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 and let it grow. But what about when you want 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 wider array of disease and pest resistance, productivity, and planting 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…
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. Books, blogs, and websites told in safe, matter-of-fact tones, bereft 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…