It can be challenging to grow a beautiful, color-filled garden when you live where there’s a large population of deer. While fencing your yard or religiously spraying deer deterrents are effective ways to keep the herd from decimating your garden, there is another way. For many gardeners, the most important step in gardening with deer is to include as many deer-resistant plants as possible. When it comes to spring-blooming bulbs, this is not just important — it’s essential. Deer are especially hungry in the spring, and their palates seem to be far less discerning. Today, we’re teaming up with bulb.com, a website for information about flower bulbs, to tell you about six of our favorite deer-resistant bulbs. They’ll add a pop of color to your spring garden, without losing their heads to a browsing Bambi. Continue Reading
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Deer-resistant bulbs for spring color in the garden
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Unique vegetables to grow in your garden
Our vegetable garden is a flavorful mixture of traditional crops like carrots, tomatoes, and beans with unusual vegetables like snake gourds, cucamelons, and burr gherkins. I’m always encouraging gardeners to try something new in their veggie patch as there are so many unique vegetables to grow in raised beds, in-ground gardens, and containers.
In my new digital series, Get Growing with Niki Jabbour, we celebrate all types of food gardening and hope to get you growing no matter where you live or how much growing space you have. In our premiere episode, we focus on some of the fun and unique vegetables I grow in my garden.
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Bulb-planting design tips and inspiration from the Keukenhof gardens
After our long Canadian winters, early spring usually sees me heading outside in the yard every day to see which spring bulbs have bloomed since the day before. They’re among my favourite flowers because they are harbingers of the growing season. In Lisse, a town in the Netherlands, about seven million flower bulbs bloom each spring throughout the 32 hectares (about 79 acres) of gardens at the Keukenhof. Resplendent colour combinations and creative display ideas are planted to inspire gardeners from all over the world. They’re also living business cards for the Dutch growers who supply the bulbs. I’ve had the good fortune to visit the Keukenhof twice now and if I lived closer, I would go every year. Here is some inspiration that I brought home from my most recent visit to the Keukenhof gardens.
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Evergreen groundcover plants: 20 choices for year-round interest
Groundcovers are low-growing plants that serve many different purposes in the landscape. They limit weed growth, stabilize slopes, and add interest and texture to your yard. Plus, unlike lawn, groundcover plants don’t have to be mowed. However, in colder climates, many groundcovers die back and go dormant during the winter months. This leaves the ground bare and exposed, opening it up to potential weed issues and soil erosion. If you’d like to provide year-round cover for a particular garden area, turn to evergreen groundcover varieties for the job. These beautiful, hard-working plants have so much to offer.
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Learn how to garden with a cold frame
When I first started experimenting with season extension, I discovered that a cold frame is an invaluable tool in a vegetable garden. Our cold frames allow us to jump-start the spring harvest months before most gardeners begin to sow seeds and stretch our harvest throughout winter. If you want tips on how to garden with a cold frame, read on. Here’s an excerpt on cold frames from my award-winning book, The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener.
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Harvesting winter squash
Some crops, like leaf lettuce, are quick to go from seed to harvest. Others, like winter squash need a full season to mature. But they’re worth the wait! When I begin harvesting winter squash, everyone loves to help. It’s fun to see the rainbow of colors, shapes, and sizes of the many varieties we grow.
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