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.
What Green-Thumbed Gardeners Know About Sunlight The Common Read Plants need light. We all know that, but some of us get confused on the needs of our garden plants because some of our non-garden plants do well with smaller amounts of direct light or even indirect light. Not so with Read more…
Why Garden Plants Need So Much There are three reasons your garden plants need so much direct sunlight: 1) garden plants’ natures as annuals, 2) our expectations for their production, and 3) how they’ve been treated and have adapted since being domesticated. The Reasons First, except asparagus and rhubarb, common Read more…
Crop Rotations Put simply, garden crops need to be rotated, or planted in a different spot, each year. The reasons usually fall into two categories: First, some plants pull so much of a certain nutrient out of the soil—corn feeding heavily on nitrogen, for example—that the soil needs a year 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 show improved health, growth, and production when planted next to 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 our mind’s eye, we can even imagine the process: a 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 ourselves. While rich and full of organic matter or well-drained 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 unmitigated smiles of peace that come unbidden while sitting on 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 the finer points. What, then, are the secrets that green-thumbed 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 are for your plant like electricity is for our appliances. Read more…
Wise Enough to Do the Simple Things Great gardeners root themselves first in the fundamentals of gardening. Then, all actions and information falls into place, fitting into the bigger picture of their understanding. These gardeners realize the fundamentals of gardening are the most basic and most powerful aspects any of Read more…