When I first started out, a CSA customer would ask for a different color combination each week. Sometimes it was a challenge, but it also forced me to look at the interactions between flowers and helped hone my design skills. One week she asked for a bouquet of primary colors and my mind stopped. I ...

It’s the time of the year when growers focus on thinning fruit trees. While apple growers have prediction models and Decision Support Systems (DSS), such as the carbohydrate or apple pollen tube growth models to guide their best decision-making skills and tools for crop load management, peach grower...

Summertime is watermelon time, and in some very cool fruit news, an ancient melon which is believed to be the closest relative and potential ancestor of the modern watermelon has been discovered by scientists. A team led by Dr. Guillaume Chomicki from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Anim...

Kids introduced to gardening at a young age are more likely to become lifelong horticulture enthusiasts, and with more people gardening than ever, it’s a perfect time to get involved with youth gardening. So believe the organizers of KidsGardening , a nonprofit dedicated to that exact topic. A natio...

Bouquets are everywhere – in grocery stores, at florists, alongside the vegetables at the farm stand and even the gas station checkout counter. Those hoping to profitably grow and sell market bouquets need to have a plan to distinguish themselves. Crop planning involves knowing what to plant, when t...

If you sell things, you want to make money. You also want to offer your customers as many avenues as possible to spend their money. There are more options than just cash available today, and that’s a good thing, because fewer and fewer people carry it. Healthy Lifestyles and Nutrition Educator Hanna...

As Christmas trees, Fraser firs are prized for their rich color, pleasant odor and their ability to hold onto their needles. However, they’re also highly susceptible to devastating root rot diseases caused by water molds in the genus Phytophthora. There are about 170 species of Phytopthora, which ca...

Nearly everyone remembers houseplants as part of the décor in their parents’ or grandparents’ homes. But houseplants are back, and stronger than ever. It isn’t just a trend for a generation familiar with ivy, spider plants and philodendron. Millennials seem especially interested in houseplants, perh...

The Brassica Pest Collaborative is a multi-year project funded by Northeast SARE, bringing together Extension educators and researchers from UMass, UConn, UNH and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County. Four of the project’s participants discussed practical strategies for controlling common...