How well do you know your garden soil? Does it drain well or stay wet for a couple of days after a significant rain? What is the pH? Does it have sufficient nutrients available for your vegetables to use to grow? We often overlook the importance of soil management when it comes to building our...
When it comes to planning and creating a garden, you need to determine how you’re going to grow your plants. There are a variety of ways in which this can be done, each with its advantages and...
Once the weather starts to warm up, we can start thinking about planting our warms season plants outdoors. Warm season plants can further be broken down by their frost tolerance to tender and very tender plants. Tender plants are injured or may be killed by a light frost but can withstand cool...
For many, gardening takes place in the summer. However, for me, and a growing number of gardeners, we are growing in the garden nearly all year long!
Vegetables can be categorized into two categories; warm-season and cool-season crops. Warm-season crops contain classic garden vegetables such as...
Perhaps my least favorite part of winter is waking up to darkness in the morning. Even worse while being at home during the COVID-19 shelter-in-place order, it has been cloudy for nearly a week! This morning, as I led my half-asleep 6-year-old down the steps into the living room, we were greeted...
Starting a Garden: Begin with a Plan
The key to a successful and productive garden is a plan; it saves time and makes the garden easier to care for. By starting with a plan, you will be ready to get to work once planting time is here. So let’s get started!
Site Selection...
A Light Exists in Spring by Emily Dickinson
A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period-
When March is scarcely here
A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels
In rural Illinois there...
Have you ever noticed the leaves of your peach tree becoming curled and puckered and turning reddish or purplish? If you’ve seen this, you’ve likely had peach leaf curl.
Peach leaf curl is a fungal disease caused by Taphrina deformans. It is one of the most commonly encountered diseases...
Our recent cycles of warm weather and snow have been somewhat of a nuisance; however, for those of you with a thin stand of vegetation in your pasture or hay field, this weather may be a great aid in frost seeding these areas.
Introduction to Frost Seeding
As the name suggests,...
