Garden planning tips and easy DIY garden projects
A good garden plan from year to year is an important part of growing your own veggies. Annual vegetable plants thrive best with proper spacing, good “neighbors,” and crop rotation when it makes sense. Honestly, I’m still learning new lessons every year about what works well and what doesn’t, as far as where to plant…
If you’re like us and you want to get serious about growing more food at home, setting up a system for floating row cover is a must. Row cover is a low-stress way to protect vulnerable plants from both pests and damage from weather extremes. That makes it an invaluable tool for reducing losses, extending…
If done well, raised beds are an effective and convenient way to grow backyard vegetables. They’re also a helpful addition to an in-ground garden, if you have trouble growing certain crops in your native soil. At our place, we’ve got so much clay in our soil you could use it for pottery crafting. Even when…
When we witnessed the supply chain crisis and days of empty store shelves back in 2020, growing food at home became a topic of more interest. In addition to food security, some folks want to grow their own produce for affordability, to avoid questionable pesticides and GMOs, and to address the environmental concerns of industrial…
During the first half of fall, I like to take a breather from bigger garden projects so I can baby my cool-season crops and enjoy spooky season. Once we get to November, though, it’s time to get the garden situated for the cold months. There’s a couple pre-winter soil maintenance tasks we can’t afford to…
For a lot of folks, gardening season ends with summer. It doesn’t have to, though. Fall is the perfect time to plant another round of cool season crops and get another big haul of homegrown produce before winter. In the fall months, insect pests are dwindling down instead of ramping up. The weather tends to…
Folks like to poke fun at gardeners for the amount of money they spend on supplies to grow food. The gardeners themselves will confess it, too: “I spent *insert triple dollar amount* this year to grow fifteen tomatoes.” If you look at the prices for soil, fertilizer, containers, etc. and do the math, you’ll see…
Are you thinking about building or buying some raised beds for that garden you want to start this spring? Raised beds are apparently all the rage in the gardening scene these days. As someone who follows a lot of gardening pages on social media, I get bombarded year-round with ads for raised bed kits. Cedar…
If you’re planning a new garden (or an expansion to an existing one), you’re probably already aware that vegetable plants need sunlight. For the majority of our go-to veggie crops, 6-8 hours of unfiltered sun is a must, and more is better. It seems simple enough to just find a sunny spot and roll with…
Whenever I find a new interest or hobby I’m excited about, I’ll watch tons of videos and read up on it as much as possible to learn all the things. Like, I could’ve written y’all a full book on growing vegetable crops before the end of my first season having a garden. I’ve gained (and…
