The corn earworm and the tomato fruitworm are the same insect, just feeding on two different crops. If you plant tomatoes next to corn, you’ve essentially built a buffet table for one of the most destructive garden pests in North America. That single mistake can collapse both harvests at once, and most home gardeners have …
Most gardeners are still hunched over seed trays under grow lights this April, nursing fragile seedlings indoors, when the best thing they could do is walk outside and push seeds straight into the ground. Here is the part the seed catalogs don’t emphasize: some seeds don’t just tolerate direct sowing, they prefer it. There is …
Those perfectly round holes in your deck aren’t a minor nuisance. They are an open invitation — to next spring’s carpenter bee infestation, to moisture and rot, and to a woodpecker problem you didn’t know was coming. Carpenter bees bore into unpainted, exposed wood every spring to create nesting tunnels where they lay their eggs. …
You’re probably watering wrong. Not because you don’t care, but because you care too much, in all the wrong ways, at all the wrong times. The drooping tomato, the yellowing basil, the rose that never bounced back last August: in most cases, the culprit isn’t drought. It’s you, hose in hand, trying your best. Before …
Most gardeners are still hunched over seed trays under grow lights this April, nursing fragile seedlings indoors, when the best thing they could do is walk outside and push seeds straight into the ground. Here is the part the seed catalogs don’t emphasize: some seeds don’t just tolerate direct sowing, they prefer it. There is …
Growing lavender is supposed to be easy. That’s what everyone says. And yet it might be the single most commonly killed plant in the American backyard garden. The cruel irony? Most of the time, it isn’t neglect that does it in. It’s too much attention — too much water, too much fertilizer, too much fussing. …
Most gardeners choose their seeds before they choose their layout, and then spend years rearranging beds, regretting pathways, and wishing they’d thought it through first. This spring, start with the design. The layout you choose for your raised beds determines how much you grow, how often you actually get out there, and whether your garden …
If you’ve been waiting until Memorial Day to plant your perennials, you’ve been handing away the best advantage spring has to offer. April is the sweet spot serious gardeners know about — and most beginners miss entirely. Cool soil temperatures, consistent spring moisture, and mild days give new perennials something summer simply cannot: a stress-free …
A self-taught gardener once grew 180 pounds of fresh produce, including 63 pounds of tomatoes, from containers on a single urban balcony in one season, writes Joe Gardener. Mark Ridsill Smith had no gardening background, a north-facing exposure, and a space most people would write off entirely. If that doesn’t recalibrate what you think is …
Every Easter, millions of perfectly good perennial bulbs go straight into the trash. If you’ve been tossing your potted Easter lily once the blooms fade, you’ve been making one of the most common and easily fixed mistakes in the spring garden. That $10 or $12 plant from the grocery store isn’t a temporary decoration. It’s …