Bob’s Blog
Testing Garden Soil
Testing your garden's soil is important. If you live in West Virginia, you can get your soil tested for free through WVU's soil testing lab. John Morgan recently got his soil tested and documented the process in the video inside.
How an Appalachian Apple Became The Gold Standard
It’s fall. Here at Bob’s this means three things – pansies, mums, and apples. Apples are pretty amazing. We owe modern apples to central Asian farmers thousands of years ago who first domesticated apples. However, we can look a little closer to home when it comes to the most popular varieties of apples today. Two popular varieties have their origin right here in West Virginia. Grimes Golden and Golden Delicious, West Virginia’s official state fruit. In 2013, the Golden Delicious was one of four apple varieties featured on 33-cent stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service.
The Basics of Soil Composition
Soils are complex mixtures of minerals, water, air, organic matter, and countless organisms that are the decaying remains of once-living things. It forms at the surface of land – it is the “skin of the earth.”
Overwintering Mums
Overwintering mums is possible. Because many people think that mums (formally called chrysanthemums) are at best a finicky perennial, many gardeners treat them as annuals. But, this does not have to be the case. With just a little winter care for mums, these fall beauties can come back year after year. Keep reading to learn more about how to winterize mums.
Fall is Fantastic!
Many people tend to clear out garden and landscape beds in the fall and pack tools away. However, now is a great time for gardening. Fall is fantastic for giving your landscape and edge going into next spring!
Shocking History
Fall is just around the corner. Pretty soon you’ll start to see fall displays of pumpkins, mums, and corn shocks. Today corn shocks are used as a decoration, but a little over a century ago they still served a very real purpose.