What to do this week Now that the cold, rainy weather seems done with (for the moment at least), it is time to talk about moisture management. Let’s call it watering your garden. For the beginner, it can be difficult to sort out how, when and how much to water,Read...

What to do this week Summer is here and we begin the frantic time of planting all the warm-weather crops as quickly as possible before too much of our very short season passes us by. Every year is different, but there are some general rules of thumb about what toRead More

What to do this week This week, I would like to talk about adding fertility to the plants in your garden. Obviously the best way to have good fertility is to have good, rich soil to begin with. There is no substitute for good soil. But if your soil isRead More

What to do this week This is the time of year when you might be starting a new garden bed — maybe your first, maybe an extension of your existing garden — which makes it a good time to talk about cover crops.  As with crop rotation, which we discussedRead More

What to do this week You may think crop rotation is only for big farming operations, but you have a lot to gain from doing it too. It is just as important in a backyard garden. If you plant the same things in the same spots year after year thereRead More

What to do this week This time of year many people are starting to move their seedlings from the house or greenhouse to the garden. Even if you have decided to run the risk of frost, your seedlings will need a gradual introduction to the outdoors. It is important notRead More

What to do this week This week is the perfect time to plant squash seeds, and hopefully you will consider starting them in soil blocks. I like using soil blocks for almost everything anyway, but for squash plants it is particularly important because they really, really don’t like their rootsRead More

What to do this week There is an old folk saying that one should not plant summer crops until the lilacs and apple trees are in full bloom. Cold, hardy crops are different. You can certainly plant things like onions, spinach, peas and kale this time of year (or earlier)Read More

What to do this week This week is a good time to talk about spraying fruit trees because now is the time to do that. There are a couple of reasons that even an organic grower might want to spray. One would be to rid the trees of pests beforeRead More

What to do this week This week is a good time to divide rhubarb, as well as a few other perennial plants, but rhubarb especially. If at all possible, you want to do it when you just see the tips of what look like buds starting to poke up fromRead More