Carrots are one of the most popular fall gardening plantings here in the Morris County area. Loaded with anti-oxidant and cancer-fighting Vitamin A and beta-carotene, these healthy veggies are used raw in salads, served as crudités at a party, boiled or steamed as a side dish with spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, added to grilling veggie mixes right through fall, and also made into hearty soups and bisques for fall holiday entertaining.

Nutritionists say that cooking carrots releases their calcium for an even greater health kick. This versatile veggie in your garden can save you a significant amount from your grocery budget.

The fun thing about fall and cold-weather crop carrots is that they get sweeter as the temperature cools.

You’ll find sweet carrots in traditional long form, as well as in smaller baby carrots and even small and round ‘balls’ as well as cylindrical shapes. Carrots grown from seed might range from light to dark orange, pale orange, nearly-white, red and even purple.

When you put carrot seeds in the ground, follow the package directions to the letter, helping your carrot crop grow efficiently for good harvesting cycles throughout the cooler weather months. And pile a thin layer of mulch over the roots to keep the soil from freezing, so that the carrots can continue to grow even in some temperature-dip snaps, giving you a regular harvest all through the fall and early winter.

What Carrots Need:

Light: Sun, Part Sun

Height: 6 – 15” tall

Width: 6 – 15” wide

Help Your Fall Plantings Thrive By:

• Following seed packet or plant pot directions carefully
• Making sure your garden or container soil has good drainage
• Making sure your garden or container soil has the right pH level
• Adding Dr. Earth fertilizer with probiotics to your soil
• Protecting them from garden pests with regular organic pest control treatments
• Removing weeds in a timely manner

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

I don’t know about you, but I’m seeing bagged lettuce prices soaring at the supermarket here in North Jersey. And, I completely admit that I grab the bagged lettuce out of laziness, instead of buying heads of lettuce and chopping them up. But if I grew my own lettuces, I’d be invested in my crop and all too happy to chop up my homegrown lettuces into a garden, Cobb or veggie-blend salad of my own making.

Not wanting to pay $5 for a small handful of greens in a plastic bag anymore, I’m adding lettuces to my veggie garden. Plus, they’d be organic veggies, grown right here on my garden plot and thus not requiring any carbon footprint for having to be shipped from anywhere. I see no downside to growing lettuces! I didn’t have room for them this summer, but since lettuces are a happy fall and cold-weather crop, I’m clearing space and getting ready to plant a collection of great lettuces.

They’re one of the most versatile types of garden plants, coming in so many different textures, tastes and colors. I love a salad of curly-edged greens, with buttery leaves, and a mix of fall color like those varieties having reddish-bronze leaves. Add in some radishes and fall veggies, and lunch is ready to go…for free. Plant lettuce plants, or sprinkle some seeds every week to keep your lettuce crop coming up and at you every week during the cooler to cold months, even into the time of frost.

Here’s a primer on the types of lettuces you can blend in your garden:

• Crisphead: you know this one better as iceberg, a satisfying crunch but not as many nutrients as other lettuce varieties.
• Butterhead: these lettuces have smaller, looser heads
• Loose-leaf: this one doesn’t form a head at all, but rather spreads out into looser leaves
• Romaine: this popular, nutrient-rich lettuce grows upright in a cylindrical shape

Lettuce grown in cooler temperatures actually tastes better, since those grown in hot weather can be more bitter and quickly going to seed. So if you tried lettuce this past spring and summer and didn’t get a good crop, don’t be afraid to try again. Chances are far better for your lettuces this fall.

What Lettuce needs:

Light: Sun, Part Sun

Height: 2 – 12” tall

Width: 2 – 12” wide

Help Your Fall Plantings Thrive By:

• Following seed packet or plant pot directions carefully
• Making sure your garden or container soil has good drainage
• Making sure your garden or container soil has the right pH level
• Adding Dr. Earth fertilizer with probiotics to your soil
• Protecting them from garden pests with regular organic pest control treatments
• Removing weeds in a timely manner

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

The excitement of planting a vegetable garden comes back at you again with this year’s second crop of new choices for your garden space. It’s time for Cold Crops, and this post starts a lengthy series on the top cold-crop vegetables, root veggies, greens and herb that love this cooler weather and deliver their bounty right through til winter.

Your garden is ready to give you its best from your new organic cold crops.

The first we’re starting with is Broccoli, packed with nutrients, a said cancer-fighting cruciferous, and an essential ingredient in hearty fall soups and bisques, not to mention fall veggie stir fries and cocktail party crudités.

Broccoli loves cool weather and is frost tolerant, so plant it in late summer/early fall for a great fall harvest. Bear in mind, though, that you’re not likely to get those enormous broccoli heads that you see at the farmer’s market. You’re likely to get smaller, very tender heads.  And if you leave the greens on the plant after picking your broccoli heads, the plant will give you two or three more broccoli ‘blooms’ this season.

Broccoli needs:

Light: Sun, Part Sun

Height: 18-24” tall

Width: 18-24”

Help Your Fall Plantings Thrive By:

• Following seed packet or plant pot directions carefully
• Making sure your garden or container soil has good drainage
• Making sure your garden or container soil has the right pH level
• Adding Dr. Earth fertilizer with probiotics to your soil
• Protecting them from garden pests with regular organic pest control treatments
• Removing weeds in a timely manner

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

Considering how much time you may spend in your office, it’s uplifting to surround yourself with beautiful, healthy plants. I say healthy, since a struggling, stressed-out, crispy plant is only going to depress you…we brought home a challenged plant from my husband’s office to nurse it here, and bought him a fresh, new plant for his desk.

Not only is a healthy plant going to boost your mood, it can clean the air you’re breathing in the office environment, which is very important for your health and energy levels. Many offices don’t have windows that open, and with fall coming at us, with flu season right behind it, clean air is a Must.

Here are some of the top plants to get for your office, or to give to your assistant on the next gift-giving occasion:

Spider Plant: They’re large, green and lush, often with a white stripe down the middle. Keep them near a window but out of direct sunlight, since the heat and light of direct sun will cause these plants’ leaves to brown. These are easy-care plants, not needing a lot of light, not being sensitive to temperature changes (which can happen when the office AC conks out) and they’re happy with just a brief daily watering.

Philodendrons: These provide a tropical feel for your office, with their large leaves and lovely color. They like cool temperatures (between 60 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit), but they’ll tolerate a warmer environment. Place this plant near a window for some light, but they’re not huge light-needers. Farm-bought plant nutrients give it a boost to keep it healthy for you.

Lucky Bamboo: All they need is a pot of water with some rocks, bringing happiness and luck to your work space. Keep them watered so that they can grow tall. This plant is an office favorite, since it doesn’t have feeding needs and is happy on a windowsill with some sunlight.

Cactus: Cacti and succulents are growing in popularity, since they’re very easy to take care of. They prefer natural light, so placing them by the window is best. Since they don’t require a lot of water, they survive the weekends without getting moisture and can even be left for a few weeks (such as during a business trip) without worry. A big trend now is to line your office windowsill with several different types of flowering cactus and succulents for visual interest.

Pothos: These green plants have heart-shaped leaves with white splotches on them, doing just fine in a variety of lighting conditions. They can be cut to a round shape, or you can let their long tendrils grow to hang down over desks or filing cabinets.

Some additional air-cleaning plants:

• Rubber plants
• Dracaena
• Peace lily
• English ivy
• Umbrella plant [In brighter light, this one needs more water]
• Boston fern
• African violet [These need lots of light and moisture, but they add a happy burst of color to your office and clean the air beautifully for you!]

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

If you’ve vacationed on a tropical island, you know how beautiful those tropical plants can be, how they scent the air, and put you in a great mood. “Oh, I wish I could have tropical plants!” is a common thought among home gardeners who worry that it would be impossible for tropicals to thrive in their homes. But it’s not impossible at all. You just need the right spot in your home to provide these plants’ light and warmth needs. Here are some of the top indoor tropical plants that could add some island bliss to your home or office right now:

Orchids: These take some special care, such as watching their water levels and providing the right light at the right time. Orchid varieties such as phaleonopsis, miltonia, lady slipper, and nun orchids prefer low light while in bloom, and modern light when they’re done blooming. It’s a common beginner’s mistake to put the orchid plant in a bright, sunny spot and think it’s getting the light it needs. What’s more important with orchids is giving them the humidity they need, which might mean placing a gorgeous, arching orchid in your bathroom to capture that shower steam. The Farm’s plant experts can educate you about specific orchid needs, and you can ask for a printout of smart orchid care that gets into great detail. If you’re planning to give an orchid as a gift – which is very popular! – give a copy of the orchid care printout as well, so that your recipient can keep that orchid thriving.

Bromeliads: These tall, brightly-colored floral plants grow quite well indoors, since they don’t need the humidity that many other tropical plants need. You get the color without the humidity hassles.

Desert Rose: This succulent likes to star warm and well-lit in natural sunlight, and provides tiny pink flowers in a bonsai-type display. The sap is poisonous, though, so keep this one out of the reach of pets and small children. [Remember that tropical plants’ native environments have some dangerous predators, so their natural ‘arsenal’ often includes poisonous, non-edible elements, thorns and other plant-protectors.]

Tropical plants don’t come from cold-weather environments, so warm locations inside the home are a must. For instance, don’t place a hibiscus right next to an air conditioner or under a cooling fan, and keep them out of the bedroom that always gets the coldest air conditioning blast.

Where’s the Bird of Paradise that always reminds you of your honeymoon or favorite vacation spot? That one’s a bit of a challenge to grow indoors, since it needs the light and humidity levels most often found in a greenhouse. But of course if you have a greenhouse, this colorful tropical plant could be yours to grow and show off!

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

A fresh cover of mulch gives any garden a boost in appearance, providing a uniform cover and color and making your plantings look like new. If you’re planning to mulch now or in the fall, keep some important Do’s and Don’ts in mind:

DON’T create a mound of mulch around young trees’, shrubs’ and hostas’ crown or trunk. This volcano-shape of mulch causes water to run away from the plant’s base, keeping moisture from the roots. As a result, a new tree or plant’s root ball can actually shrink beneath the ground. Create an open ring or berm around plantings to let the water seep down where needed.

DON’T: Mulch too much around new or established trees and plants, since thick layers too close to the roots invite pests and disease.

DO keep mulch height to about two inches, especially around young trees. This is enough to discourage weeds from growing around the trees and in your garden. Water can seep down through this thickness, which provides enough cover to keep roots cooler in hot weather.

DO purchase quality mulch, made from fresh organic materials. It’s actually a mistake to try to save money by mulching your own wood, since you may not be aware if logs or cut-down trees, pulled-up shrubs or even tree leaves have any types of rot or disease. Fresh, pristine mulch is worth the investment, keeping your garden plantings safe and sound.

DON’T mulch before you test your soil’s pH levels. Your soil might need some doctoring with lime or other pH adjusters to achieve its healthiest levels before you cover it with mulch.

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

Shade-loving plants add color, texture and beautiful scene-setting to those darker corners of your property…and as your trees have grown and gotten fuller, you might have different shady spots than you did when you first moved in.

We have some new shady circles beneath our mature trees, and an entire shady section in the back of our house, thanks to our neighbor’s new, tall fence. So instead of bemoaning our lost light, we see the opportunity to put in gorgeous shade-happy plants and flowers. Lighter-colored green plants (including more silvery hostas) brighten those shady spots better than deeper-hued plants, so keep color in mind.

Here are some of the top shade-loving plants you might wish to put in now, or keep in mind for next year’s garden design:

Astilbe: These feathery plants come in bright colors such as reds and pinks, and also in fall-friendly tans, adding some height and an interesting texture to your shade garden.

Brunnera: The shimmering silver foliage of the Brunnera adds nice color to a shady-spot, is known to grow well in tree root areas, and isn’t a favorite of deer.

Ferns: Ferns love the low light, and add soft, delicate texture to your shade garden. They pair very well with hostas. They need consistent watering, so watch out for drying leaves, and get that mister on them often.

Heuchera: One of the most colorful shade to sun perennials, this plant likes a little bit of sun during the day to bring out the shine in its foliage, but otherwise is used as a groundcover between larger plants. Chartreuse/ lemon – green colors prefer shade.

Hostas: Hostas provide large leaves with multiple variations of leaf colorings and striping, white or cream-colored leaf borders and lots of bang for your buck. They grow well under trees, but they do need really great drainage and good spacing to keep them healthy.

Hellebore: This shade plant provides year-round evergreen foliage that deer don’t like to eat, and you may get late-winter blooms from this plant as well.

Ornamental Grasses: Talk to The Farm’s staff about choosing the perfect grasses for your garden shape, so that you know which ones spread out and which ones grow taller.

Pulmonaria: This plant, especially in its Raspberry variety, provides fuzzy silver spotted leaves.

Tiarella (Foamflower): A slow-grower, this plant provides colorful leaves right through until winter, and works as a great groundcover.

Ideally, your shade garden will become a work of art, with a mix of color and texture, growing thick and lush through each season.

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

I’ve spent many of my Bonus Bucks on Hostas from The Farm over the years – and right now I’m watching over them, since they’re having a little bit of trouble. The deer can eat them like candy if I’m not careful, and if I miss a scheduled spray of Deer Off or Scram, my hostas can get eaten to the ground. So I actually have a reminder alarm on my computer to get out there and give them a spritz of deer and pest repellant.

We’ve had a few groupings munched down to the stalks, and I’ve just learned that rabbits like to eat younger sprouts of hostas, so sometimes those nibbles are bunnies, not bucks.

If you have lots of different kinds of hostas like we do, you may notice that the deer prefer some cultivars of the plants more than others. Plant breeders have come out with hundreds of different types of hostas, from green and blue-tinged varieties to large, metallic-tinged plants.

Hostas are the most popular shade perennials, because they get better with age. Over the course of our four years in our Morristown home, we’ve divided our hostas a few times, getting great container and ground plant color and texture in our gardens. They love the low light, the shade, and we have some container hostas doing great in partial sun. When they’re in too-bright sun, their color seems to bleach out a bit.

But we’ve noticed a little something that you should look out for in your own hosta plantings, and mention to anyone you give a hosta plant to as a gift:

Slugs love hostas, too. You may see a slug or snail trail of silvery slime running through your hosta plantings, evidence that these nocturnal pests are munching small holes in your leaves. Slugs can turn your garden into their own buffet, so look at organic pest treatments specially formulated to eliminate your slug or snail issues. Some gardeners still use their grandparents’ favorite slug solution: beer traps. You just fill these little saucer-shaped traps with a bit of beer, the slugs get attracted to the beer, fall in and meet their brewed-up end. [Of course, this solution isn’t smart if you have pets or children in your yard…the organic pest treatment may be preferable.]

If you see irregular notches of chewed-up portions on your hosta leaves, the pest may be black vine weevil, whose larvae feed on the roots of hosta plants, causing yellow, wilted leaves. Organic pest solutions can remove this threat to your hostas.

And if you see evidence of nematodes (microscopic roundworms) on your hostas, which would be brown stripes on the leaves, those plants may need to be pulled up and destroyed (not composted.) To prevent this issue, don’t plant hostas too closely, since wet foliage encourages nematode presence. Several other infestation types are caused by too-close plantings and too-wet foliage and stalks, so spread out your plants well to give them airy room to grow without attracting pest infestations.

Some other hosta tips:

• When planting, don’t place individual clumps too close together
• Give them time. It can take three years for some hosta types to reach their largest, fullest size
• Pull mulch away from the crowns of your hosta plantings, to keep the moisture levels controlled and deter pests as well as root rot and other plant-destroying conditions.

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

I fell in love with Vinca last summer. Looking for a little something different for our landscaping beds and borders, I jumped from my usual zinnia to the ultra-pretty Vinca in shades of red, pink and yellow. They took to our less-than-perfect soil, didn’t mind if I forgot to water them once in a while, and they grew into sizeable, lush puffs of color that lasted well into late fall. With religious deadheading, my Vinca thanked me by flourishing.

Very soon, you’ll find me loading up on my flats of Vinca, adding some white ones to the mix if you leave me any!

And since I’m recommending that you try new seasonal flowers, as well as new veggies in your garden, let’s keep with our Variety is the Spice lifestyle by trying some of the top summer flowers as well. Here are some of my favorites:

Amaranthus
Asters
Black-Eyed Susan
Blanket Flower
Carnation
Cockscomb
Coreopsis
Daylily
Freesia
Fringed Bleeding Heart (in white or deep pink)
Gladiolus
Lisianthus
Pincushion Flower
Purple Coneflower
Yarrow

Tell us on our Facebook page which summer flowers you love!

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

Wreaths aren’t just for Christmastime, and they’re not always made of evergreen. As I was walking through The Farm’s greenhouse, venturing into the décor section, I fell in love with a pretty, pastel, Victorian-style dried flower wreath. And then I saw a summery wreath made of lemons. The first would be perfect for our second bedroom, the second ideal for a kitchen or for a door hanging.

If you think you don’t have the wallspace, take a page from the new interior design trend of switching out your wall décor for new, summery touches. Perhaps that hanging on your dining room wall that you walk past every day and don’t really notice can come down for a season, replaced by a floral wreath? In the summer months, artwork with heavy, dark frames can get a break from their hanging and head to a cool closet so that a eucalyptus wreath can fill the room with a new look and a fresh scent?

I know plenty of crafters who take cuttings from their trees to make their own Christmas wreaths. It can be an easy task to create your own wreaths with your own cuttings, a wreath frame and some craft wire. And then accessorize with your choice of accents – a bow, some stick-in items like seashells or starfish. It’s like scrapbooking with a wreath, a summertime craft that perhaps the kids can join in to create. And a great gift for the grandparents.

I’m not sure I’m going to cut branches from my flowering trees this summer, but I am going to make room on my second bedroom wall for that Victorian pink wreath. If you have questions about how a wreath can be placed in a room, talk with The Farm’s design expert Tim. Bring a photo of your room, and together you can select the perfect wreath to give your room or screened-in porch a whole new look. A friend who is showing her home for sale right now says that she placed a floral wreath out in her stark screened-in porch area, and it brought the space to life. Open house visitors commented on it. So if you’re on the market, this might be one buy to add to your staging list.

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.