Welcome to a new year of gardening!

I didn't write too many newsletters in December because I was moving house - lock, stock and barrel - to my new 2-acre property. It seems the packing - cleaning - painting - moving and now unpacking took up much of December. Throw in all my kids coming home for Christmas and you can appreciate why there wasn't much writing done.

But it's now the first week of January and the garden beckons. My sunporch is being transformed into a plant starting spot, I'm ordering seeds and trying to decide how many roses to order (I have to dig a lot of gardens already so I'm trying to temper my enthusiasm with a dose of reality. (what a drag!)

I'm back in the writing saddle as well and trying to get your questions answered in new web pages and through this newsletter. As a reminder for new subscribers - I can't promise to answer all questions (I get over 300 each week) but will try to modify or add to the web pages to answer questions. And yes, I'm behind (about 400 web pages) in doing this as I don't throw away an unanswered letter until I do something about it.

I do recommend you try the search function on the websites as it will pull up all the newsletters as well as the individual pages.

And if you're interested in a specific topic, you might subscribe to the rss feed on that individual website.

Tomato Growing Secrets

I'm sure you've seen the ads in this newsletter for ebooks. I write them to provide more detail (and to fund sending out this newsletter) :-) about a specific subject than a web page can provide. For example, the new ebook on Growing Tomatoes describes in detail the cultivation, pruning and feeding techniques so you can grow a massive crop of tomatoes from a few plants (the Guinness record for 4 plants is over 1200 pounds of fruit). You have to do a little work to get this kind of yield but this ebook gives you the secrets of how to do this.

New Articles for You

Growing fall mums successfully

Overwintering lotus

Growing Onions

Controlling the Tomato Hornworm.

Growing Butterfly Bush

Want a Better Lawn than the Neighbors?

Want to ask a question? Click here to ask a gardening question.www.gardening-tips-perennials.com/askagardeningquestion.html

Your Questions Answered

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After weeding out my garden area (not raised), I turned the soil,used a rake to even out the dirt,spread potting soil, turned the dirt some more. Can I now make my compost tea and add it to the soil before I plant my veggie seeds?

A: You can add compost tea at any time. I'll be adding copious amounts to the soil this spring as I'm digging the garden and then I plan on adding compost tea to the garden at least once a month through the growing season. It is safe to spray or water right over the plants as compost tea doesn't burn them at all. There's some evidence that spraying good compost tea or innoculated tea (with the right beneficial bacteria) onto plant leaves is an effective disease prevention or control.

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I have a beautiful white poinsettia plant that I purchased a week ago from a reputable florist and now the edges are turning brown and some of the bract tips are curling. Even the flower center of one of the 'flowers'have turned totally brown and dried up -- the plant is not wilted. I could find no evidence of insects, etc. The leaves are green and healthy. I purchased a red plant from the same florist and that one is fine. Please help. Thanks

A: Generally, leaf bract "burn" is a feeding symptom. Over fertilizing will do this - particularly if you added some plant food to your water. You see commercial growers now use a slow release fertilizer and when this is combined with a water based fertilizer, the combination is pretty powerful (synergistic effect) and you'll get leaf burn.

There is also some calcium deficiencies that will do this but these are mostly seen at the growing level.

Sometimes botrytis will show up as leaf mottling.

Water stress sometimes does this as well - and combines to induce calcium and fertilizer problems.

And the darned white poinsettia always seem to get these problems before the other colours in my experience.

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I recently moved from a house with a patio to an appartment that has absolutely no outside space.

I have many plants that I used to keep outside before, and they loved it! Now, when I brought them in the house, I realize how many bugs live on my plants. The plants don't like it so much inside the house, but the small flies that live on them are thriving! All my house is now full of small flies, and they are inhabiting each and every one of my plant pots. I don't want to throw away my plants, but my husband and I are getting tired of so many flies in the house.

Please teach me how to get rid of these flies and other bugs that don't want to stay in the plant pots. Thank you, Mara

A: Ah, you're seeing fungus gnats. This small fly feeds on soil algae (among other things) and when you overwater your plants, algae starts to grow in the soil. The simplest way to eliminate this pest is to control your watering.

The second easiest is to use a heavy spray of insecticidal soap on the pot's soil. Soak it with a spray. Repeat the soap spray every 3-5 days for 2 weeks. You'll see some changes pretty fast.

But the key is to water only when the plants need it.

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: i have a couple of questions: *how long do seeds last in the seed packets is theit a date on the packets? *how does a person prepare seeds when taken out of the fruit and vegatables to put into the packets? *how would a person go about shipping seeds to someone as too care of the seeds before they go into the envenlope?

A: Seeds last differing lengths of time but as long as they're cool and dry, you'll get several years from common vegetables and flowers. Some shorter - some longer.

Preparing seeds to ship in envelopes is as simple as drying the seed.

Wrap the seed in some paper towel and put in the envelope. If the seed is large, then wrap this paper towel in bubble wrap so the automatic envelope sorters don't crush the seed.

Ship within your own country. There are rules against shipping seed across international borders.

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I have two clematis vines which have been in the ground two years. This summer both flowered beautifully and as a result both vines are in excess of 7 feet. I live in about the same climate conditions you do (Zone4-5). When the plants were new I covered them with burlap, now it would be a little more of a challenge but if you say I should protect them that way I will. Any advice on overwintering would be greatly appreciated. Diane

A: Well, if these are very important to you - I'd dig them up - give them to me and pay me to take them south to keep them warm.

On the other hand, if you just like them a lot - I'd ignore them and they'll come back next year.

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I have newly installed rough cedar planter boxes on an entrance deck and I want to know what is recommended to line the boxes before placing small evergreen trees in pots in the boxes. Also, would I use peat moss or soil to surround the pots to help insulate and protect them for the winter? Temperatures sometimes reach -10 degrees in January and February. The boxes face south and are three or four feet from the wall of my villa which protects them somewhat from the northern winds. The west side is open and the east is a few feet from a wall at the end of the entrance deck with a partial canopy over the entrance.

A: Potted evergreen trees don't have too much of a chance when the temperatures go to -10 for a week or two. You'll likely wind up losing them. But hope springs eternal. If it were mine, I'd line the boxes with plastic and fill around the pots with dry peat moss. I'd also spray the evergreens with Christmas tree protectant (anti-desiccant) to help them reduce moisture loss from the wind.

Growing evergreens and plants in containers outdoors in minus-degree temperatures is not safe-gardening practices.

p.s. good luck and let us know if they survive.

From My Garden To Yours

The snowmelt last week brought some interesting prizes to the surface in the new garden. A partially wrecked chestnut tree that has to be taken down because of a rotted trunk put a bumper crop of chestnuts down last fall so I picked up a dozen or so this past week. I put a bit of barely damp peat moss into a plastic bag along with the nuts and stored the entire thing in the crisper of the frig.

They survived the Christmas eating binges so at the end of February after they’ve had their 90 days of cold treatment, I’ll plant each of them in their own pot and with a little luck, I will have a small crop of chestnut trees to plant out next spring to replace this sick one. The key to success with these nuts is not to dry them out and I’m optimistic I got good ones.

I particularly like the flowers on chestnuts and with my new garden I’m definitely going to buy a red-flowered chestnut (Aesculus x carnea). I have seen these in other gardens and a mature specimen is a wonderful sight in early summer when it goes into full bloom with its red spiky flowers.

In a different manner, I also discovered the silver maple roots that inhabited my septic system pipes; this was not a popular discovery. That tree will be providing me with a few hours of fireplace pleasure next winter for sure. It was a good thing the frost had not penetrated the soil very far as I had the pleasure of digging up the septic tank.

At least now I know where not to plant trees. For those of you with country properties, let me remind you that a tree’s roots spread twice the distance from the trunk to the drip line or leafy edge of the tree. In this case, the silver maple pretty much owns that septic system so it’s going to go in the immediate future – the very immediate future. An old lilac hedge fronting the property is going to provide quite a few shoots next spring so I can establish some wind protection and privacy hedging without eating into the septic bed and replace this tree with less invasive shrubs.

On the good news front, a new impatiens has just been released that is definitely bred for the straight hot sunshine. Named Sunpatiens, and trialed at the University of Georgia in 2004 and 2005, these impatiens have shown excellent performance in summer heat conditions. Neither the regular nor New Guinea impatiens will stand the heat and sunshine like these guys according to the research. Bred by the Sakata seed company, they are being produced by the famous Ecke Company (the same folks who lead poinsettia breeding) in California and sold only through Home Depot in the spring of 06. These plants will come in four colours (red, white, orange and purple) and they’ll be in their own pots (and expensive I suspect). I have not yet grown them myself but am looking forward to seeing how they do in the garden. Any impatiens that can survive the full sunshine in Georgia will do well in the full sunshine in the north. You might want to keep them in mind for next spring.

On the tools front, I’m sure you’ll recall that I’m a big fan of keeping it simple in the tool department. I don’t recommend many new things but this one is one I think you’ll like. I often tell folks to use a jet of water to knock off aphids or other insects on infected plants. You really don’t need to spray at all. The BugBlaster (bugblaster.com) is a wand that attaches to the end of your hose that directs the water in a forceful but controlled spray to accomplish this task. Screw it on and you can knock all kinds of bugs off your plants – from roses to honeysuckle, from vegetables to fruit trees this easy tool replaces your spraying system.

Hmm, I will tell you that using it indoors is not recommended unless you have a greenhouse (and then it would be perfect) so I guess I’ll have to build myself one of those too. I’ll have more on this next summer when I get to use it outdoors (I tested it in the basement – very cool tool).

It seems this past Christmas week was a bit of a blur around here as kids came and went, septic tanks went and came, seeds were collected and stored for next spring, and the slides and catalogs appeared from the packing boxes. There was never a dull moment with either the gardens or the kids. While I hope your holidays weren’t quite as earthy as mine started out being, I hope your gardening Christmas was as successful as mine ended up being.

I know that next week starts another year in our gardening lives and for me, it marks the return to having my own large country garden. I confess I’m looking forward to both the design and building of this garden and I hope I can share some of what I’m about to learn with you. In the meantime, let me wish all of you a very Happy New Year and the best of this holiday season.