If our biggest focus is on the five elements that create the healthiest, most-productive garden plants—immense amounts of direct sunlight, amazing soil, just the right amount of water, the proper temperature, and ideal spacing— we end up with plants that practically take care of themselves! The final two big secrets—companion planting and garden design and layout—provide the final complement that bring out the absolute best of our plants.
Easy Companion Groupings to Get Started To make getting started with companion planting easier, here are three combinations of common vegetable garden plants listed in order of what they do well next to: COMPANION COMBINATION ONE Carrots Tomato & Onions Onions & Carrots Peppers Carrots (w/ early Radishes) Lettuce (w/ Read more…
Planting Times In terms of their preferred, and in some cases required, growing temperature, plants fall into two main groups: cool-season plants and warm-season plants. Cool-Season Because cool-season plants can take a light frost but get severely stressed and often bolt and go to seed when temperates get over 80 Read more…
Finding Your Last Frost Date To find your specific, local average last frost date in the spring, you can click on any of the links below. Each will take you to a page with resources to help you find yours. You can also just Google it. A Wonderful Map https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/last-spring-freeze Read more…
The Four Main Needs of All Garden Plants Plants’ Four Main Needs All plants everywhere have four main needs. They need a certain That’s it. Thrive In Correct Combination And each plant on earth thrives in a different combination of those four: And everything in between. So a certain… If Read more…
Gardening Can Be Easy Gardening Can Seem Hard Gardening can seem hard. I know. Every time I try to teach someone about a piece of it, I’m reminded how complicated it can be. It seems like there are a million variables, each with dozens of connected parts. Especially if you’re Read more…
The Basics: Cool- vs. Warm-Season Plants The Basics Traditional Planting Times Some gardeners wait to plant everything on a certain day (e.g. Mother’s Day). It’s a strategy that has been passed down in gardening families for generations because it’s an almost guaranteed way to ensure nothing will die from frost. Read more…
What’s the Best Mulch? If done correctly, most fruit and vegetable plants are their own best mulch during the growing season—spaced perfectly for plants to not only have plenty of room to meet their full potential but also shade and protect the soil with their barely-touching foilage. As an additional Read more…
Adjusting Mulch Timing and Thickness to Create Perfect Soil Microclimates Using the suggestions for cool- and warm-season plants as a starting point, gardeners can also make adjustments to fit each crop based on your current and predicted soil moisture and weather. Depending on the crop and time of the year, Read more…
Mulching Cool- and Warm-Season Plants Different plants prefer different growing conditions. In general, cool-season plants like cool and quite moist soil, and warm-season plants like warmer and, often, a little drier soil. Mulch each accordingly, taking into account the soil temperature and soil moisture at each time of the season Read more…
Mulch: The Powerhouse of Conserving Soil Moisture Giving your plants the right amount of water and watering regularly are not the same thing—at least they don’t have to be. Your plants having the right amount of water simply means that the soil stays evenly moist. The easiest way to keep Read more…