gardening
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Pruning Apple Trees in the Dormant Season
The published ceilings on one season’s cuts run from 20 percent to a third, and they are not measuring the same thing. What the extension literature agrees on, where it contradicts itself, and the one number that tells you whether you got it right.
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Storing Dahlias, Cannas and Geraniums Over Winter
Nine extension services publish a dahlia storage temperature and the numbers run from 35 to 55 degrees. Maryland’s floor is NC State’s ceiling. What explains the spread, and the one humidity figure that exists in the whole literature.
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Winter Watering for Trees and Shrubs
The ten-gallons-per-inch rule is a monthly survival ration for an established tree, not a weekly dose for a new one. Colorado State publishes both numbers and never reconciles them.
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Planning Next Year’s Beds From This Year’s Records
There is no three-year rotation rule. The published range is one to five-plus years, two institutions contradict themselves three ways each, and the pathogen data undercuts all of it.
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Starting a Worm Bin Before the Cold
Red wigglers die near freezing, and no extension service publishes an insulation thickness for a worm bin. That gap decides where the bin spends the winter.
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Ripening the Last Green Tomatoes Indoors
Some of those green tomatoes will never ripen, and USDA’s test for which ones will means cutting one open. Extension services offer outside shortcuts that disagree.
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Mulching Strawberries and Perennials for Winter
Winter mulch keeps plants dormant, not warm. Get that backwards and you will mulch six weeks early and lose the bed.
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Leaf Mulch and Leaf Mold in the Fall Garden
Four inches of leaves spread in October will be about three inches by spring. NC State Extension measured that settling, and it is the number that makes leaf mulch worth the afternoon it costs. You are not adding a permanent layer. You are adding one that disappears into the soil and has to be replaced…
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Fall Soil Tests and What the Numbers Mean
Why a September sample beats an April one, how many cores to pull, and why a pH reading alone cannot set a lime rate.
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Low Tunnels and Row Cover for the Fall Garden
What row cover weight actually buys you in degrees, where extension services disagree on venting, and why a cover extends the harvest without extending the growing.