Best For The Garden

What are the best vegetables to plant in Santa Cruz?

I would like to start a small vegetable garden and I just moved here. I was curious if anyone was framiliar with the Coastal Califoria Climate.

Are you really in Santa Cruz? There’s actually a big climate difference between central Santa Cruz County and its northern & southern ends.

My best recommendation is that you visit the farmer’s market at Cabrillo College on Saturday mornings. That will give you a good example of the hugely various produce that grows well here.

On a regional level, you may have noticed that Castroville is the "Artichoke Capital of the World", and Gilroy is famous for its garlic. Also, if you drive between Watsonville and Monterey, you’ll see lots of farms with broccoli, brussels sprouts and strawberries. Many of my friends also have tomatoes, corn and zuchini in their gardens, which are soooo much better than the stuff you can find in the grocery stores.

There are also a few community gardens that you could visit to see what’s growing well…the gardeners might also have good advice for you! The one that comes to my mind quickest, is at the end of Trescony Street, just off Mission (one block south of Bay). Best of luck!

Sunflowers can you grow for bird food? What is the best seeds for this?

Any sunflower seed will work for growing bird food. Look for what you want, for example, one year I went for the giant sunflowers, they grew about 8′ tall with 18" flowers and filled with seeds. I left them in the yard over the winter and the birds fed straight from them. (A couple neighbors complained due mainly to the height and having large dead things potruding out from the ground.) Lately I have been going for shorter ones with multiple flowers per plant to give a longer showier display.

what is the best time to plant tomatoes in cincinnati ohio?

what is the best time to plant tomatoes in cincinnati ohio

Here’s some cut and pate from a Selection of sites dealing with your question - when to sow tomatoes where you live . . . basically this means waiting for Spring.

In the Spring

ANSWER:

When the ground temperature reaches 75 degrees. Anything less will stunt the plant. I plant them inside in styrofoam cups 4-6 weeks before good friday. Then I plant them outside when the weather warms up. If the temp drops below 60 degrees, the plant will go into shock and may take longer to grow, or not grow at all.

Answer

Whenever frosts are finished in your area, unless you are starting them in a glasshouse or indoors. In a warm temperate area you would sow in about September-October in the Southern Hemisphere, and about March-April in the Northern Hemisphere.

At this link - three easy steps to growing tomatoes
http://containergardening.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/3-easy-steps-to-growing-perfect-tomatoes-gardening-tips-n-ideas/

At this next link you find some famous Cincinnati tomato varieties - maybe you’d like to try one or two of them them just for show.
http://heirloomtomatoplants.com/pink_and_purple_tomatoes.htm

What are the *long term* best selling books?

OK, I know there is a top 10 at Amazon and all that and the NYTimes has their lists too for current hot books…

But, from what I’ve read about the book business, something like 80% of their $ comes from a group of books that are perennial best sellers. Year after year, decade after decade these books keep selling..

Does anyone know where to find out the titles?

The following sites give you the lists of best-selling books of all time.

What indoor plants are best for garden office?

I have a garden office and would like to have some plants on the desk and shelves etc. I would only want to water a max of twice a week and the office will be mainly unheated, can anyone recommend suitable plants? Thank you.

There is a lot of information available on the internet. A Yahoo search for "indoor office plants" (include the quotation marks in the Yahoo search box) yields 84 results. If you do the same search, and are willing to spend a little time exploring, I’m sure that you will quickly find lots of useful and interesting information.

Good luck with your search.

What are the best vegetables to eat to prevent skin cancer?

I have read that red cabbage contains chemicals (anthocyanins), that cause a person’s cells to create an enzyme that repairs DNA damage. I also read that strawberries contain a type of acid, along with polyphenols, that supposedly prevent skin cancer. Can anyone verify this? Any idea to the mechanism of the protective actions?

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/CancerPreventionAndTreatment/story?id=3761503&page=1

"According to recent statistics the rising incidence of skin cancer is one of the main problems in United States. Considering that this condition appears to be becoming an epidemic, very critical is to develop new approaches to primary and secondary prevention. As consequences we can see many studies exploring the therapeutic value of natural ingredients and researches suggest that common fruit and vegetables extracts may have an important clinical benefits in lowering risk for skin cancer.

It is well-known that fruits and vegetables contain a variety of minerals and vitamins and other bioactive substances that include lutein, flavonoids, folic acid, vitamins C and E, and fiber. The folic acid has a key role in repair and synthesis of DNA, and all dark green leafy vegetables are very rich in it. So, new findings show with no doubt that higher intakes of green leafy vegetables may help prevent Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) tumors among patients who have prior skin cancers.

Another new finding is that pigment that gives certain fruits their dark red colors has an antioxidant activity higher than that of green tea and red wine. Researchers evaluated that pomegranate fruit extract (PFE) is capable of inhibiting conventional as well as new biomarkers of TPA-induced tumors and they may have chemopreventive action in a wide category of tumor models"

What are the best seeds to grow cannabis?

I want to grow some nice weed

That depends on what you mean by "best". For "cultivation with intent to distribute" you need specialty seeds that cost $200 a dozen.
If it’s just for you, get some PK/ KB/ whatever you call good bud with seeds, and use those. The best from those are the large brown ones with black stripes.

best variety of black tomatoes & white tomatoes?

Would like recommendations from someone with experience growing both "black" & white tomatoes. What is the best variety of each? Which is the blackest, which is the whitest, as well as the best tasting? I prefer a medium size tomato rather than beefsteak or cherry tomatoes.

Here is something on white tomatoes. And the other link is on black tomatoes.

What’s the best perennial flowering plant that blooms all summer and deer resistant for the state of Illinois?

Marigolds are not perennials but all you have to do is pick the dead heads & store in a paper sack (the spent flowers becomes a seedpod) and replant next year. They are wonderful for blooming for so long, require little care & adapt to most all soils, as well as drought & rain. Very easy & neat as well as pretty. I am not wild about the smell but it does keep alot of animals away. Very long blooming period as well.

Do you think www.traderoutesnw.com is the best garden decor web site?

I have been looking for garden decor do you know of a better site

it is beautiful web site.