By Mindy McIntosh-Shetter

Container gardening is the apartment dweller’s savor when it comes to gardening.

It can take many forms from terracotta pots, horse troughs, and even the simple food grade can.

But what are the requirements that a container must have before it can be used as a planter.

First a container must have some form of drainage or a way of creating drainage. Drainage can come in many forms from holes in the bottom of the container to drainage material. But if a hole is or can be drilled through the container figure on one hole per gallon of soil the container will hold.

Next a container must be Read the rest of this entry »

By Mindy McIntosh-Shetter

I was raised in an area where my family could go out and pick fresh apples, pears, and peaches during the summer.

As my children grew up they too experienced the joy of picking your own fruit from the many trees that their Pappy had in the orchard.

But this year, as my children fly the nest, I plan to reproduce my dad’s orchard in an urban setting or in my case on less than 1/5 of an acre.

The first thing I have done like any gardening project is to plan my garden or in this case my orchard. I decided I was going to use a European style of orchard management that utilized bending and training fruit trees to grow in a small area.

My small area consisted of the land along my privacy fence. At first Read the rest of this entry »

By Mindy McIntosh-Shetter

Upside down planters have been around for years but some ingenious individuals are using what they already have instead of falling for horticulture consumerism.

Everyone has something sitting around that can be converted into an upside down planter.

Hanging baskets, food-grade plastic buckets, bottles, and even planters can find a new life as upside down planters.

But what is the gardener supposed to do if they want an upside down planter that is both stylish and functional at the same time. The answer to this gardening faux pas is the lonely steel can.

Steel cans that have had their first life as food storage containers work perfect. They come in assorted sizes that range from short and fat to slender and thin and everything in between. But what makes these DIY upside down a planter different is that they are covered in a stylish finish.

Directions for this Stylish Upside Down Planter

Supplies

• Assorted food-grade steel cans, washed Read the rest of this entry »

By Mindy McIntosh-Shetter

A hot house is a great tool that any gardener can benefit from but not everyone has the money or the land required to build one.

A simple hot house can be designed to fit on a windowsill or shelf with no problem.

The concept of a hot house is that it is heated “building” that utilizes solar radiation.

Reflective materials compound this radiation through the use of stone, barrels painted black and filled with water or a combination of many different technologies. Below is a list of supplies that are needed for one hot house but I promise once you make one you will want to make more.

Supplies

• Knife
• 1 12-inch by 12-inch by 16-inch cardboard box
• Ruler
• Marker Read the rest of this entry »

By Mindy McIntosh-Shetter

The other day I was introduced to a unique herb in my community garden.

While I was helping gardeners clean out their beds and determine what to dig up and/or keep, I came upon a plant that I was not familiar with.

The gardener, whose I was helping, had not labeled her plants nor did she heed my warning about the importance of record keeping.

So here we were trying to figure out if the plant was an herb or weed.

As a curious soul, I decided to dig up the plant and do a little research. I figured I had nothing to lose and if it ended up a weed well I learned something.

As I looked at the plant, I kept thinking it had to be some type of mint. The leaves and flowers spikes had a wonderful licorice smell to them but it did not spread like mint. As I looked through my plant identification books, I came upon a picture that was an oh yea moment.

The picture in the book was prefect. The flower spike detail and leaves allowed me to say, “Yes, I have found it.” While every plant can be classified as a weed if it is not wanted, this plant had not only beauty on its side but also a unique history that made it very important to me.

The Agastache foeniculum or anise hyssop or licorice mint is native to Read the rest of this entry »