Gardening Tips

Walking out to your tomato plants on a blazing August morning and finding tightly curled, leathery leaves can…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 12

You walk out to your garden expecting to find tomatoes ripening on the vine, but instead you see…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 12

Tucked into the edges of southeastern forests, American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) is a native shrub that most North…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 12

Walking out to your pepper bed and spotting pale, papery patches on your fruit can send a gardener…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 12

If your North Carolina yard has turned into a nighttime concert hall this summer, you are not alone.…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 12

Watching your container peppers sit there small and struggling while the summer heat cranks up is genuinely frustrating,…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 12

Pull a cucumber off the vine and find one end swollen like a club while the other tapers…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 12

Round holes appearing in your porch wood this summer can feel alarming, but they are telling you something…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 12

Spotting yellow mottling and curled leaves on your cucumber plants in late summer can stop a gardener cold.…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 12

Watching your eggplant bloom beautifully and then drop every flower without producing a single fruit is genuinely frustrating,…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 12

You walk out to check your pepper plants on a sweltering August morning, and the ground beneath them…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 12

Spotting white or silvery patches on your zucchini leaves can send a gardener into a panic, especially when…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 12

Walking out to a garden full of sprawling, dark-green cucumber vines and finding almost no new cucumbers can…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 12

Watching your squash or zucchini droop on a hot afternoon can make any gardener nervous, especially when the…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 12

Watching your cucumber leaves go yellow, brown-edged, or crispy during a late-summer heat stretch is genuinely stressful, especially…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 12

Suddenly spotting green anoles everywhere you look in your yard can feel like something shifted overnight. For North…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 12

Spotting a dark, sunken patch on the bottom of your tomato can stop a gardener cold, especially after…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 12

If your backyard bumps up against woods or a brushy fence line, ticks are likely closer than you…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 12

Walking out to your garden and finding a ripe tomato split wide open is one of the more…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 11

Walking out to your tomato plants on a blazing August afternoon to find the lower leaves curled into…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 11

Liriope has edged walkways in North Carolina yards for decades, but it does not actually feed local wildlife…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 11

Walking out to your tomato plants and spotting a cluster of yellowing lower leaves can send a gardener…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 11

Spotting a pale, bleached, or blistered patch on a pepper you have been watching all season is genuinely…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 11

Walking out to your zucchini patch and finding nothing but flowers when you expected a harvest is genuinely…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 11

Spotting a hawk gliding over your North Carolina yard is one of those moments that stops you mid-task.…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 11

Walking out to your garden and finding a healthy-looking cucumber vine completely flopped over is one of the…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 11

Curling pepper leaves in August can send even experienced gardeners into a panic, but the cause is not…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 11

Most North Carolina homeowners walk right past American persimmon without giving it a second thought, and that is…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 11

Walk out to your zucchini patch on a late-summer morning and you might find the leaves dusted with…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 11

Biting into a cucumber you grew yourself and tasting something sharp and unpleasant is a real letdown, especially…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 11

Walking out to your cucumber patch and finding the leaves looking dusty, bleached, or covered in tiny pale…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 11

Spotting a large bee hovering near your porch rail or finding a perfectly round hole in a beam…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 11

Watching cucumber blossoms fall off the vine without turning into a single cucumber is genuinely frustrating, especially when…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 11

Something colorful and unfamiliar has been landing on fences, tree trunks, and garden plants across parts of North…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 11

Crispy, brown-edged cucumber leaves in late summer are one of the most alarming sights for a home gardener…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 11

Walking out to your garden and finding a zucchini or pumpkin vine suddenly flopped over is one of…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 11

Spotting a box turtle near your garden beds can feel like a sign from nature, and in a…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 11

Finding a dark, sunken patch on the bottom of your tomatoes in August can feel like a gut…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 11

Late summer is brutal on container tomatoes in the South, and a plant that looks small, weak, or…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 10

Yard fences, shrubs, and garden walls across North Carolina have been crawling with small green lizards this summer,…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 10

Okra can go from perfectly tender to pithy and unchewable faster than almost any other summer vegetable, and…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 10

Pulling back a pepper leaf to find a dark, sunken patch on the fruit is one of the…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 10

Watching eggplant flowers fall one after another in August without leaving a single fruit behind is one of…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 10

August in the South can be genuinely puzzling for pepper gardeners: the plants look green and full, flowers…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 10

Spotting your pepper plants with tight, leathery curled leaves during a late-summer heat wave can send any gardener…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 10

Something feels wrong when your zucchini plant looks lush and healthy but the fruit keeps dying at the…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 10

Watching your squash plants collapse in the afternoon heat is one of the more alarming sights in a…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 10

By late summer, many North Carolina homeowners start noticing wasps everywhere, around the porch railing, hovering over the…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 10

Your cucumber vines were loaded with fruit a few weeks ago, and now the whole plant seems to…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 10