Welcome to our blog’s advice on growing plants. Here you’ll find tips to green your thumb, whether you’re new to gardening or want to take your skills up a notch.
We dish practical guidance from planting to harvest. Learn how to start seeds, deal with pests safely, and reap abundant veggies and blooms.
Our farming experts break information down into simple steps. Follow their instructions to grow thriving container or raised bed gardens that fit your space.
Stop by regularly as we add new posts to help your garden thrive! We want to see you succeed at urban farming right at home.
A few of these are genuine deal-breakers, like a black walnut that can wilt a tomato overnight from 60 feet away, and a few are just cautious folk wisdom that matters only in a wet year or a tight bed. This sorts out which is which.
A food-grade bucket, a bag of potting mix, and one honest look at your first frost date will grow you salad and roots well into the cold, as long as you sow about two weeks earlier than feels necessary.
You can screen a backyard for $40 or for $8,000. Both can look great. What matters is matching the fix to your fence-height limit, your property line, and whether the neighbor looks across your yard or straight down into it.
It’s not bad luck and it’s not the wind changing on you. A forest fire scientist explains the physics, and here’s exactly how to stop it.
A tidy ring of mulch protects a tree, but pile it against the trunk or over the root flare and you start a slow decline that the canopy won’t show for years.
A fire pit built too close to your house or fence isn’t just a fine waiting to happen. It’s a real ember risk, and the safe distance depends on more than one number you saw on Pinterest.
Refilling patio joints in the fall closes the gap that freeze-thaw pries open all winter, as long as you catch it before overnight lows hit freezing and the repair products stop curing.
Your garden already has the wood element covered, that’s what all the actual plants are, these are the 4 accent colors feng shui says to add on top, and each one has a real, checkable fact behind it that has nothing to do with chi.
Your front yard is the first thing chi, and every visitor, encounters, and a couple of the “energy” reasons behind these rules turn out to have real acoustic science and resale data standing right behind them.
Each of these seven plants has a specific bagua placement and a genuine outdoor-hardiness or safety fact worth knowing, since a wealth plant that dies in the first frost isn’t bringing anyone good luck.
Find out exactly how much soil to buy, which mix to use, and whether bags or bulk delivery saves you more, before you fill a single bed.
A small garden doesn’t need more square footage to feel finished, it needs these 10 steps done in order, the same sequence professional designers actually follow.
Find out exactly how many plants to grow and how much food they’ll actually produce, before you buy a single seed packet.
A backyard that’s narrower than it is long doesn’t need more width, it needs to stop reading as one long stretch, and zoning is the fastest way to do that.
Find out exactly when to start seeds indoors, move them outside, and plant your fall crops, all built around your own frost dates instead of a generic zone chart.
Enter your wall length and height. Get exact blocks, base and drainage gravel, plus a warning if your wall crosses the height where DIY gravity walls typically need an engineer.
Find out your pile’s real carbon-to-nitrogen ratio, whether it’s too wet or too dry, and how much finished compost you’ll actually get, using the same formula composting scientists use.
Enter your fence length and material. Get exact posts, rails, pickets, and concrete bags, with post hole depth checked against frost line risk, a step most calculators skip.
Enter your lawn size and grass type. Get exact seed pounds or sod pallets, using real per-species rates instead of one generic number for every lawn.
Enter your slab or footing dimensions. Get exact cubic yards, premix bags, the right PSI strength, and a frost-depth check most calculators skip entirely.
A paver patio usually costs $12 to $40 per square foot. But the number that surprises people most isn’t the pavers. It’s what the online calculators leave out.
Planting Along Garden Paths: Fragrant Pollinator Borders That Keep Bees Around
Why Privacy Trees Aren’t Growing as Fast as Promised
Why Landscape Designers Say You Should Never Use Small Plants in a Small Garden (7 Options)
L-Shaped, Sloped, or Just Plain Odd: 10 Tricks for Landscaping the Backyard Nobody Else Wants
Front Door Feng Shui: 6 Fast Fixes, Including the Real FBI Lock Data No Guide Mentions
10 Foolproof Ways to Build a Home That Stays Cool During a Heatwave
Retaining Wall Block Calculator: Blocks, Gravel, and the Height Limit Most Tools Skip
Fence Material & Cost Calculator: Posts, Rails, and Concrete for Any Fence Type
