Lawn, Gardening & Pests
A yard that feels and looks like home. A bountiful harvest. Grow your own and sow something beautiful.
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Recent News
Watering Your Garden 101
Watering your garden is a simple but important task.
For a gardener, water can be your limiting factor. It’s critical that you consider access to water when determining where – or where not – to place your growing zone. If water isn’t accessible to the garden’s current location, a rain barrel could be installed on a structure to collect water and store for later use. Rain barrels can be a life saver, and the amount of rain fall that flows off a small roof is quite amazing.
Pick the Perfect Plants: Variety Selection
A very important step to having a healthy garden is choosing a suitable variety of vegetable, fruit, herb or flower. Variety selection is extremely important since genetics or varietal characteristics are often the front-line defense against many diseases and other pests.
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Crop Rotation in the Garden
Crop rotation is an important agricultural practice you should implement in your home garden. It has been used on farms and gardens for centuries to reduce damage from insects, limit crop diseases and manage soil fertility.
Vegetable crops in the same botanical family are often susceptible to similar diseases and insects. For crop rotation to be effective, gardeners should not plant vegetables belonging to the same plant family in the same location for two to three years.
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Controlling Drainage in Your Garden
Water is a very important component to a successful garden, but like all other aspects of growing plants, too much water can be detrimental.
Excessive water can cause seed and root rot, decline in germination and displacement of oxygen, especially when the plants are young. The major contributing factor to poorly drained soil in plant production is inadequate aeration.
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Fertilizing the Garden for Thriving Plants
Everyone wants a beautiful lawn or a healthy garden throughout the season. To achieve that goal, one must follow several practices, such as preparing the planting site, providing adequate water, and applying fertilizers and lime following soil test recommendations.
Fertilizer provides plants with necessary nutrients. Most fertilizers contain three macronutrients: nitrogen, which helps plants to grow and is always required regardless of soil test results; phosphate, which helps plants use energy; and potassium, which helps plants resist disease, withstand wetness and grow roots.