N. Christopher Knowles Douglas County Master Gardener Omaha Nebraska

Winding Down	Now is the time look over your Garden Notebook. You did keep one this year, yes? Now’s the time to check and see just how well your potatoes did. Click here for the rest of the article.
Next Years Garden	Next years garden begins now with Seed Catalogues. Most don't cost anything. And too, it seems once you get on their mailing list, they just keep coming. Click here for the rest of the article.
Enabling Tools & Techniques	Generally when we think of enabling tools, we think of people who are physically challenged. Well, we are all physically challenged. How can you readily space mustard, carrot or radish seeds? An enabling technique would be to encapsulate them in a very small pieces of toilet paper. Click here for the rest of the article.
Raised-Bed Gardening, the Solution to Heavy Soils	A raised bed is a mound of loose, well-prepared soil, 6 to 8 inches high. The beds can be permanent with edgings of stone, blocks, timbers, or aged railway ties, or they can be re-formed each time the garden is planted. Click here for the rest of the article.
Bits & Pieces	The vegetable gardeners among us are beginning to put out their beets, cole plants, kohlrabi, allium varieties, various greens, peas, potatoes, radishes, spinach and chard. Because it is the beginning of our gardening year, and I know we want it to be better than ever before, here are a few insightful specifics. Click here for the rest of the article.
Okra	For openers, Okra is a large, robust, tropical-looking plant, 3 to 8 feet tall and 2 to 3 feet wide, and grown for its pods which follow attractive yellow flowers in the axils of leaves. While authors of gourmet cookbooks were making fun of okra, or ignoring it, this slippery vegetable was invading the North. Click here for the rest of the article.
Okra II	Okra is a staple in many Black households. Still, few of us know much of its history or its needs in the garden. For openers, Okra is a large, robust, tropical-looking plant that grows 3 to 8 feet tall and 2 to 3 feet wide. It is grown for its pods that follow attractive yellow flowers in the axils of leaves. (The axil is where the leaf comes off the stalk.) Okra is a relative of the tropical flower hibiscus. Okra was brought from Africa in the 1600's. It, together with another African vegetable, southern peas (blackeyes), quickly spread across the South because these two vegetables were among the few that would produce food throughout the long, hot summers. Okra was originally called gumbo; it became a staple of the cuisine of the Deep South. Click here for the rest of the article.
Different Greens	Greens are an important part of the African-American diet. Most of us eat greens once or twice a week. They are healthy, simple to cook and even simpler to grow. Greens can go from seed in the ground to greens in the pot in 45 days or less. Click here for the rest of the article.
Serious Potato Gardeners	You serious gardeners are now receiving the seed potatoes you ordered, trying to assuage cabin fever, in January. As soon as they arrive, take them out and place them where they will receive indirect light. We are after a process called chitting, where your "seed" potato begins to sprout. Click here for the rest of the article.
August Considerations	August brings with it the Dog Days of Summer. (This reference "The Dog Days of Summer" come to us from early Roman times. At that time people connected earthly events with Astronomical signs.) August is hard on a serious vegetable gardener. Your neighbors Zennias are beginning to express their stress with patches of powdery mildew. Click here for the rest of the article.
How to Plant Bush Zucchini	To do this properly you must first gather a few things. You will need to get 2/3 bucket of dried elephant poop. (Most zoos will be quite charmed that you know its real value.) If you can't access elephant poop old dried horse poop will do. You will also need two (2) extra buckets of dirt and one bucket of clean sand. There is also a need for an empty gallon milk jug. Finally, the soil temperature must not get below 60f at night or the seeds will not germinate. Click here for the rest of the article.
Beans and more Beans	String beans are no longer called that. Now, they are Snapbeans or Greenbeans. The strings have been bred out of them. If yours get long on the bush or vine and come up stringy, you're growing the wrong variety! Click here for the rest of the article.
Fast Compost Without Manure	Hardly anyone knows how to make a compost pile that matures in two weeks, yet it's about the most useful technique imaginable. Click here for the rest of the article.
Lead In And Around The Home	In homes that were, built, had the plumbing installed, or painted before 1978, there may be problems that need attention. There may be lead in the water from contact with lead pipes, lead-based solder or other plumbing sources. Lead could be in the interior or exterior paint. Click here for the rest of the article.
Winter Gardening	Now that your garden has been put to bed, it is time to make assessments of this year’s winners and losers. About the only practical way to do this is to have an ongoing picture of what happened. That’s why you made a notebook. This year you kept one speciffically for instances like this, right? Click here for the rest of the article.
Winter Gardening Again!	If you haven't yet, call for your seed catalogues. Time is getting shortfor seed selection. We are talking about your first garden in the new Millennium. Seed companies list in virtually all the gardening magazines,this time of the year. Almost all of them list 800 numbers. Make that free phone call and begin collecting your free catalogues. If you care for specialty potatoes, you should order them no later than the first week in January. Click here for the rest of the article.
Confessions of a Bibliophile	This time of the year our mailboxes are still filled with catalogues. Most in my house go from the mail pile straight into file 13. No problem. But the book catalogues, well I began collecting books with a gift from my mother in 1942. Stevenson’s, A Child’s Garden of Verses is still one of my favorite books. A catalogue from Daedalus Books and Music listed Taylor’s Guide to Heirloom Vegetables by Benjamin Watson. The title and author were subsumed by, A complete guide to the best historic and ethnic varieties. More than 500 classic vegetables, fully illustrated with color photographs. At a price of $5.98, I was hooked! Click here for the rest of the article.
Heirloom Vegetables A listing of Heirloom Vegetables that will surprise you.	When we think of Heirloom Vegetables, invariably we think of things that come from Seed Savers and the like. That is patently wrong. Here is a listing of Heirloom Vegetables that will surprise you. They are taken from Heirloom Vegetables by, Benjamin Watson published in 1996 by, HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY. Click here for the rest of the article.
The Fair	The most significant summer event, for me as a child, was the Fair. It was always my mother and I. She would drive forever and finally we would be at the LA County Fair, in Pomona, California. There were Loquats, Kumquats, Pomegranates, apples, oranges, figs, avocados, apricots, peaches and many, many other fruits in baskets for judging. I knew places, down alleys, that had far better looking fruit than the ones on display. But I didn't say anything to my mom about them. Of all the things at the Fair, these impressed me most. (The ski jump was neat. In Southern California, it was made from huge blocks of ice fed through a machine that spit out snow. But, it looked more to be a thing that could smear you on the concrete to me. Hey, I'd rather go to the beach!) Click here for the rest of the article.
VEGETABLE GARDENING NOW	Virtually all of our vegetable gardens are in. Plant variations, spacing, companion planting schemes, watering systems are all behind you now. The time has come to look around. Many people feel visiting other gardens is an essential occupation for a good gardener. There are no gardens in which there is nothing to learn. To do this well, you must have a notebook and curiosity. Click here for the rest of the article.