View the June 2023 Nature Friend Study Guide Last month we looked at the limitations of poor quality compost, but don’t think for a minute that compost is something to be avoided. Composting is a...
Nature-Friendly Gardening
The Limitations of Poor-Quality Compost
View the May 2023 Nature Friend Study Guide Pick up any gardening magazine or book, and you are sure to soon come across the use of compost. Composting is a basic principle of gardening. In the...
A Garden of Herbs, Part 2
View the April 2023 Nature Friend Study Guide Last month we started with an herb used traditionally for tea. This month I’d like to do the same. Next to mint, chamomile is perhaps the most common...
A Garden of Herbs
View the March 2023 Nature Friend Study Guide Photo © Shaiith/Dreamstime.com. Herbs are a category of plants grown mostly for flavor or medicinal value. They are often not on the shortlist for a...
Other Garden-Friendly Livestock
View the February 2023 Nature Friend Study Guide While the chickens we wrote about last month are by far the most common, they are not the only garden-friendly animals available for our use. This...
The Greatest Houseplant Ever?
View the December Nature Friend Study Guide The poinsettia is probably the most popular potted flower in U.S. history—at least in terms of pots sold. Last year around thirty-five million pots of...
Tree Fruits, Part 2
View the November 2022 Nature Friend Study Guide Apples. Photo © Gyuszko/Dreamstime.com. Once we have the site picked out for our home orchard, we need to prepare for planting trees. Ideally, we...
Tree Fruits, Part 1
Apple orchard. Photo © Dreamstime.com. When are the two best times to plant a fruit tree? The best time was ten years ago! The second best time is this spring or fall, depending on your climate.If...
Cool Season Cover Crops
Buckwheat cover crop. Photo © Dreamstime.com. Cool-season cover crops are what many people think of when cover crops are mentioned. While not providing the biomass and carbon gain of warm season C4...
Warm Season Cover Crops
Sunn hemp. Photo © Dreamstime.com. One of the most important rules of gardening is to always be gardening. That doesn’t mean we need to keep ourselves in the garden every working day planting,...
How to Till No-till Gardens
Photo © Dreamstime.com. Is our title an oxymoron? It appears to be a contradiction. Actually, to grow and maintain health, soil needs tillage. It just doesn’t need to be done with steel, iron, or...
Solarization and Tarping
Photo © Dogwood Ridge. Plastic sheeting is a valuable tool for managing garden beds without tillage. There are two different types that we can use depending on the need. One type is clear plastic...
Raised Bed Considerations
Photo © Dreamstime.com. How high should a raised bed be? I find 6-8 inches (15-20 cm) to be a very practical height for growing most crops. With less than six inches, you may start losing some of...
Raise Food? Raise Beds!
Photo © Dreamstime.com. One of the best ways to reduce tillage and increase our enjoyment of gardening is to construct permanent beds. When we stop tilling, it is important to avoid compaction as...
Gardening without Tillage—Why?
Photo © Dreamstime.com. I realize that having a garden without tilling might sound strange. My earliest memories of gardening include plowing, disking, and tilling. For many years I never knew there...
