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No matter how your garden grew this year (and cooler weather in Michigan and elsewhere doomed many a garden to miserly results, while heat and drought performed the same task elsewhere), there’s always next year.

Well, not for me … I’m going to let mine go fallow next year – it’s way overdue. (see Leviticus, chapter 25)

But MOST years, fall is a time of taking the last of the harvest and storing it somehow. My wife and I usually can as much as we are able, dry some and spread the rest quietly around wherever we see need.

Read on …

If you find that you have more leaves than you can compost this fall, there are strategies for dealing with the excess that don’t involve blowing it onto the neighbors’ yard while they are at work.

Not that I would know anything about that.

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It would be chilling enough if any other type of company were able to prevent independent researchers from testing its wares and reporting what they find—imagine car companies trying to quash head-to-head model comparisons done by Consumer Reports, for example. But when scientists are prevented from examining the raw ingredients in our nation’s food supply or from testing the plant material that covers a large portion of the country’s agricultural land, the restrictions on free inquiry become dangerous. Scientific American, August 2009 

Ah … but that is only part of the point. Imagine if parking a Buick next to an already-parked Ford meant that you could no longer drive the Ford without infringing the patents of the Buick.

That’s what happens when the patented genes from the pollen of a GM crop pollutes the field of another grower (organic or not).

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I’ve recently begun writing about gardening in the Detroit edition of examiner.com, an online magazine specializing in local coverage of multiple markets (currently ~40). But getting viewers of this site to read those posts, while nice, is not the reason for posting this.

Although I have been taking a breather from posting (anywhere) while I deal with a recurrent health problem, after several months experience with The Examiner I can attest that they pay their bills and that income continues to accrue even if you have to take a break from writing.

If this sounds appealing to you, I’d like you to follow TWO links. The first is a short video about how to fill in the application so that I will get the referral fee. If you do not fill in my “Examiner number” (5189) in the correct place, I don’t get paid for the referral. Links after the break.

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I was in my garden one afternoon about 10 years ago when I had an epiphany^{(def 3)}. I realized that, while I might not have as much land as most wealthy men, I had every bit as much sky. In fact, I even had as much sky as Donald Trump and, while I didn’t have as much hair as he did, mine was combed.

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There are five primary ways that a home gardener can hold Jack Frost at bay IF the temperature dip isn’t extreme. It isn’t possible to beat a 60 mph –30 F. arctic blast outdoors. Don’t even try. But you can sometimes stretch the growing season by several weeks with a judicious application of some simple techniques.

When the sun goes down, cold air that had been suspended in the atmosphere on a pillow of warm air nearer the ground is free to fall. This happens all year around and is part of what gives us the cooling at night in the summer.

This cool / cold air pools in low spots. Warm air is replaced by cool air, then cold air, then colder air. That low spot always ends up with the coldest air available. If the air is cold enough and if our garden is in that low spot, frost forms on our precious veggies and flowers. So, here are 4 tactics to defeat this phenomenon that are suitable for the backyard gardener.

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So … I’m not crazy after all. I’ve always felt that Detroit was in Zone 6 … and I was in good company, as many zone maps showed a microclimate around Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair that mirrored the intensely built up cities around them.

Cities bleed heat: ergo, Zone 6.

Now I note that Arborday.org has re-assigned the entire region to Zone 6 … which leads me to suspect that Detroit is now effectively in Zone 7.  So here’s a search box for you. Plug in your zip code and, if it’s in a major city, consider adding (1) to the zone shown.

This post will be left at the top of the page for one week and then allowed to sink downward. There has been a permanent page added to the widget column to keep it constantly available.

Well, this wraps up this series – for now. There is always something new to learn in the garden and I am not “the world’s foremost authority on everything”.

I would certainly ask that you pass along any additional tips about growing tomatoes that you would care to add. In particular, the Folklore / History section could certainly use filling out, but every section could benefit from your keen eye and experience.

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Tomatoes are prone to attack from a variety of pests, most of which can be warned off by careful inter-planting with marigolds, chrysanthemums and certain herbs.

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Beyond lettuce, bread and mayonnaise, there are many other things that tomatoes go well with. Thus we come to the concept of companion planting.

Known positive companions:

Companion planting is a somewhat murky area of horticulture. Sometimes a plant will be carried as a positive companion on one list, and shown as a negative companion on another. Then, too, varying levels of expertise come into play. It’s a mess … but ’something’ is going on out there in the garden. Tomatoes planted alongside young dill do better than tomatoes planted further away from the dill. But, as the dill matures, the advantage transfers over to the tomatoes planted AWAY from the dill.

Read on …