Starting Your Own Seedlings — Part 3: Planting Depth, Watering, Light, and Heat Starting your own seedlings is both empowering and exciting! We’ve already delved into several options for both the soil and containers you can use, but what are Read more…
Starting Your Own Seedlings — Part 2: Soil and Containers Starting your own seedlings is a wonderfully rewarding experience, giving you access to a much greater variety of choices. And the basics are easy: Put a seed in some soil Read more…
Starting Your Own Seedlings — Part 1: Why Do It Yourself Access to Tastes, Disease Resistance, Productivity, and Planting Times Starting our own seedlings is a game-changer for most gardeners—giving access to a whole new palate of tastes and a Read more…
Companion Planting—An Overview What It Is and What We Know of Why It Works Companion planting is yet another powerful tool in the garden. This powerful secret to full green-thumbed gardening is based on the simple observation that certain plants Read more…
Past Paradigms Walk into a garden in the 1950s and you can guess the layout: rows. We can all imagine them. They’re the most salient feature of gardens from that era—and many through today. Seeing it in person or in Read more…
Building Healthy Soil by Adding Organic Matter and Loosening It As we’ve seen, healthy soil is rich, full of organic matter, well-drained, well-loosened, and deep, but how do we create such soil in our garden beds? We add these things Read more…
An Introduction to Amazing Soil There is absolutely nothing like soil. Its rich smell—sent north on the breeze on a late-winter day when deep in our souls we’re longing for the joys of the sun on our skin and the Read more…
The Right Amount of Water Water. Every plant needs it. Everyone knows it. Being essential, then, also makes it essential to learn about. The Green-thumbed Secrets Simplicity and obviousness of its import, however, do not equal ubiquitous knowledge, especially of Read more…
My Voice: Why My Soul’s Still Here I’ve deliberately kept as much of my soul as possible in the book and, hence, in this blog and website. In this way (and others), it may differ from some traditional gardening literature. Read more…
In gardening, simple wisdom is focusing on the fundamentals first and foremost. The core fundamentals of gardening are massive amounts of direct sunlight, correct amounts of water at the right times, and extremely healthy soil. Sun, water, and healthy soil Read more…