Dear Readers: This is the last post of the Grow It Eat It blog. But don't worry--our gardening adventure is not over! We're just changing, consolidating, and improving, and you can keep reading at our new blog, Maryland Grows. At Maryland Grows you'll not only be able to read posts about food gardening under the Grow It Eat It tab, but also get information about other aspects of home gardening, like lawns and ornamental plants. You'll also find that all the Grow It Eat It posts from the beginning in 2009 to the present have been moved to the new blog. They'll also remain archived at this l ..read more

Long-time readers may remember that last year, after about fifteen years of successful blueberry harvests (meaning that the birds got no more than about twenty percent of the berries), I harvested absolutely none. Those I consulted who are in the know said that catbird populations were way up, and certainly they are fond of blueberries. With the thought that all those well-fed birds likely had lots of babies, and would be back, I decided to take on the challenge of protecting a row of blueberry bushes that are part of my front yard landscaping, surrounded by other plants. I drove some rebar i ..read more

Vegetable gardeners are of different minds about growing spring cabbage. There are those who love everything about this crop: the joy of watching seedlings that look like any other brassica gradually wrap their leaves around each other to form heads; the tidy appearance in the garden; the crisp crunch of cole slaw. And there are those who say it takes up too much space and is cheap to buy, so why would you bother? I'd say if your garden is small, it's not worth growing for those reasons. But if you have the space, give it a try! Unless you have a large family, though, or a lot of cabbage reci ..read more

A picture worth at least a few words, which are: we are still expecting some cold nights coming up, so if you have tomatoes in the ground or are putting them in soon, give them some protection! I couldn't wait any longer to get some of my huge plants in small pots into the ground, so I broke out all the protection devices I had lying around. No endorsement implied (especially since I have limited to no experience with these devices), but from left to right: Gro-Therm Perforated Transparent Film (over hoops) Kozy-Coat Pop-Up Tomato Accelerator Weather Defender Tomato Cages Also in the ..read more

Please visit us on the afternoon of Saturday, April 29th! We will have all sorts of activities including: educational talks; workshops on plant propagation, mushroom growing, tomato grafting, and hydroponic gardening; children's programs; plant and product sales; demos in our demo garden; and lots of Master Gardeners to answer your questions. More information including a schedule here ..read more

I've grown a lot of different vegetables at this point, but there's always something new for me to try. Last fall I planted some Claytonia perfoliata, or miner's lettuce, alongside spinach in my vegetable garden. Both of them have wintered over nicely and are being harvested now. Claytonia is a odd-looking small edible green plant. That specific epithet "perfoliata" refers to the way the leaf is pierced by the flower structure. Each of those leaves is about the size of a quarter, so you need a lot of them to make a meal, but you wouldn't want to overdo it anyway because they contain o ..read more

One project we're embarking on this year in the Derwood Demo Garden is growing lettuce year-round (or as close as we can get). Lettuce is a perfect crop for spring or fall: quick-growing, tolerant of cool weather, useful. But it often flags, turns bitter and bolts in hot weather, and heavy frosts will kill it. The solutions to this are: Grow in an area that gets more sun in the spring than in the summer - in the shade of a tree is great, or use shade cloth to alter the environment; Choose varieties that suit the season; Keep well-watered in hot weather; Grow under a cold frame or plastic ..read more

I like Erica's post about getting some garden chores done early.   And like her, I'm planting some early season cool weather vegetables seeds in the garden and getting some early weeding done.  But, unlike Erica, I am putting down my drip tape (see MG 6 Drip Irrigating Your Garden) to water the bed and covering the it with row cover to provide some frost protection for those emerging spinach and kale seeds. Extended forecasts for our region (temperature and precipitation) show a good chance of above average temperatures and below average rainfall.  Of course, this cou ..read more

2016 was the warmest year on record globally, and given the evidence of the past few weeks, 2017 could well eclipse it (we have a lot of the year to go still, of course!). But certainly we've been having an unusually warm February in this region, and while this is worrying, it's also making us feel like we want to be out in our gardens. And we should be! But not necessarily doing the tasks that are usually completed in April, even if the weather is April-like. No, it's not time to plant all your spring crops. We could still have weeks of temperatures dipping below freezing - in fact it's belo ..read more

Please visit our Year of Small Fruits 2017 page and learn all about the fruit plants you can grow easily in your garden! Ooh, look at those aronia flowers and fruit! Both a good fruit for jam AND a native plant. What fruits are you growing this year ..read more