If you’re more greenhorn than green thumb, here are some helpful tips to get your garden up and growing.
5 Ways to Keep Critters Out of Your Compost Pile. One recommendation: Mix kitchen discards with soil or wood ashes before you bury them in the center of your compost pile.
8 Tips for Gardening with Young Children. For one thing, kids love having their own tools—and you’ll love that giving them their own tools keeps them happily occupied.
10 Steps to Success with Your First Vegetable Garden. Full sun and well-drained soil are essential. Making your garden attractive with a pretty picket fence is not—but it’s still a good idea, because you’ll want to spend more time there if it’s inviting.
10 Benefits of Raised Garden Beds. Including weed control, accessibility, and a longer growing season.
10 Gardening Lessons, Learned the Hard Way. You really don’t want to overdo it, especially with things like squash: “Not only did the enormous leaves turn much of the vegetable patch into a jungle, shading out the nearby peppers and beans, but no one could possibly eat all the foot-long squash that kept inflating like water balloons that summer.” Or by just in terms of too many kinds of flowers (and too many plants period): “if you plant too many varieties, your yard and flower beds can end up a confusing hodgepodge.”
Also, it’s important to know when it’s time to admit defeat, rip a failed plant out of the ground, and toss it onto the compost pile: “Their flowers may have turned out too garish or clash with nearby plants. They may require too much pruning or attract bugs. Or maybe a plant never thrived and limps along from year to year. If you can’t bear to toss it give it to a gardening friend.”