15 Vegetable Seeds to Sow Outside Before the Last Spring Frost
As the garden slowly wakes up after a long winter slumber, the excitement for a whole new gardening season is palpable. The sights and sounds and smells of spring are …
Lindsay Sheehan
How to Set Up a Rainwater Collection System & 8 DIY Ideas
Rainwater harvesting is the ancient practice of collecting and storing precipitation for later use. This technology can be traced back some 12,000 years in human history, and it makes just …
10 Zucchini Companion Plants (& 2 Plants To Never Grow With Zucchini)
Zucchini (Cucurbita pepo var. cylindrica) is a popular mainstay in the home garden. And it’s no wonder why – sow only one or two plants and you shall receive copious …
How To Grow Tomatillos – 200 Fruits Per Plant!
The tomatillo is a tart and bright and citrusy fruit – the perfect complement to hot and spicy fare. Although tomatillos are most famous as a key ingredient in salsa …
How To Grow & Use Lovage: The Forgotten Herb That Everyone Should Grow
Lovage (Levisticum officinale) is a hardy perennial herb native to the Mediterranean. As part of the Apiacaea family, it is closely related to carrot, celery, and parsley. This culinary and …
12 Herbs That Happily Grow in the Shade
Herbs are savory and aromatic plants, grown for flavoring, fragrance, and medicine. About as easygoing as can be, most herbs will thrive with very little intervention from the gardener. They …
How To Fill A Raised Bed With Healthy Soil (& Save Money!)
You’ve built yourself a raised bed (or maybe you’ve put together one of these ready made kits), you’ve avoided all the common raised bed mistakes, but now it’s time to …
Grow Onions – The Total Guide To Growing From Seed or Sets
Strongly flavored and incredibly versatile, onions (Allium cepa) are a hardy, cool season crop closely related to garlic, leeks, and chives. Onions have been cultivated and selectively bred for at …
10 Reasons To Start A Raised Bed Vegetable Garden
Gardening “up” instead of “down” in raised beds simply means the growing medium is elevated above ground level. At its most basic, raised gardening can be achieved by mounding up …
14 Beautiful & Low Maintenance Ground Cover Plants & Flowers
Ground covers are low-lying plants that spread by creeping along the surface of the soil. Spanning beautiful flowering plants that carpet the landscape to handsome foliage that brings texture and …
How to Grow Cucamelons – a Surprisingly Charming Little Fruit
Melothria scabra goes by many names but perhaps cucamelon is the most fitting. Also known as Mexican sour gherkin, mouse melon, pepquiño, and sandiita which means “little watermelon” in Spanish. …
12 DIY Compost Bin & Tumbler Ideas Anyone Can Make
The aroma and texture of finished compost – or humus – is a divine thing. Rich, dark, and crumbly, humus has a sweet, loamy, and deeply earthy scent that is …
5 Best Seedling Heat Mats For Faster Germination
When you reside in climate with a winter solstice, any way you can extend the growing season is an absolute win. For many, starting seeds indoors will help to jump …
14 Winter Blooming Flowers & Shrubs For A Vibrant Winter Garden
Gardens of the north enter a state of deep slumber from December to March. Covered by a blanket of snow, winter temperatures are often too cold and daylight hours too …
35 Nature-Inspired Homemade Christmas Decorations
Nature abounds with the perfect materials for decorating the home this Christmas season. Pine cones, evergreen sprigs, leaves, berries, branches, birch bark, and more, can often be found right in …
15 Exciting Basil Varieties To Grow In Your Herb Garden
A mainstay in herbal gardens the world over, basil (Ocimum basilicum) is an intensely fragrant culinary herb in the mint family. Basil is a sun loving plant, native to the …
7 Surprising Uses For Pistachio Shells In The Home & Garden
Native to the Middle East, the pistachio tree (Pistacia vera) is a long lived desert plant that bears clusters of small reddish drupes. Pistachio drupes need long, hot, and dry …
13 Common Things You Really Shouldn’t Compost
Turning food scraps, yard waste, and other organic materials into free fertilizer is one of the best things you can do to elevate your gardening game. Not only does composting …
Can I Compost That? 100+ Things You Can & Should Compost
Composting is nature’s inherent nutrient recycling system. Anything and everything of organic origin is part of it, where death and decay means a return to life and growth. Over and …
9 Practical Cardboard Uses In The Garden
Cardboard is certainly a welcome sight in the eye of the gardener. Often free and fairly ubiquitous, cardboard is a biodegradable and earth-friendly material that enriches as it breaks down. …
30 Practical & Delicious Ways To Use Bacon Fat
Bacon is like no other protein. As a type of salt cured pork, bacon has a unique flavor profile that is above all savory and salty. Made crunchy or chewy, …
5-Ingredient Habanero Hot Sauce Recipe
A super spicy cultivar within the chili pepper family, the habanero (Capsicum chinense) is like a little ball of fire. Native to the Amazon and domesticated some 8,500 years ago, …
15 Bulbs To Plant In Fall For A Beautiful Spring Garden
Flowering bulbs (and corms and tubers) are early harbingers of spring, providing some much needed color and beauty after a long and dreary winter season. Aside from buoying our spirits, …
13 Ways To Protect Tomato Plants From Cold & Frost
When you live in a part of the world with distinct seasons, dutifully checking the weather forecast every day is a semi-annual gardening tradition. Sudden swings in temperature in late …