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If you’re thinking about a new garden bed for next spring, you need to start preparing now. You need to select an appropriate site, keeping in mind that adequate sunlight is essential, as is good air circulation and, in most cases, relatively level ground.
Good soil is essential, too. In fact, the quality of your garden soil can be the difference between thriving, healthy plants and sickly, struggling, unproductive ones. Loose, fertile, well-drained sandy loam or silt loam soil is best. Good soil is greatly sought after, but rarely found. Areas of heavy clay and waterlogged sites should be avoided. Clay soils can be particularly poor, heavy, or noticeably compacted. Oxygen content will probably be inadequate. Water, soil fauna (earthworms, centipedes, ground beetles, spiders) and roots will have a hard time moving through it. » Continue Reading.
The Ninth Annual Garlic Festival at the Warrensburgh Riverfront Farmers’ Market is planned for Friday, October 5 from 3 to 6 pm. There will be garlicky food contests, samplings, children’s activities and more.
On June 11 and 12, 2018, the Adirondack Pollinator Project is set to host two free public lectures by Kim Eierman, an environmental horticulturist specializing in ecological landscapes and native plants.
The Annual Woods Walk and Artisan Market at Martin’s Lumber in Thurman has been set for June 2nd from 10 to 4.
If you’re like me, you enjoy the beauty of colorful flowers and love eating fresh fruits and vegetables. You recognize that many of the medicines and supplements we use come from plants. And you realize that the astounding diversity of ornamental, food, and medicinal plants that we grow or forage would not exist, if not for the interdependent synergy (referred to in biology as ‘mutualism’) that exists between flowering plants and their pollinators (bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, flies). 
Weeks before the soil warms enough to plant most garden favorites but those vegetables agreeable to cool weather, there are many delicious, healthy, and useful wild edibles available – if one knows where to look.
April 1st marked the 90th anniversary of the development of the modern sweet pepper, also known as the bell pepper. In Central America, Mexico, and northern South America there is evidence that numerous types of peppers (Capsicum annuum) have been cultivated by native peoples for at least 6,500 years.
Nearly all historians agree Marie Antoinette probably never coined the phrase “Let them eat cake,” a saying already in popular culture before her time. The phrase was ascribed to her by opponents to bolster her reputation as callous and arrogant.
The Annual Warren County Tree and Shrub Sale is now underway.
The King’s Garden at Fort Ticonderoga has announced the Seventh Annual Garden & Landscape Symposium is planned for Saturday, April 7, 2018 in the Mars Education Center. Geared for both beginning and experienced gardeners, this daylong symposium provides insights from garden experts who live and garden in upstate New York and northern
Applications are being accepted for the Warren County Master Gardener Training Program, which will begin in January 2018. The program is open to anyone who has an interest in expanding their gardening experience and knowledge.
Considering the climate where the personification of evil is alleged to make his home, you’d think the devil would wear flip-flops or something, but it seems he prefers lace-up footwear (Prada, I’m told). “Devil’s shoelaces” is one name applied to dodder (Cuscuta spp.), a parasitic plant that looks more like creepy yellow-orange spaghetti than a plant. Dodder is known by a whole slew of unflattering titles including wizard’s net, strangleweed, witch’s hair, and hellbine. As these names suggest, dodder has earned itself quite a sinister reputation, which is no big surprise, since parasites generally inspire collywobbles, not cuddles.
It’s not too early to start thinking about late blight. No relation to early blight, with which it shares a last name, late blight has become a perennial disease since infected tomato plants were shipped from southern greenhouses to the Northeast in May 2009. Prior to that, late blight was uncommon, but now we seem to be able to bank on its arrival each August. The fact that it is a seasonal immigrant is worth noting, since most garden diseases (such as early blight) are already here in the soil.
The Annual Perennial 2-Day Plant Sale Sponsored by the Lake George Community Garden Club will be held Saturday, May 20, 2017 from 9 am to 2 pm at Shepard Park in Lake George, and Sunday, May 21, noon to 5 pm at the Food & Farm Festival, City Park, Glens Falls.
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