Tips to Maximize Your Harvest

1. Grow High-Value Crops. “Value” is subjective, though growing things that would be costly to buy makes good sense, provided the crops are well-suited to your climate. But value can also be about flavor, which may mean earmarking space for your favorite tomato varieties and fresh herbs first, and then considering how much money you could save by growing other crops at home.

2. Start Early, End Late. Use cloches, cold frames, tunnels and other season-stretching devices to move your spring salad season up by a month or more. In fall, use row covers to protect fall crops from frost and deer while extending the harvest season for a wide assortment of cold-tolerant greens and root crops.

3. Grow the “Shoulder Season” Fruits. You can usually pick and stash June-bearing strawberries and early raspberries in the freezer before your garden’s vegetables take over your kitchen. Raspberries that bear in the fall and late-ripening apples are also less likely to compete with summer-ripening vegetables for your food preservation time.

4. Emphasize What Grows Well for You. Crops that are easy to grow in one climate or soil type may be huge challenges in others, so aim to repeat your successes. For example, my carrots are seldom spectacular but my beets are robust, so I keep carrot plantings small and grow as many beets as my family can eat. When you find vegetables that excel in your garden, growing as much of them as your family can eat will take you a huge step closer to food self-sufficiency. And don’t overlook the wisdom of your gardening neighbors.

5. Grow Good Things to Drink. In addition to growing what you eat, try growing tasty beverages. I allow rampant apple mint to cover a hillside because it’s such a great tea plant, and rhubarb stalk tea makes a tart substitute for lemonade. Freeze or can the juices of berries and tree fruits, or make them into soda, hard cider or wine. These days, well-made apple, blueberry or strawberry wines start at $12 a bottle, so learning how to make your own can yield huge dividends.

6. Plant Perennials. Edible plants that come back year after year save planting time, and maintenance is usually limited to annual weeding, fertilizing and mulching. Asparagus and rhubarb thrive where winters are cold, sorrel is a terrific perennial salad green, Jerusalem artichokes and horseradish grow almost anywhere, and gardeners in climates with mild winters can grow bunching onions or even bamboo shoots as perennial garden crops.

7. Choose High-Yielding Crops and Varieties. Few things are more disappointing than nurturing a tomato plant for three months only to harvest three fruits from it. Don’t let this happen to you! Network with local gardeners to find varieties known to grow well in your area, or see our list of the best regional varieties, and give them a try. Keep your mind open to classic, traditionally bred hybrids as well as superior open-pollinated varieties. With sweet peppers, for example, many gardeners need the disease resistance and fast maturation of hybrid varieties to make a good crop. The opposite is true with beans, lettuce, peas, winter squash and many other vegetables that don’t require hybridization to make them more productive.

8. Include Essential Kitchen Herbs. When we conducted our online mega-survey of the best garden crops, many gardeners told us about the rewards of growing culinary herbs such as basil, dill, mint and parsley, which are easy to grow yet pricey to buy.

What Can't I Plant Under a Black Walnut Tree?

Black walnuts (Juglans nigra L.) make beautiful shade trees and a pleasant tasting, if messy, hard to crack, edible nut. They’re also valued for the lumber they produce. But black walnut trees are not always good companions for other plants. 

Why are Black Walnuts Bad for Other Plants?

Black walnuts contain a chemical called "juglone" which can be allelopathic to other plants. According to Purdue University Cooperative Extension, "Juglone has experimentally been shown to be a respiration inhibitor which deprives sensitive plants of needed energy for metabolic activity." What that means to the gardeners is that many plants growing in the vicinity of a black walnut tree will either be killed or will struggle to live, with yellowing, wilting leaves. 

What Part of the Black Walnut Tree is the Problem?

Juglone is found in all parts of the black walnut tree, but it is most concentrated in the flower buds, nut hulls and roots. Unfortunately the roots of a black walnut can extend 3-4 times the diameter of the tree’s canopy, so the area affected is quite wide. Toxicity is further dependent on the soil’s texture and drainage

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Is the Black Walnut the Only Tree I Have to Worry About?

All walnuts produce some juglone, as do the walnut relatives bitternut hickory, hickory, pecan and shagbark. However the amount of juglone produced is insignificant, compared to the black walnut, and the effect on other plants is minimal, if any. Use more caution when purchasing other varieties of walnut trees that are grafted onto black walnut rootstock. 

What Plants are Sensitive to the Juglone from Black Walnuts?

Definitive testing has not been done and the effects can vary from soil to soil and plant to plant. Tomatoes seem to be the most sensitive to growing under black walnuts. However juglone sensitivity is also dependent on other growing conditions and what will or won’t grow under one black walnut tree may be fine under another. However, here is a compiled list of flowers and vegetables that are considered extremely sensitive to juglone. 

Vegetables

• Asparagus
• Cabbage
• Eggplant
• Peppers
• Potatoes
• Rhubarb
• Tomatoes,

Annuals:

• Flowering Tobacco (Nicotiana)
• Petunia species and cultivars,

Perennials

• Baptisia australis, Buttercup
• Narcissus 'John Evelyn,' 'Unsurpassable' 'King Alfred' and 'Ice Follies'
• Chrysanthemum species (some)
• Columbine (Aquilegia caerulea)
• Hydrangea species
• Lilies, Lilium species (particularly the Asian hybrids)
• Peonies, *Paeonia species (some)

Michigan State University Department of Horticulture has an extensive list of trees & shrubs that won’t grow near a black walnut. 

What Plants Can I Grown Under a Black Walnut?

The list of plants that aren’t sensitive to juglone is longer than those that are, but there are always variables and if a plant near your black walnut looks stressed, it’s worth considering relocating it. For a list of juglone tolerant plants I’ll refer you to the University of Wisconsin’s Urban Horticulture site. 

Is the Problem Solved When I Remove the Tree?

Juglone toxicity can remain in the soil for several years, especially if the roots are not removed along with the tree. 

So, What Should I Do?

Plant as far away from your black walnut tree as possible. If you choose to plant near the tree, your best bet is to create raised beds with some type of screening on the bottom, to prevent invasion by black walnut roots. Also be careful that nuts and debris from the black walnut tree don’t accumulate on the raised bed. As an added precaution, make sure the soil in the raised bed is well draining. Good drainage seems to lessen the effect of the juglone. 

Can I Compost Black Walnut Leaves?

Although the breakdown of juglone can take months in the soil, when black walnut leaves are composted, they tend to degrade within 2-4 weeks, depending on their exposure to water, air and soil organisms. Still, it’s recommend that you compost these leaves separately and not use the finished compost on extremely sensitive plants, like tomatoes. 

A Final Caution

Horses have also shown sensitivity to black walnuts when the chips or sawdust was used for bedding material.

Both horses and humans can be irritated by the pollen, which is present in mid-Spring.

14 Simple Gardening Tips and Tricks

1. To remove the salt deposits that form on clay pots, combine equal parts white vinegar, rubbing alcohol and water in a spray bottle. Apply the mixture to the pot and scrub with a plastic brush. Let the pot dry before you plant anything in it.

2. To prevent accumulating dirt under your fingernails while you work in the garden, draw your fingernails across a bar of soap and you'll effectively seal the undersides of your nails so dirt can't collect beneath them. Then, after you've finished in the garden, use a nailbrush to remove the soap and your nails will be sparkling clean.

3. To prevent the line on your string trimmer from jamming or breaking, treat with a spray vegetable oil before installing it in the trimmer.

4. Turn a long-handled tool into a measuring stick! Lay a long-handled garden tool on the ground, and next to it place a tape measure. Using a permanent marker, write inch and foot marks on the handle. When you need to space plants a certain distance apart (from just an inch to several feet) you'll already have a measuring device in your hand.

5. To have garden twine handy when you need it, just stick a ball of twine in a small clay pot, pull the end of the twine through the drainage hole, and set the pot upside down in the garden. Do that, and you'll never go looking for twine again.

6. Little clay pots make great cloches for protecting young plants from sudden, overnight frosts and freezes.

7. To turn a clay pot into a hose guide, just stab a roughly one-foot length of steel reinforcing bar into the ground at the corner of a bed and slip two clay pots over it: one facing down, the other facing up. The guides will prevent damage to your plants as you drag the hose along the bed.

8. To create perfectly natural markers, write the names of plants (using a permanent marker) on the flat faces of stones of various sizes and place them at or near the base of your plants.

9. Got aphids? You can control them with a strong blast of water from the hose or with insecticidal soap. But here's another suggestion, one that's a lot more fun; get some tape! Wrap a wide strip of tape around your hand, sticky side out, and pat the leaves of plants infested with aphids. Concentrate on the undersides of leaves, because that's where the little buggers like to hide.

10. The next time you boil or steam vegetables, don't pour the water down the drain, use it to water potted patio plants, and you'll be amazed at how the plants respond to the "vegetable soup."

11. Use leftover tea and coffee grounds to acidify the soil of acid-loving plants such as azaleas, rhododendrons, camellias, gardenias and even blueberries. A light sprinkling of about one-quarter of an inch applied once a month will keep the pH of the soil on the acidic side.

12. Use chamomile tea to control damping-off fungus, which often attacks young seedlings quite suddenly. Just add a spot of tea to the soil around the base of seedlings once a week or use it as a foliar spray.

13. If you need an instant table for tea service, look no farther than your collection of clay pots and saucers. Just flip a good-sized pot over, and top it off with a large saucer. And when you've had your share of tea, fill the saucer with water, and your "table" is now a birdbath.

14. The quickest way in the world to dry herbs: just lay a sheet of newspaper on the seat of your car, arrange the herbs in a single layer, then roll up the windows and close the doors. Your herbs will be quickly dried to perfection. What's more, your car will smell great.