Mike's Garden Notes

Author: Mike Carter

  • Starting Tomatoes on a Windowsill

    I start tomatoes on the kitchen windowsill six weeks before the last frost. Turning the pots every day keeps the seedlings straight.

    When they have two true leaves they go into their own pots.

  • Feeding Roses in Spring

    Roses are hungry plants. I feed mine when the new leaves open, with a balanced rose feed and a mulch of compost around the base.

    I water the feed in well and keep the mulch a hand away from the stems. A second, lighter feed goes on after the first flush of flowers.

  • Why My Climbing Roses Stopped Blooming

    My climbing roses gave me leaves and almost no flowers last summer. I looked at the usual suspects: too much shade, too much nitrogen, and pruning at the wrong time.

    It turned out I had cut off the old wood where the flowers form. This year I only tidied the side shoots and tied the long canes sideways along the fence.