried.  It was an enjoyable narrative story about the gardening adventures of growing edible plants in an urban East coast apartment, but mainly from leftovers and seeds which were normally…

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Frugal Gardening: Strawberry Daughters

Frugal Gardening: Strawberry Daughters

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As most seasoned gardeners know, one of the easiest plants to propagate is the strawberry. It is possible to make only a minimal financial investment and buy just few strawberry plants when getting a bed started, and within a matter of a few short years, have a giant patch of strawberry plants, all clones of the original variety.   This is because strawberries send out runners, or stolons, in order to reproduce. This time of year, at least here in…

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