Healthy soil is key to getting the most out of your backyard garden. Whether you are just starting to grow your own food or a seasoned veteran, performing a few simple soil tests can be the difference between beautiful red tomatoes and a plant that won’t even flower. You can send a soil sample to a lab for an in…
How do I start growing my own food at home? This is the overarching theme of almost half of the emails we receive. The interest in growing food at home has skyrocketed over the past few months. This seems largely due to the devastation being caused by Covid-19. Regardless the reason, now is as good a time as any to…
Raised garden beds are a fairly simple weekend project, allowing for easy garden maintenance, and a host of other benefits. This article will teach you everything you need to know about building a raised garden bed, and the advantages it provides. What is a raised garden bed? A raised garden bed is anything that lifts the level of the garden…
From an early age, I can remember my parents planting a large vegetable garden. I’d wander through and enjoy a tomato, snap pea, or the raspberries throughout the summer. Naturally, like many growers, this is where I started my foray into gardening- plain ol’ soil! However, with our short growing season, I was determined to continue growing my own produce…
Soil vs potting mix, is there a difference? These terms are often used interchangeable, however, they really shouldn’t be. What is soil? Natural soil is a mix of silt, clay, and sand. It contains organic matter, gases, liquids, and an extremely diverse array of micro- and macro-organisms. Soil is part of earth’s pedosphere, which has four major functions. Healthy soil…
A hydroponic system sounds a bit like technology from the future. But as the worlds population rises and mass production agriculture becomes unfit to meet these demands, hydroponic systems appear like they might be the answer. Commercially, these soilless growing systems consist of plants on stacked towers. They are ‘fed’ by liquid nutrients and nearly everything from lights, to moisture…
Transplanting rhubarb becomes a necessity no matter how good the gardener or how nice the garden. Transplanting rhubarb is done to increase the size of your rhubarb garden, to decrease the size of your rhubarb garden, and to maintain healthy plants. This is a great task to tackle in the fall when you are already preparing your vegetable garden for…
Every year fall sneaks up on us and before you know it, it’s time to prepare the garden for winter. We winterize everything else in our lives, from our cars, to boats, to homes, thus is seems only natural that we also prepare our garden for winter. Many of us live in gardening zones that receive frost, freezing temperatures, or…
What’s going on guys and gals! If you haven’t noticed from the many different posts in the last week, I am getting married! I had the idea a few months back that it would be a great idea to build a DIY wedding arch for our ceremony. It would be a unique meaningful piece, that could then be repurposed in…