You might be wondering, why would I regrow plants from cuttings when I can just get seeds? As you'll see, there are many benefits to growing new plants from cuttings. For example, rooted cuttings are sturdier and mature much faster. So what sort of plants can you grow from … [Read more...]
Choosing the Best Plants For Your Fall Garden
For those of you with green thumbs, it's almost time to start your fall garden. But which plants should you choose? Although you can plant almost all the same vegetables you would plant in the spring, there are several things to take into account. For example, since the days get … [Read more...]
7 Invasive Plants to Beware Of (and How to Deal With Them)
Invasive plants, whether in your garden, lawn or wood lot, can be a major time sink in your landscaping efforts, taking over garden plants and native forest species alike while decreasing ecological diversity, setting back ecosystem succession (growth and evolution), and … [Read more...]
6 Plant Diseases and How to Prevent Them
Even the most healthy plants will sometimes succumb to disease, but if you know what to watch out for and how to treat it, you’ll often be able to catch it early and nip it in the bud. Here are some of the most common types of plant diseases you’ll come across growing both … [Read more...]
3 Ways to Attract Frogs & Toads to Your Garden
A while back I published an article on all-natural ways to keep pests away from your garden. It briefly touches on the idea of providing water and shelter to allies (predators of pests), but doesn't go into much detail. By far the best allies you can have in your garden are … [Read more...]
7 Science-Based Health Benefits of Gardening
Most people have fond memories of their grandparents tending to their garden - for very good reason - because they held a very firm belief that it was good for them and, for many of those, helped them get to that age in the first place. They would have been completely right. … [Read more...]
7 Best Flowers for Your Vegetable Garden
If you want a healthy garden, whether decorative, or an edible vegetable garden, you absolutely need to incorporate flowering plants. As a critical part of any healthy ecosystem, flowers provide food and/or habitat for beneficial insects (especially bees and butterflies), and … [Read more...]
Stacking Functions: Increasing Efficiency with Multi-Function Spaces
When you talk about truly functional food production spaces, this article has it all. It takes the principles of permaculture and molds them with the introduction of livestock and protein-providing species. There is much talk about companion gardening and the practice of … [Read more...]
15 Ways To Improve The Soil In Your Garden
Improving the quality of the soil in your garden is both simple and complicated. Simple in that it may require much less work than you would have thought, and complicated because there are so many ways you can do it, but they all require understanding a few underlying principles … [Read more...]
How Much Should You Plant for a Year’s Worth of Food?
If you're the type of person who worries about pesticides, preservatives, and GMO's, then you've no doubt heard of the dirty dozen. If not, it's a yearly report put out by the Environmental Working Group based on an analysis of fruits and vegetables around the country. It … [Read more...]
9 All-Natural Ways To Keep Pests Out Of Your Garden
If you're a gardener, you'll probably never forget that first time you went to the garden--a big smile across your eager face, basket in hand, ready to harvest the fruits of your labor--but instead of your carefully tended plant, you found a nibble-ridden or colorless, spotty … [Read more...]
7 Tips and Tricks for Beginning Gardeners
Spring is right around the corner, and if you’re starting your own vegetable garden for the first time, it may seem like a daunting task. There’s a seemingly endless array of plants to choose from, information on what plants to grow where, and perhaps most importantly, how to … [Read more...]
The Easy Way to Make Compost
If you love gardening, you should be subscribed to the Youtube channel, Growing Your Greens. They have hundreds upon hundreds of videos that teach every aspect of gardening you can imagine. And the host, John Kohler, is one of the most enthusiastic Youtubers out there and very … [Read more...]
5 Simple Tips for a Rodent Free Coop
If you raise backyard chickens, then you've no doubt noticed that chicken coops tend to attract rodents. It's not the chickens themselves that attract them, but rather the chicken feed, table scraps, fresh eggs, and water. Not to mention the warmth of the coop. When mice come … [Read more...]
4 Berry Shrubs That Fertilize, Too
If you're going to plant shrubs on your property, you may as well plant ones that grow delicious berries. And if you're going to plant berry-producing shrubs, you may as well plant ones that can be mulched, composted, and used to fertilize your garden. That is the thinking … [Read more...]
27 Tips From A Master Gardener
Gardening isn't a simple paint-by-numbers project. No matter how much planning you do, it is going to take years of practice before you have the perfect garden. All you can do is get started and take notes on what happens so you can figure out what to do differently next time. … [Read more...]