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No Thin Method for Planting Carrots

Anyone who has grown carrots knows that many of the carrots are lost to thinning. With seeds as tiny as carrot seeds are, it is difficult to handle them and space them out when planting. Even if great care is taken not to plant too many in one area, you might wait only to find large spaces in your row with no carrot sprouts at all. If they do sprout close together they are difficult to thin out without removing and killing more than you need to in order to thin. But, there is a method to plant carrots that, […]

Making Your Own Potting Soil

Whether you are growing in raised beds, containers, or even in rows, you can benefit from starting your crops on tables and even under cover. But starting your crops outside of their final location, or growing in containers will mean that you need potting soil, which is expensive. Reducing this cost is a crucial step in lowering the overall cost of your garden. Here are some tips on making your own potting soil to cut costs. Peat It’s unlikely that you will be able to build your potting soil without purchasing anything, but purchasing individual ingredients in bulk, and […]

Seed Saving Tips

It’s getting to the point that fruiting vegetables will no longer be producing this year, and time to starting thinking about next year’s crop. Purchasing seeds every year will quickly add up, and many of the crops that are commonly grown produce seeds that can be collected and saved for next year. Here are some tips for saving money on next year’s garden by collecting seeds this year. Bolting Vegetables Allow some of your greens to bolt this time of year so that you can get their seeds. Don’t harvest the seeds to early, wait for the leaves to […]

Indoor Pets for Your Outdoor Garden

Unfortunately, some people just can’t see the benefit of backyard chickens, and they can’t let others be. You may live in an area that doesn’t allow for livestock such as chickens and have neighbors that have a lack of appreciation for self-reliance and fresh food. But does that mean that you have to buy manure? Or that you can’t raise animals for meat? Not necessarily. You could raise animals indoors or in discreet cages, animals such as guinea pigs or rabbits. If you are wanting meat, rabbits are the obvious choice because of their superior ability to […]

How to Build a Potato Tower

Potato towers are a way to grow more potatoes in a smaller area by growing vertical. There are a variety of techniques to build potato towers using different materials but the basic principles are the same. This article will describe how to build a potato tower using fencing or hardware cloth. You will need some hog wire, no climb fence, or hardware cloth that is 4 feet tall and at least 6 feet long, at least 2 stakes to support the fencing but preferably 4, wire or zip ties to secure the fencing to the stakes, compost, straw, […]

Growing Onions from Onions

If you are looking through a seed catalogue or a selection at your local gardening store, it is not at all unusual to see onion seeds. That being said it is a little unusual for most people to be able to grow onions with any real rate of success from seeds. The germination rate is not very high, thinning them can be difficult because of their shallow roots, and they grow so slow that it is hard to mulch them without smothering them and hard to keep them moist without mulch. It is much easier to simply grow onions from […]

Keeping Toxins Out of the Garden

Having a garden and growing your own vegetables and herbs can be a great way to stay healthy. It will undoubtedly increase the amount of fresh greens in your diet, provide you with safe alternative to treat illness, and for most it will give them more time out in the fresh air. But if your garden is full of toxins, then the plants will inevitably contain toxins, and ultimately you will consume these toxins and be in a worse state then if you hadn’t had spent all that time and energy growing unhealthy foods. Here are a few tips […]

Companion Planting Overview

Gardeners are often described as an optimistic group of people. No doubt, with each seed or plant that gardeners put into the soil, they hope to have something to harvest later in the season. A variety of factors go into growing a successful garden that yields a bountiful harvest. Some variables, such as the weather, are beyond a gardener’s control. On the other hand, there are numerous growing tips and techniques that can help your garden produce a bumper crop of vegetables. Companion planting is one of those techniques. Native Americans planted what is referred to as “three sisters” gardens. […]

Questions About Woodchips

After writing several articles in which I proclaimed the various, near-miraculous benefits of wood chips a handful of people commented with questions. These questions are common judging by online comments and video or article titles that are about wood chips. I’ll try to answer those questions here with what I have found in my research and personal experience. What Woodchips are Best? People often wonder what wood chips offer the most benefits to their garden. In my opinion, it’s the ones that are free. If you have an unlimited budget to go out and pay for your preference of […]

Hot Beds

With winter closing in I’ve recently been talking a lot about getting your crops covered up to extend your growing season. But in some of the colder zones retaining what little heat is in your garden might not be enough, or you might not have the resources available to build a greenhouse or hoop house. So instead of concentrating on insulating the heat in, you might want to focus on increasing the amount of heat in your soil to begin with. This is usually referred to as a “hot bed”. Here are some tips on how to increase heat […]

Adding Calcium to Your Garden

Calcium is an essential nutrient for a healthy garden. If your soil is lacking in calcium your plants will not be able to transport other soil minerals to the leaves and fruit. Obviously, this could lead to a variety of health issues for your plants including blossom end rot. Having to purchase fertilizers can be avoided by adding natural sources of calcium to your garden soil and compost that you might already have, and might even otherwise be throwing away. Eggshells Eggshells are a great source of calcium for your garden that most of us already have. The calcium […]

Extending Your Growing Season

Recently I posted a video demonstrating how to build a PVC hoop house that will help extend your growing season. In this article, I’ll give a few more tips about extending your season and maximizing the benefits to your hoop house. Seasonal Crops While your hoop house will protect your crops from extreme temperature change, temperatures will still drop even inside. But more importantly the days will be shortening and not all crops can handle the decrease in sunlight. Leafy greens, carrots, and green onions are examples of crops that cope well with shortening days. Layers For those that […]

3 Tips for Steady Potato Harvests

If you don’t have a root cellar, then you probably don’t want to have a 100-pound potato harvest. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t want to grow 100 pounds of potatoes or more. Instead of planting for one large harvest of potatoes, here are 3 tips for getting a steady supply of smaller harvests that could easily exceed the amount you could get from one large harvest. Plant Early While waiting until after the last frost to plant some crops might be the way to go, potatoes can handle cold soil well. If your zone is particularly cold or […]

How to Make Biochar (Video)

Often when production in the garden is low the response will be to add fertilizer. But is that really what your garden needs? Your garden is not simply the sum of its chemical components; it is a web of life. If your garden is not a desirable environment for beneficial micro-organisms, then everything that depends on them will suffer. Adding biochar to your compost and your garden will provide an ideal environment for beneficial microbes, which will in turn provide food for earthworms, which will then leave behind more castings and aortae your soil, which will ultimately provide better soil […]

Growing Shiitake Mushrooms

Do you have a shady area in your yard that you wish you could grow some food in? Well, not every crop craves sun the way most due. Get yourself some hardwood logs and spore dowels and you could be growing delicious and valuable shiitake mushrooms for years to come. Here are some tips to get you started. First, you will need to get spore dowels or plugs. There are plenty of retailers online that carry them it shouldn’t be too difficult to find some with good reviews. You will also need to collect some fresh cut hardwood logs […]

Natural Tips for Aphid Control

Aphids are a nightmare for anybody who has a garden, and if you have a garden, there is a very good chance that you have or will have aphids at some point. What you need to do is learn how to get rid of them so they do not destroy your supply. Fortunately, there are some good ways that you can get rid of these nasty little pests. First, you might want to consider adding some plants to your garden that help to repel aphids. Fortunately, some of these plants are going to be very useful and will likely be […]

DIY PVC Hoop House (Video Instructions)

It’s getting cold, and your crops are certainly feeling it when they are left exposed. A greenhouse is a great thing to have, but they are also expensive. A cheaper alternative is a hoop house. There are lots of videos that people have put online of their hoop houses and how they built them, but they all seem to still involve framing out the back and front with lumber and putting a swinging door on. These luxuries can double the cost and difficulty of constructing it for those that aren’t carpenters or don’t have the tools necessary. Here is […]

How to Keep Rabbits Away from the Garden

Sure, they might look cute, but wild rabbits can be a lot more trouble than they’re worth when it comes to the safety of your garden. If you and your family depend on the garden for your food, you can have rabbits coming in and devouring everything in sight. If you are proactive when you first see a rabbit in the garden, it could save your crops. Fortunately, there are some simple things you can do to keep the rabbits away from your veggies. While some rabbits are overly picky, there are certain types of vegetables that they tend to […]

Winter Composting Tips

A compost pile that has done fine all year long can freeze solid on you in the winter. This could leave you having to buy soil or compost in the spring when you are planting again. To avoid this, keep these tips in mind this winter for your compost pile. Build it Big A large compost pile will remain hotter than a small pile. There will be more food in it for composting organisms and the outer portion will insulate the center. When temperatures drop, worms and other organisms will simply migrate to the center of the pile until […]

3 Things You Should Stop Doing in Your Garden

There is no one right way to garden, everyone’s resources differ and everyone’s approach will also differ. That being said, there are some practices that will tend to yield better results, and there are some that should be avoided. This is a list 3 things that people commonly do in their garden that you should not be doing in yours, and why. Tilling Tilling hard, or weed-covered ground to get it ready for row planting is a common practice. But it can be counterproductive to the reasons why most people chose to do it. First, it can destroy soil […]