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Pros and Cons of Owning Chickens for Your Backyard Garden
Does the thought of backyard chickens appeal to you? City dwellers interested in country living or those tired of the rising cost of eggs at the grocery store might consider …
composting
5 Mistakes to Avoid When Adding Manure to Garden Beds
I might be dating myself here, but anytime I think about adding manure to garden beds, I have a vision of the scene from Back to the Future. You know …
How to Make a Compost Smoothie
There’s no better friend than a gardening friend. I say that because one good tip from a gardening friend is worth a lifetime in the garden. For example, let’s talk …
The Best Type of Manure for Vegetable Gardens
My summer cookouts are not for the faint of heart. It's not that there's anything scary or bad. But conversations tend to skip the polite weather talk and get straight …
Wandering in Place
In the quiet corner of my backyard in Westport, Connecticut, sits a humble compost heap—my ever-evolving monument to patience, decay, and renewal. Framed by upright logs and wrapped in garden …
The Do’s and Don’ts of Open Air Composting
Figuratively. There are things you'll want to know before you "figuratively" jump into open-air composting because I'm guessing you don't want to actually do that.
If you've read more than a …
Can Fertilizer Go Bad? And 5 More Facts About Garden Food
I think fertilizer companies have borrowed sales strategies from hotdog bun companies. There’s either too much fertilizer left over, or not enough to complete the task. I always seem to …
Composting A to Z
If healthy soil is the foundation of food gardening, compost is the mortar that holds it together. Compost feeds the microbes, balances nutrients, improves structure, and turns yesterday’s kitchen scraps …
The A-to-Z of Soil Health
Every gardener knows that when you start talking about soil, the conversation quickly fills with words that sound like they came out of a science lab: pH, humus, tilth, mycorrhizae. …
How to Create a 3 Bin Compost System with Recycled Materials
No, I’m really not here to make your composting life more complicated, even though it may seem like it. Composting is composting is composting, right? Well, yes, it is. But …
