AS A SMALL-SCALE FARMER, I’m constantly looking for ways to fertilize my garden with on-farm inputs. This includes making my own compost from kitchen scraps, leaves, and chicken and rabbit manure. Despite my efforts, I still had to rely on some input

OUR FACEBOOK GARDENING GROUP allows you to connect with other gardeners around the world. You can ask the group’s help identifying plants, seek advice on growing techniques, or simply enjoy photos of beautiful gardens. Ask to join at www.Facebook.com

• Best spot for a garden in your yard may not be where the sun shines best.• Sweat generated when digging, weeding (throughout the season), preparing rows, and planting holes.• Drainage issues, depending on garden location and substructure.• Less wat

MORE TIMES THAN I’D LIKE to admit, a sweet potato has remained hidden in my vegetable cupboard long enough to begin sprouting. For years, I’d either cook it before it spoiled or I’d toss it into the compost pile. After I’d started a flock of chickens

If you want to have rich, nutritious soil for plants, it’s crucial to use high-quality, organic compost! This compost is organically made in Tennessee. Your plants are going to love this organic compost, and you are going to enjoy a fruitful, prosper

TOTIPOTENCE REFERS TO the potential ability of any part of a plant — except reproductive cells (egg and sperm) within a flower — to give rise to any other part of a plant, or even to a whole new plant. That’s because all of a plant’s cells (with some

USE OF THE IRISH FOOT PLOUGH called a loy nearly died out in the 1980s, after centuries of farmers and gardeners using it to dig neat furrows all over the island. From the Irish laí, meaning “spade,” the loy’s fall from grace had been a long time com

Recommended by Craig LeHoullier, Gardener advisory board: A few years ago, I was asked to attend the Seed Savers Exchange Tomato Tasting event at its headquarters in Decorah, Iowa. One of the first I sampled was a cultivar recently sent to Seed Saver

~ King Stropharia, also known as “Garden Giant,” is one of the easiest mushrooms for beginners to grow. Experienced growers have also been known to use it as a learning tool for cultivating fungi on hardwood chip beds or mulch in the garden. Gardener

(A. alnifolia) This multi-stemmed shrub can grow 10 or more feet tall. Saskatoons are best known for their delicious fruit; the cultivars of this species are the most popular for home gardens as well as commercial fruit production. A. alnifolia sprea

ROSE PETALS LITTERED across the floor and the gentle click of pruning shears are some of the sights and sounds that surround me when working at my favorite pastime — propagation. The creation of new plants is one of the great pleasures of the horticu

ONE JULY DAY, in two 80-foot rows of tomatoes in our hoophouse at Twin Oaks Community, I found 42 hornworms varying in length from 1 to 4 inches — a collective total of 85 inches of pests! They were stripping the tomato leaves and munching on the gre

I WAS SMITTEN with my driveway last summer. For several weeks, it produced tasty tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, summer squash, basil, bush green beans, and cucumbers. Throw in some lettuce, Swiss chard, and beets, and I ended up with much more than a

WHEN I WAS GIVEN THE TINY, black seeds of a maypop a few years ago, I was warned: This plant will absolutely, without question, take over your garden. I heeded the warning to an extent, but I was sure I could manage my plants. After all, could this v

Andrew Moore is a writer and gardener in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Zone 6b). He’s the author of Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit, a 2016 James Beard Foundation Award nominee in the Writing & Literature category. The book is available on

VEGETABLE GROWERS traditionally bring large amounts of nutritive materials onto their land to improve soil and plant function. Although adding volumes of compost and mulch is still the basis of fertilizing vegetables, these are often supplemented by

YOU MAY ALREADY HAVE a fairly robust and critter-proof gate for your garden fence. That’s great for protecting the garden, but utility gates aren’t necessarily decorative. Happily, you can add an accent gate inside the garden that’s a little more att

Given the few prerequisites for a successful graft, and grafting’s long history (dating back to 1000 B.C. in China), it’s no wonder there are many ways to join scions to rootstocks. Described below are three easy grafts I’ve used. The ideal time for

THE CORONAVIRUS has upended business for our seed company friends. Due to wildly increased demand, many have had to shut down website orders and stop answering phone calls and emails. Four companies answered our questions about the dramatic changes c

Though it’s more elusive to find today, the ‘Marshall’ strawberry was a popular cultivar in the early 20th century, thriving in the Pacific Northwest. Rawson’s Seeds featured this sweet, dark-red fruit in its 1895 catalog, recounting how this “very h