Starting a vegetable garden can be a rewarding prospect for any homeowner. In addition to having fresh veggies on the ready, digging in the dirt has big health benefits. Though yanking out weeds might ...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. Imagine you bought some bales of straw to mulch your garden beds in fall. You happily lay the straw down, safe in the knowledge that you're ...

Summer has definitely arrived. With temperatures reaching the high 90s and 100s every day, water is quickly lost from soils and plants. Evapotranspiration is the agricultural term for the total amount ...

There are many ways to plant a garden. In-ground, raised beds, containers, there are choices that work for everyone. One unique type of gardening boasts many benefits and is easy to start and maintain ...

One of the best natural mulches for vegetable gardens is straw. Straw is a by product of grain crops and is made up of the dead stalks and leaves left behind after farmers harvest the grain. It can be ...

Planting vegetables and herbs into the sides of straw bales and calling it a garden is one of the many trends in food gardening right now. Straw bale gardening is unlikely to save you any money and is ...

Local gardeners are experimenting with straw bales, taking advantage of the internal composting to help their garden grow. As a little boy growing up on a Minnesota farm, Joel Karsten wondered why the ...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. One of the decisions that can have a surprisingly big impact on your plants is what you put around them. Cover is important for suppressing ...

I love discovering new, useful things for the garden. My most recent find is pine straw mulch. For years, I’ve used white pine needles (Pinus strobus) to bed down my strawberry patch for the winter.

In some areas of the country, the choice between mulching with pine needles and wood mulch is a tough one. Since the 1980s, pine straw has been the favorite mulch in the South. It is inexpensive, ...

Straw bale gardening? What will they think of next? Actually, straw bale/mortar home construction is a big industry. In the garden, straw bales are big, too. Straw (not hay) bale gardening is a ...

Nowadays people use the terms hay and straw interchangeably, and in most cases, it makes no difference whatsoever. For example, we say we were on a hayride at a get-together even though the wagons are ...