Container Vegetable Gardening

Sweet Pepper Seedlings photo by Marco Verch Not everyone owns property with a yard suitable for vegetable gardening.  You can still grow vegetables, however.  Most vegetables grow just fine in containers, window boxes, or small raised beds.  When using...

Cover Crops for Vegetable Gardens

Cover crops are crops used to cover the soil in between plantings of the crops you intend to use, such as vegetables.  Why, you may ask, is it important to cover the soil between plantings?  Two words:  Dust Bowl.  There are other reasons, too, but...

Food Safety In Your Garden

Onions growing in red dirt Couleur / Pixabay Food safety is in the news more and more these days.  Eggs are being recalled, lettuce killed some people, and hamburger is frequently recalled for contamination with E. coli.  It is easy to watch the news and smirk as we...

Chilling Hours For Fruit Production

Snow in the peach orchard Chilling hours are one of the important things to consider before planting any fruit-bearing tree.  There are at least a couple of ways to calculate chilling hours, and I will discuss them below.  Oversimplified, chilling hours are the number...

Growing Herbs

Almost everyone uses herbs in cooking. Fresh herbs can be hard to find, so most people use dried herbs. Although more grocery stores are carrying what they call fresh herbs, the wilted stuff in the box doesn’t really compare to herbs that have just been cut from...