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Backyard Gardening Tips
Long the American garden prototype, organic techniques, shared plots and a huge boom in popularity have all helped to shape the new face of the backyard garden. Whether the "First Garden" inspired a nation to garden, or the nation's need for food secuity and local, organic food inspired the Obamas to grow a White House garden, one thing is for sure: from the country's highest office to the country's most impoverished towns, organic backyard gardening is growing and here to stay. We've collected our favorite articles on how, what and when to grow your backyard graden, plus tips on preventing garden diseases and troubleshooting common garden problems. Check back often for updates!
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Use Your Christmas Tree in the Garden
If you decide to go with a "real" tree for the holidays, here are some good ways to reuse it in your garden once the season's over.
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Top 35 Ways to Succeed at Organic Gardening
Going green in the garden is a great way to start living a greener life overall. Attract beneficial insects, such as lady bugs and lacewings, by planting plenty of flowering plants, providing areas for them to hide (if you mulch or have shrubs, you've got this covered) and, of course, not using chemical pesticides.
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Try No Dig Gardening for Your Backyard Vegetables
No-Dig Gardening is such a brilliant form of home-based agriculture I was convinced the TreeHugger archives would be rich with its merits. Was very surprised when I only found one mention, in a post chronicling Leonora's permaculture adventures in New Zealand. So I launched into the following first-person account of No-Dig, only to discover that in North America the same process might be better known as as Sheet Mulching.
::Via sister site TreeHugger.com
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Try Planting Radishes in the Garden
Radishes have a lovely spicy flavor and a fabulous crunch that is totally unexpected and very different from most veggies. I remember as a child my dad snacking away on them as if they were candy. One day I grabbed one out of his hand to try and pretty much gasped at the unexpected flavor. "Yuck!" I screamed. But today I have grown to love these little root veggies.
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Grow Your Own Vegetables: Sugar Snap Peas
All is not lost, however. The garden, affectionately dubbed "the coffin" by my husband due to it's rather grave-like shape, is offering up some delights. I got a (small) harvest of different varieties of peas which we are going to eat for dinner. My lettuce is amazingly robust and plentiful and I don't think I'll have to buy any for weeks. The radishes are holding their own and should be ready pretty soon. I have enough mint to make juleps for all the ladies on my street and I have enough thyme that I will probably be able to dry some for winter. Once the beans are ready for harvesting, we'll be eating them fresh at every meal and then no doubt pickling them as well.
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How to Grow Potatoes in Old Tires
290 million tires are discarded every year in America. We've all seen those giant tire piles on the outskirts of town, and let's not forget the infamous, ever-burning Springfield tire fire on the Simpsons.
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Build a Greenhouse without Going Broke
Could a whopping 165 square foot greenhouse cost a measly $150? What many Americans spend in one week on groceries?According to one frugal, DIY-er over at The Door Garden blog, you can.
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Garden Smart with Companion Planting
Gardening is a popular and incredibly wonderful way to go green. Growing your own food reduces food miles, storage and packaging waste. Another great aspect of gardening is that you can ensure that there are no pesticides used on your crops.
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Organic Mulch, an Easy, Free Garden Booster
Mulching your organic garden is probably easier than you may think, and can be accomplished for practically free. Mulching helps make your home gardening efforts less work and more productive, so you can put your energy and creativity into growing more of what you love, whether that?s peonies or chili peppers.
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Stop Powdery Mildew Naturally, with Milk
For decades, organic gardeners have been relying on a somewhat cumbersome spray of baking soda combined with a sticking agent?like oil or soap?to fight powdery mildew without poison. But Bettiol found that the super-easy concoction of nine parts water to one part milk slashed the severity of powdery mildew infection by 90 percent.
