Plants for Honey Bees

Calendula

Cleome

Cosmos

Heliotrope

Hyacinth Bean Vine

Salvia

Mints

Scarlet Run [...]

New Varieties for the New Year

We are adding so many new varieties for the new year. We will update the plant selection of the website and include all of the new selections for 2010, but for now here is a sneak peak.

This is a really fun summer squash with lovely shades of green and yellow, split right down the middle. The flavor is similar to any yellow summer squash, but the striped look is rea [...]

Salix nana or the Willow Wonder

Certain plants look just right in the snow, and since I am home so much more in the winter than in the summer, I like to make sure there is some winter appeal to our gardens. We have a hedgerow of Salix nana, or Arctic Blue Willow. They are a fast growing plant, perfect for privacy screens, bird habitat and bee forage.

Here is the same shrub in winter. I love how the snow just hangs in t [...]

Snow and greenhouses

Snow removal is a big part of greenhouse maintenance in the winter. Our greenhouses are really strong, made from tubular steel, engineered by Harnois, up in Quebec, and can handle a big snow load. The problem though, is once the snow slides off, it has to be cleared away from the sides so that more snow can slide off. If it builds up too much on the sides, it [...]

Seed Inventory

It's a good idea, if you start your own seeds, to do a thorough cleaning out of the seed supply every year. Keeping old seed around will just lead to frustration. Here is a basic guideline for seed shelf-life:

• 1 year: onions, parsnips, parsley, salsify, scorzonera, and spinach;
• 2 years: corn, pea [...]