Calendar & Seasons by Ruth S. Foster Calendar & Seasons text here. Spring - Summer - Fall - Winter Spring Mother Nature's Calendar Indicator Plants and GDDs or When the oak leaves are the size of a mouse's ear, it's time to plant the corn. more All You Ever Wanted to Know About Tomatoes... Once having picked a ripe tomato, still warm from the sun, and eaten it immediately, nothing tastes quite as good. Tomatoes are almost foolproof and easy to grow too. more Pruning Grafted Trees and Shrubs is Tricky Many of our most best flowering and fruiting trees and shrubs are grafted. Plants specially bred for bigger flowers or delicious fruits are often very poor growers. more You Can Design A Beautiful Vegetable Garden A vegetable garden does not have to look like an old shoe. There's no reason to not combine flowers and good design with edibles. more Growing Peas To plant or not to plant... the peas. When is the question. According to old Celtic folklore, it's when one can sit naked on the ground. Our Pilgrims, not given to bawdy rites of spring devised their own test. more Sequence of Bloom Planting for different seasons of bloom and color. Learn more about the sequence of bloom in your climate zone, and you can plan ahead to create a garden that blooms throughout the growing season. more Starting Seeds on the Windowsill Before the spring snow has melted, I know from the angle of the sun that it's time to start some seeds indoors. People always started seeds on the windowsill. It wasn't difficult, the percentage of success wasn't bad and it was an enjoyable response to spring's siren call. more Pruning Shrubs in Early Spring Certain deciduous shrubs can be pruned in very early spring.  Usually we do this to make them look better, bloom better or to remove dead and broken branches.  The ones that can be pruned early are those which have flower buds on the new growth made this year. more Force Branches of Flowering Trees Until small pale leaves appear on outdoor trees and flowers open, it doesn't really seem like spring. But you can make it come earlier to your house by bringing branches into the house for forcing. more In Pursuit of the Perfect Lawn Lawns are really thousands of tiny plants, each crying for attention. A perfect lawn depends on constant care... regular mowing, fertilizer, water, monitoring, maybe chemicals and lots of tough love. more Splendor in the Grass Wake up your lawn with designs of tall grass. more Mesclun: French Seedling Greens For Salads Grow your own mesclun salad green indoors or out with these handy tips from Ruth Foster. more Labor Saving Gardening Tips Ruth offers some simple strategies to make your garden care less labor intensive when good help is hard to find. more Flowing Bulbs Their flowers are the harbingers of spring and one can never have enough of them. Some repeat each year. Some disappear. more You Can Eat the Flowers You can have it all and eat it too in the backyard garden. A garden that looks beautiful, supplies flowers for cutting and drying, as well as unusual tastes and textures to eat. more Evergreen Groundcovers As the leaves fall away from trees, shrubs and flower beds, evergreen foliage becomes more noticeable and more cherished. None so much as the ground covers that keep the bare earth green during the darkening days of winter. more Japanese Beetle Grubs Lawn insects are a problem, none more so than Japanese Beetles, which lay their eggs in midsummer. Their white grubs cause brown patches in August by eating grass roots. more Houseplant Bug Problems Houseplants brought indoors from outside have bugs and blights. Indoors, where there are no natural predators, these pesky problems eventually recur often with population explosions that dismay us. more Mowing Lawns Efficiently A fine art and some science. There have even been some studies about mowing efficiency. The fewer turns one makes and the longer the straight stretches are, the less time it takes. more Why Plants Die It's like trying to explain why babies cry. Many things may be wrong, but knowing which are causes and which are effects is complex. The current plant theory is that plant health starts with healthy roots. more Improving Your Soil Good fertile soil grows good plants and crops but worn out soil or backfill (called "builders' special) won't grow a hill of beans. more Tips for New Trees, Shrubs, and Sod A few helpful tips for planting and maintaining your landscape. more Pruning Trees in Early Spring Though there yet may be snow, in early spring shrubs and trees can sense the approaching weather change. Buds begin to swell as the days warm. Warm temperatures and longer days tell their hormones to initiate that burst of foliage we call spring. more Beware of Invasive Vines! If you have bare ground but don't want more lawn (and it's high maintenance), evergreen ground covers are very good but think carefully which variety is best for you. more Vegetables for Beginners If you want vegetables grown using clean water and few chemicals, grow your own. more Simplify the Garden Outdoors A few time and labor saving tips to simplify your outdoor gardens. more Sounds in the Garden Fountains, babbling brooks and birds that sing are not the only sounds in the garden. More insidious ones come from the motors on the tools we use. more