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Last winter was one of the most severe winters in my Zone 5 area ever. I had no peaches or cherries, which had fruited well in prior years, but I had numerous Asian pears on a tree that previously had been an outstanding performer. This year, however, there were lots of fruit, but almost all...

I have a tree on my property, which I did not plant, that has been called by others, an "ornamental crabapple" tree. This year it is thick with marble sized red fruit. I was thinking from my childhood that crabapples typically were closer to golf ball size. Should I have any reluctance to...

I have Allstar berries in a raised bed, Zone 5. I just got the first quart from my 2nd year plants. They are a lovely red,nicely formed, and solid throughout but they aren't very sweet. Is this most likely due to the variety, or to growing conditions?

I have a crawfish (aka crawdad) in my raised blueberry bed. It is a good 30 yards from the pond. I just built the bed this spring. I keep removing the mud "castles" and filling the holes with pine bark mulch, but he/she won't leave. Any ideas how I might get rid of it? I hope the bed is...

I made 13 quarts of spaghetti sauce with Mrs. Wages mix 7 days ago. I now realize that I processed the jars only 20 minutes in the water bath canner rather than the 45 minutes indicated on the package. My question is - is it too late to re-process these quarts in the water bath canner. All...

I've been watering with a weak solution of organic fertilizer every week or two since I set out my plants, most of which are determinents. The plants are hugh and green and healthy looking with a lot of small fruit. The problem is, the plants are so vigorous very little sun will get to the...

I'm tired of Kentucky Wonder and want to try something new. I have had bountiful harvests, but I wound like to find something less stringy, still of the pole type. I went to this site http://www.heirlooms.org/catalog.htm and now I'm more confused then ever. I had never heard of half runners or...

I had a marvelous sweet potato harvest this year. Now we have to figure out how we're going to eat two bushels of them this winter. We microwave and eat them with butter and brown sugar. We need some help with other ways to prepare them.

I purchased compost from a landscaping company. They say it is mostly yard waste with some horse manure. It is beautiful, black, fluffy stuff. If money were not an issue, would there be drawbacks to filling a raised bed (for vegetables) solely with compost?

Cedar is sooo expensive I can't afford to use it to make all the raised beds I want. A local lumber yard tells me, "green oak works just as good, maybe better." It is priced at 90 cents a board foot. He said farmers use it all the time for everything from animal pens to horse troughs. I had...

I'm still enjoying these in my landscaping but plants purchased in the Fall are very expensive. Looking forward (already) to the next growing season, I'm wondering if I can grow my own in the garden, and then transplant them in September to pots and into my landscaping beds. Since they are a...

What is the best thing to use for raised vegetable beds? I'm afraid to use treated lumber because of concern for leaching chemicals. Cedar and redwood are very expensive in the midwest. The cost for two 2 x 10 x 12's, enough for an 8 ft bed, is $75 to $100. If that isn't bad enough, I just...

Does anyone have a good source of snowdrop bulbs? The only ones I've found on line are $13.95 plus shipping for 25 bulbs. As small as they are, a mass planting would cost me a fortune.

I planted a common lilac bush 3 years ago from a 5 gallon pot. They are very prolific in my area and had been growing great in full sun with a few inches of mulch. For no apparent reason it started turning brown about mid summer. All but a few side sprouts are now dead. Our cats sometimes...

This year was my first effort at sweet potatoes, and OMG. I harvested the first of about 15 plants and I got 9 very large potatoes. I've read the textbook storage instructions: "Dry for a couple of hours. Store in newspaper lined baskets at 80 to 85 degrees for 2 weeks, then 55 to 65 degrees...

I planted a 16 ft row of several red varieties and a few yellows. Now the yellow variety has taken over and chocked out all but a couple of the reds. The yellow berries don't have much flavor, and I'm constantly fighting mold. I spent a lot of time initially preparing the soil and support...