Tag: organic gardening
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7 Steps for Easy Canning
If you decide to get into the wonderful world of canning, be prepared to experience some of the more flavorful food you’ve ever experienced at a fraction of the cost. Canning allows you to pick or buy produce when it’s at its peak maturity and preserve that flavor year-round. The simplest canning process is Water…
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The 6 Easiest Superfoods to Grow
We talk a lot about health on this blog and a lot about gardening. Of course, there’s a huge area of overlap between the two subjects! Gardening is so beneficial for your health, as there is no better produce to eat than the kind you grow yourself, not just because you can control everything that…
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Is Your Soil Good Quality?
If you are interested in homesteading, urban homesteading, or natural health, you probably care about what goes into your body. You try to buy organic and eat whole, healthy foods that are the best sources for the macronutrients, micronutrients, and minerals that our bodies need to thrive. But do you take so much care of…
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How to Make Compost the Easy Way (Video)
Everyone should be composting, especially if you’re gardening! It is so beneficial for your soil, environmentally responsible, and also an efficient way to cut down on waste in your home and garden. However, if you’ve tried and failed to build your own compost bins or piles, you might need a few shortcuts. John from GrowYourGreens.com…
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How to Get Free Blueberry Plants (Video)
It’s just the right time to plant blueberries, but what if you don’t want to spring for some starts? Or perhaps you’ve left a box of blueberries in your fridge for too long and are wondering if you can find some way to use them? You’re in luck. This video walks us through a very…
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10 Powerful Plants That Repel Mosquitoes
While I’m thrilled for warm weather to finally return, I’m not as excited about the flying pests that come with it. As spring marches on and the land is replenished with rainfall, potential hotspots for mosquitoes are developing. In addition to checking your property for areas where water is allowed to pool (your mosquitoes will…
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Companion Planting Visual Guide (Infographic)
Companion planting is a gardening practice that involves strategically planting certain vegetables next to one another for their mutual benefit. It can lend itself to great success in the garden, but it can be a bit confusing and overwhelming to plan out. This infographic from MomWithAPrep.com is a fantastic cheat sheet for figuring out the…
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Easy Composting Tips to Start Using Now
If you are not composting already, it is something you should start doing sooner rather than later. The following are some simple tips that can help you to get started so you can enjoy the benefits of compost. Tip #1 – The Compost Material Should Be Cut into Small Pieces One of the mistakes that…
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Simple and Natural Homemade Pest Control Tips
Most homesteaders have gardens. In fact, they have large gardens and they rely on the food they grow to feed their family throughout the year. If that sounds like you, then you know just how problematic it can be when you have pests that try to take hold and destroy your crops. Fortunately, there are…
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Composting: Good Materials, Bad Materials, and Special Materials (Infographic)
Composting. So simple, at yet so complicated. On the one hand, I feel like it’s really easy to just throw together some biodegradable, nutrient-rich material, wet it, and let nature do it’s thing. On the other hand, there are a lot of important considerations to keep in mind when adding to compost piles, and there are items…
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How to Grow Cucumber Vertically
Cucumbers are a delicious treat to grow in the garden, and it’s really fun to branch out and try different varieties, from pickling cucumbers for your root cellar to small, juicy Gerkins you’ll rarely find at the supermarket. The trouble with cucumber plants is that they crawl…like crazy. The cucumber plant from simply one seed can spread out…
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Straw Bale Gardening (Inforgraphic)
Straw bale gardening has gotten very popular in recent years. It is a great option for smaller container gardens, and takes away a lot of the demand for buying and/or building soil. The idea is simple, you take a straw bale, condition it over a season so it begins to decompose and form a perfectly shaped…
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20 Ways to Control Your Pests Without Spraying Anything (Video)
One of the principal reasons to go organic when it comes to your garden is to avoid toxic chemicals. However, there’s a reason cheap pesticides are appealing to so many farmers: pests are a real pain, and can destroy your whole crop, even your whole garden. So, you’ll need to find some natural alternatives to pesticides,…
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3 Beginner Compost Mistakes to Avoid
Getting a good compost pile going is an awesome way to build your soil and contribute valuable nutrients to your organic garden. There are lots of methods for getting started, and lots of options as far as bioavailable, organic material you can use to build it. However, you can also make mistakes, and before you…
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5 Ways to Cut Back on Weeds
Weeds are one of the biggest downsides of gardening. Just as soon as you get the whole garden weeded it seems like they’re sprouting up again. It is true that weeds are nearly impossible to fully get rid of, but fortunately, there are ways to stunt them so much they’re barely a problem in your garden.…
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5 Ways to Increase Your Garden’s Productivity
If your garden just isn’t meeting your expectations or productivity don’t get discouraged, there are plenty of things that you can do that can increase your production of food this coming growing season. Here is a list of 5 things you can do that will increase the amount of food you can produce in…
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3 Tips for Healthier Tomatoes
Tomatoes are one of the most commonly grown crops in back yard gardens. But it isn’t always easy to grow healthy, productive tomatoes. And it isn’t really worth it to grow tomatoes if they aren’t healthy and producing to their full potential. If you have had problems with tomatoes in the past, here are…
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Never Buy Fertilizer Again
It’s not just a clickbait title, with a few easy steps you can have nutrient rich soil forever, and never need to buy fertilizer again. How? Grow comfrey. Comfrey is beneficial it is borderline supernatural. As a dynamic accumulator comfrey gathers nutrients from where other plants cannot and transfers these nutrients to its leaves. These…
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Tips for Better Tomatoes
Homegrown tomatoes taste a far cry better than anything you will find at the grocery store. You know exactly what’s in your soil and what you are putting on the plant, so you don’t have to worry about pesticides getting you or your family sick. Here are some quick and simple tips you can use…
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Does Tap Water Kill Garden Bacteria?
Some people believe that the chemicals used in treating tap water, namely chlorine, will kill or harm the bacteria in their garden soil. Since bacteria are the base of the food web in your garden it’s important to keep them healthy and happy. Because of this some gardeners have resorted to filtering their water…
