Growing 101
Vinegar: Garden Cure-All or just Salad Dressing? by Rob Sproule With 2 small kids and an aversion to chemicals, I love vinegar in home. In most cases, a spray bottle with 1:1 vinegar to water
For the Love of Hostas by Rob Sproule I’ve come to learn that those who love hostas, love them a lot, and those who don’t love hostas.. still like them quite a bit. They’re one
Raspberries 101 by Rob Sproule Fresh raspberries and ice cream is one of summer’s sweetest delights. For the number of people who adore raspberries, it’s surprising that more aren’t growing them. Granted, they have a
Permaculture 101 by Rob Sproule The term is derived from the idea of “permanent agriculture.” The idea being that while modern agriculture often imposes our artificial techniques onto nature, permaculture emphasizes using nature’s patterns
Growing Strawberries by Rob Sproule Eating strawberries right off the runner is the sweetest way to spend a summer afternoon. A slightly tarter, but still delicious way to wile away the hours is to munch
Cabbage Worm by Rob Sproule The Cabbage worms are out early this year! If you love to munch on broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and the crisp, broad leaves of kale, you’re not alone. While we wait
Where is Zone 3 Anyway? by Rob Sproule I don’t want to alarm you, but it gets cold in Alberta. It-hurts- when-I- breathe cold. On the plus side, we don’t have Zika, Ebola, or ants
Building a Bee Hotel by Rob Sproule While we all love honeybees, this article isn’t about them. Honeybees get the media buzz, installing a hive in our backyard isn’t the only thing we can do
Gardening As An Antidepressant by Rob Sproule If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance that gardening makes you happy. Growing plants is an uplifting, life-affirming contrast with our often frustratingly repetitive daily routine.
Top 3 New Annuals Of 2016 by Rob Sproule Gardening is as timeless as hobbies get. But while we’ve been growing daisies and pansies for hundreds of years, and will be hundreds of years from
Avoiding Potato Scab by Rob Sproule If you’ve ever grown an Alberta spud, you’ve probably encountered potato scab. As common as a cold, scab is a bacterial infection that results in nasty scabs across the
Gardening With Succulents by Rob Sproule Have you noticed that Succulents are everywhere? From wedding magazines and home decorating magazines to sustainable gardening sites, they’ve become a versatile, alluring, easy-to-care-for wonder plant. Increasingly, savvy gardeners
Men In The Garden by Rob Sproule As both a garden writer and a Garden Centre owner, I pay a lot of attention to who is gardening. Even as I write this, I know (sorry,
Top 3 Gardening Trends For 2016 by Rob Sproule Gardening is self expression. It moves through trends like any creative paradigm, simultaneously a reflection of what’s happening in society and what’s happening inside the
Cut And Come Again by Rob Sproule How we grow food is changing. The traditional method of planting long rows and waiting, weeding and waiting and weeding, then harvesting once they mature, is optional now.
A Short History of Palm Leaves by Rob Sproule Few plants are more recognizable than the mighty palm. They rise triumphant, heedless of what’s around them, confident in their thick trunked foundation. Humanity
The Frugal Gardener: Top 5 Money Saving Edibles to Grow by Rob Sproule Are you getting sticker shocked at the grocery store lately? Prices for fresh produce seem to keep going up while heavily
Epiphytes: Survival Ninjas by Rob Sproule In 2004 I spent a bewildering month submerged in the deep Choco rainforest, about 30km from the northern Ecuadorian coast. The Choco, cut off from the Amazon by the
Letter to a Young Gardener by Rob Sproule “There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments.” -Janet Kilburn Phillips This isn’t my usual column. You’ll find nothing here about killing aphids or the history of
Floriography: A Tiny Treatise Pertaining to the Secret Language of Flowers by Rob Sproule In our world of chat, text, emojis, likes, and an all-around uninhibited ability to communicate, it’s hard to imagine a
Secrets to Healthy Soil (or – The Difference between Dirt and Soil) by Rob Sproule Dirt or Soil? It’s an old joke in the greenhouse “˜biz’ that when someone says “dirt”, you correct them
El Niño and your Garden by Rob Sproule We’ve all heard about it. For a year the news has told us about a “blob” of warm water gathering in the central Pacific like an
Houseplants For Refinery Row by Rob Sproule Canadians spend about 90% of our year indoors, with that number undoubtedly rising in the winter. When the mercury plunges, we close our windows and air re-circulates
Alberta Lemons: A Starter’s Guide By Rob Sproule Lemon trees are becoming a go-to houseplant as people discover their incredible scent, elegant foliage and that you really can grow real lemons. At the greenhouse, we
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