Pansies give the garden fall, winter and early spring color. Breeders have provided us with a great array of colorful varieties to choose from. These hearty flowers are one of the few plant species with light- and dark-blue flowers. In addition to solid colors — yellow, brown, purple and reddish-brown — my favorite cultivar, the Pacific Giant, includes blooms with brown monkey faces in their center.     Pansies grow best in deep, well-drained, organic-rich soil....

Don’t wait for the ground to cool before planting spring-flowering bulbs. The sooner you plant in the fall, the longer they will survive and the better they will bloom. Gardeners who wait to purchase their bulbs at end-of-the-year sales are likely to see smaller flowers and smaller plants next spring. If buying from open bins, you are also likely to be purchasing smaller bulbs because the larger ones have already been taken. The larger the bulb, the bigger the flower. Time to plant...

A Bay Weekly reader complained to me that she has not been able to harvest string beans all summer long.     First, I reminded her that saying string beans is showing her age. When I helped my mother prepare green beans for canning, I had to snip the end followed by pulling a long green string from the inner curve of the bean. Strings have not been a problem with green beans for the past 45 years, and the name was changed to snap beans.     Call them what you...

If you are not planning a fall vegetable garden, it’s worth your while to consider a cover crop of rye or winter wheat. Your corn, beans, tomatoes, lettuce and pepper plants may not have used all of the nutrients in the soil. Even if you did not apply more fertilizer than the plants needed, even if you are an organic grower, there is organic matter in the soil that continues to decompose, releasing nutrients until the ground freezes.     Unless these nutrients are absorbed...