Garden Plot
Watercooler
- Thailand urged to explore edible insect market
- Most expensive house in the U.S. listed at $190M
- Ferris wheel ride world record broken in Chicago
- Denmark's de Forest wins Eurovision song contest
- Terminally ill teen's song and story go viral online
- 'Crazy ants' drive southeastern U.S. nuts (Video)
- Naval Academy celebrates slippery tradition
- Funeral home has bicycle hearse for 1 last ride
- Birth of anteater has Conn. zoo staff puzzled
- Alaska man runs onto frozen lake to avoid jail
Mike McGrath
WTOP's Garden Editor Mike McGrath is:
* Host of the nationally syndicated Public Radio show, You Bet Your Garden
* Contributing Editor and columnist for Greenprints magazine
* Former Editor-in-Chief of ORGANIC GARDENING magazine
* Author of books on Tomatoes, Compost, Seed saving and Kitchen Gardening
* Mike makes several appearances around town. Click for more.
* Do you have a question for Mike? Email him at mikemcg@ptd.net. (Please include your name, location and the topic in the subject line)
Early spring bulbs, controlling crabgrass & ... cohabitation?
Although our weird winter weather has a lot of bulbs behaving badly, there's no real danger. Those leaves are full of nature's finest antifreeze, and the all-important flower stems are still safely underground.
Time for McGrath's annual seed catalog roundup
We always clue our listeners in to the money-saving deals that some seed catalogs offer as an incentive to get people to order before the big springtime crush, but I've never seen an offer like this in my 20 plus years of garden reporting.
Nothing you can do about acorns from an oak tree
Acorns are a sign that your oak is healthy and happy. The only thing you can do to prevent them would be to cut down the tree.
Your gardening New Year's resolutions
Happy New Year, everybody. Time for a new calendar on the wall, a big note over your desk reminding you not to write 2011 anymore, and, of course, the requisite New Year's resolutions.
Tips and tricks to keeping your holiday plants thriving
Tips on keeping that Christmas tree green throughout the holidays and what to do with it afterward.
The real nightmare before Christmas: Pre-wrapped Christmas trees
Horror stories from pre-wrapped Christmas trees -- and what to do if you're the victim of a bug-ridden tree. Plus, keeping your berry trees fruitful and what not to do with fireplace ash.
Holiday plant care checklist
Cut Christmas tree in the house? Check that water reservoir every day and make sure it stays filled.
The real secret to keeping your Christmas tree fresh
No, the secret to keeping a cut tree fresh is not in any magic mixture you place in the water holder in the tree stand. It's in the handling of the tree before the bolts that hold it in that stand get tightened.
Ladybug, ladybug, get out of my home
Getting rid of pesky ladybugs might not be as straightforward as you think.
Put the lime in the coconut -- not the compost
Anybody who tells you to add lime, fertilizer, wood ash or other junk to your compost is wrong, wrong, wrong. You want a second opinion? They're ugly, too.
Mulching mounds, ivy eradication and late-blooming lilacs
Any mulch can provide cover for shrews and voles, especially wood, bark and root mulches, and especially when such mulches are applied too heavily or mounded right up against the sides of plants.
Baby, it's cold outside -- for plants, too!
You can't leave rosemary -- or pretty much any plant -- outside in a container over winter. The roots, trapped above ground, would freeze and the plant would die.
What to do with those fallen fall leaves
Shredded leaves are one of the best mulches you can use around any plant -- they prevent weed growth, retain soil moisture and attract earthworms to aerate the soil and feed your plants for free.
Beware wood mulch within 30 feet of your car or home
Listeners beware -- this is what happens if you use any kind of wood mulch within 30 feet of your home or car.
Put down those pruners!
Fall is not the time for pruning -- nothing should be pruned between now and the dead of winter.
Wet weekend woes
Well, here we go again. Another weekend with a slew of gardening chores that should be done, but with way too much wetness in the ground and in the forecast to do almost any of them.
Catch indoor stinkbugs with homemade traps
The cries have been heard from all over TOP-land: The stink bugs are coming; the stink bugs are coming ... INSIDE!
Don't aerate now and pick flowers off tomato plants
After the deluge of rain last week, Mike McGrath has advice for you about lawn care and about your tomato and pepper plants.
Don't touch your lawns this weekend, plan for the fall
The best thing to do this weekend is to plan what needs to be done sometime this fall, like core aeration, the filling in of bare spots and/or giving the grass its biggest feeding of the year. Then arrange the machine rental or get the supplies in hand and hope the ground is dry by next weekend.
After Irene, be careful during yard cleanup
Well, Irene sure was an unwelcome guest now, wasn't she? Next time I go three days without electricity, I hope it's because I went camping.
Hi: 86 °F | Lo: 67 °F
