Gardening and Heat-Related Illness

As gardeners, we like to spend time outdoors. Doing that can be a challenge when the temperatures are extremely hot. Everyone who spends time outdoors during extreme heat should know the signs of heat-related illness. More importantly, you should know how to prevent...

Selecting A Vegetable Garden Site

Tomato patch photo by Mark Levisay One of the most important decisions you will make when vegetable gardening is selecting your garden site. Pick the wrong site, and your garden is doomed. Pick the right site, and you can grow vegetables for many years. Here are some...

Lasagna Gardening

Lasagna Gardening for Vegetables Lasagna gardening is a form of raised bed gardening. It is sometimes referred to as sheet mulching. The advantages of this raised bed are no digging, no frame, and easy-to-find materials. Place the bed in a sunny spot with access to...

Trellising: Grow Up Not Out

Tomato plants on a wire trellis Lots of the plants we grow for their delicious vegetables take up a lot of space in the garden. You can reduce the space cucumbers, melons, squash, pole beans, and even vining tomatoes take up by training the plants to grow on a...

Why Do Vegetables Bolt?

Lettuce bolting in Lapeer County in 2014. Photo by Ben Phillips, MSU Extension. The term “bolt” means premature flowering in vegetables. Many cool-season vegetables, such as broccoli, cabbage, and onions, are grown and harvested before they flower. A...

What Does pH Mean for Your Plants?

Drawing by Edward Stevens The technical definition of pH is the negative logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration. In English, soil pH is a measure of how acid or alkaline the soil is. The pH scale goes from 0 to 14. Zero is the most acid, with the fewest hydrogen...