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I can't believe that I'm still getting tomatoes and green peppers from my organic vegetable garden here in Virginia! I got 3 and 1/4 pounds of tomatoes with 9 tomatoes and almost six pounds of green peppers with 60 peppers this week! We've had three successive heavy frosts, so I'm sure the...

Does anyone have experience/suggestions they would like to share concerning the use of row covers for protecting veggies such as broccoli, lettuce, collards and Swiss chard from the weight and or cold from 2 to 3 inches of snow when the ground doesn't freeze hard? These veggies will tolerate the...

I was looking for good apples to make applesauce with. I bought a bushel of Stayman apples because the Farmer said that people were coming back to her saying that those apples made the best applesauce ever! They were right! I made 8 quarts of cinamon applesauce with no added sugar, and it tastes...

Since May, I've planted three types of cucumbers in succession after the previous ones died, and all the plants vined up, flowered, then died. I've had tremendous cuc harvests in the past years, but not this year. Not a single cucumber. Anyone else had unusual problems with cucumbers this year?

Although I forgot the lemon juice, I did use at least two to three tablespoons of Fruit Fresh in the mixture (8 cups). I wonder if I should refrigerate the preserves or if they will be okay on the pantry shelf. Ascorbic acid/Vitamin C is what the Fruit Fresh is, so shouldn't it be safe on the...

I like to keep an eye out for fruits on city property that I can forage from. Last year, I went to the co-operative extension office and picked the crabapples from their trees to make crabapple jelly. They said that I was the first one to ever do that at their office location. I self-appointed...

Should they be hard and brittle brown? What happens if you pick the pods that have gotten "wilty" feeling but are not brittle but you can feel a large seed in there? Are they still viable seeds if allowed to dry for a few weeks in a container? Can green pods be picked and allowed to dry some...

I planted an 8 foot long row of Petaluma gold rush beans on April 12th, 2011. I have what seems like hundreds of feet of vines, but no evidence of even the first bean showing. Nothing but vines. I fertilized them once with an organic low nitrogen fertilizer when they were planted 114 days ago! I...

I apparently have chokecherry bushes in my yard by the fence. I was going to pull them out, but before that I am trying to find out if the berries can be used for anything good to eat. If I allow the bushes to continue to grow, will I regret it? Are they a problem bush? They seem to be getting...

My mother and grandmother both used compost piles for their gardens, so how could I not do the same? Although I live in a large metropolitan area, I manage to have a tremendous compost "facility". A compost tumbler just wouldn't work for me, so I constructed my own area. Initially, I turned...

I'm curious to find out the length of time that home-canned food is still safe to eat. I've eaten things that I've personally canned that were three years old and they were fine. If it pops when you open it and it smells and looks good, eat it. I wonder if the "one year" time period is just a...

I have about a dozen sweet banana pepper plants that are heavy with peppers. Does anyone have a good recipe for canning a nice sweet banana pepper jelly they would like to share so I can use all those sweet peppers? I prefer no chilis or spicy hot ingredients, and I would like to can the jelly...

Has anyone ever grown Chuck Hayes gardenias from seed? I had a seed pod last year and I saved the seeds and planted them in starter pots. Ten have come up, but I'm still waiting on the other twenty. Do you keep them in direct sunlight or not? I have heard both ways.

Does anyone have experience with how to successfully plant walking onions?

The Model Number is 4-36508 and the date of manufacture is March 1983. This one cylinder, air cooled, electric start 11 h.p. lawn tractor was purchased from a Roses Department Store in 1984. I have the Owner's Handbook, but that is useless for this problem. The lawn tractor was well maintained...

I only have six grape vines, so "watering grapes" is probably a more suitable subject title. These questions are for the grape growers out there: How often do you irrigate/water your grapes? Have you ever suffered the consequences of overwatering? What were those consequences specifically...