Here’s where sustainable gardening meets simple living. Here, you’ll find advice and practical techniques to grow a thriving garden without synthetic chemicals—keeping your soil, plants, and harvests as healthy and natural as possible.
Discover tips for improving soil fertility, managing pests and diseases naturally, and encouraging beneficial wildlife in your garden. Whether you’re growing vegetables, fruit, or herbs, our resources are designed to help you work in harmony with nature while cultivating an abundant and resilient garden.
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One of the best parts of growing a garden is enjoying fresh, homegrown food right outside your door. But if you’ve gardened for any length of time, you know how easy it is to end up with too much of a good thing. A bumper crop of zucchini, an overflowing basket of cucumbers, or more …
USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map Find Your USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Enter ZIP Code: Search If you’ve ever picked up a packet of seeds or looked at plant tags at the nursery, you’ve likely seen a reference to the USDA Hardiness Zones Map, also called gardening zones or planting zones. Understanding the USDA Plant Hardiness …
Raised garden beds are so very convenient and can be a great way to grow food on practically any land. But raised beds can be expensive to fill with soil, especially if they’re really tall. The good news is that you can use a variety of materials to cheaply fill raised beds and save money …
It is possible to grow enough food to feed your family even if you live on a small piece of property. Maybe not 100% of your fruit and vegetable needs but, honestly, I don’t know anyone who grows 100% of their food. This is a really long article, so you might want to grab a …
Using mulch in the vegetable garden isn’t just about having a prettier garden. Mulch can help control weeds, build the soil, reduce watering, and much more. So, exactly what is mulch? What is mulch? There are various definitions of mulch but basically it’s anything that you put on the soil around a plant – usually …
Sometimes I feel like some of the things our family does would qualify in the list “You might be a ______ if…”; You can fill in the blank…redneck, crazy woman, frugal gardener, whatever. Our diy irrigation system for the garden probably qualifies us as one of those things. Ensuring that your garden gets adequate water …
Knowing how much to plant to feed your family for a year is a great help when you’re planning out your garden. What one family of 4 needs is not necessarily what another family of 4 needs, so much depends on taste preferences, your climate, and whether you’re growing vegetable for just eating fresh or …
Unlike other zones, fall vegetable planting in zone 9 doesn’t start until sometime in September. Don’t worry, you won’t be behind, your fall garden will extend into a winter garden. You’ll be harvesting vegetables all they through next summer. Let’s explore the fall garden in gardening zone 9. Depending on where you live you are …
I’ve heard it over and over again, “Gardening is expensive!” Well, yes it can be. But it doesn’t have to be. Our family spends about $300 a year on our garden and orchard. We’re able to grow about 75% of the produce needed for our family, which at this time is mostly 6 people – …
I was chatting with a new gardener recently about growing vegetables from seed and she mentioned that she doesn’t really understand how to read a seed packet. The information on the seed packet confuses her and it’s just easier to buy transplants. I felt the same way when I first started gardening and I’m sure there …
Over the last few years we’ve been trying to attract beneficial wildlife to our property and more specifically to our garden. When we bought our property there wasn’t much “life” in our soil and other than mosquitoes there weren’t really any insects. So, we’ve been building wildlife habits to attract bees, frogs, and useful insects. …
Have you ever done something for years and then did an internet search on it? oh my! My head is spinning after reading all the complicated ways of explaining succession planting. I’m here to tell you it’s not that hard or complicated. Now, I do have somewhat of a “laissez faire” attitude about gardening. Not …
I was first introduced to foraging (finding wild edible plants) by my husband who happens to be an Eagle Scout. Early in our marriage he found a an empty field that used to have a nursery on it and it was full of blackberry brambles. Carl loves to explore and every where we have lived …
Note: Each week I try to share a popular post from the archives. This post was originally published in February 2014 Saturday we’re having Gabriel’s Eagle Scout Court of Honor here at our house. He passed his Eagle Scout Board of Review in October but since he wanted to have his Court of Honor here we …
We don’t really ever finish gardening here. We have slow months and busy months but since we garden year round, we never take a complete gardening break. Even so, I’m learning the importance of closing out one gardening season and begin another by not using our entire garden for each season. Now, the spring and early summer it’s …
While most of our organic gardening friends in the National Organic Harvest 2015 project are bringing in the vast majority of their harvest right now, we’re not. Our big harvest time is June and July and then we wait a few months and start planting the fall garden. Right now we are harvesting peppers, basil, …
Did you know that September is National Organic Harvesting Month? Well, it is! We’re celebrating by teaming up with seven other bloggers in a month long promotion. Each week we’ll cover a different theme and the last week we’ll have a couple of super cool giveaways. If you’re on social media you can follow #organicharvest15. I …
The time to start planning the fall garden is when it’s still summer. The time to plant your fall garden will depend on your climate. Some of us will start planting our fall garden in July and some of us won’t plant our fall garden until October. If you plan well and plant frost tolerant …
Note: Once a week I share a popular post from the archives. This post was originally published in June 2012. We planted several different varieties of tomatoes this year. We planted Rutgers, Romas, Purple Cherokee, Lemon Boy, Yellow Pear and Yellow Cherry tomatoes. They have all done well and after the season is over I’ll share …
When you look at the back of seed packets you’ll see a map of the US (if you live in the US) with colors on it; those are USDA gardening zones. Each zone represents a certain average low temperature for that area and are 10 degrees apart. I live along the Texas Gulf Coast which …