by Harold Schrock | Aug 24, 2023 | 2023, 09 September, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
View the August 2023 Nature Friend Study Guide Mankind’s struggle with weeds is almost as old as life on earth. Since the very first man, almost all of those who have been involved in producing food have had to do something about unwanted native plants. For most of...
by Harold Schrock | Aug 1, 2023 | 2023, 08 August, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
View the August 2023 Nature Friend Study Guide Sunflowers. Photo © Erin Cogswell/Dreamstime.com. One amazing aspect of God’s creation is the system he designed for the reproduction of plants. For many plants, seed production starts with a colorful bloom. Every single...
by Harold Schrock | Jul 1, 2023 | 2023, 07 July, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Plants & Fungi
View the July 2023 Nature Friend Study Guide With more attention to detail and a few extra tools, compost can be made fertilizer-grade where a little bit goes a long way. What we’re talking about here is not the SAM (stacked, aged manure)that I described a couple...
by Harold Schrock | Jun 1, 2023 | 2023, 06 June Readers' Issue, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
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 natural process that happens all by itself without our intervention....
by Harold Schrock | May 1, 2023 | 2023, 05 May Story Contest, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
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 natural cycle of things, life grows from death; the decomposition of...
by Harold Schrock | Apr 3, 2023 | 2023, 04 April, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
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 tea herb grown in North America. Chamomile is a low-growing annual that...
by Kevin Shank | Apr 1, 2023
Flower garden contest grand prize winner 2020. Photo © Delphine R. Shirk. Dear Nature Friend,I just got the idea that you should have a flower garden contest this spring and summer.I know you’ve done flower planter contests, but I didn’t think you’ve ever done flower...
by Kevin Shank | Apr 1, 2023 | 2023, 04 April, Birds, Contest, Gardening, Hawks, Eagles, & Kites, Mailbox, Plants & Fungi
View the April 2023 Nature Friend Magazine
by Harold Schrock | Mar 1, 2023 | 2023, 03 March, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
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 beginning gardener, for various reasons. Spices are easily purchased at...
by Harold Schrock | Feb 1, 2023 | 2023, 02 February, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
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 month I want to take a brief look at several other types of homestead...
by Harold Schrock | Jan 1, 2023 | 2023, 01 January, Articles & Stories, Birds, Gardening, Plants & Fungi
View the January Nature Friend Study Guide Photo © Natalie Board/Dreamstime.com. In previous articles, we have looked at the importance of underground livestock such as earthworms, nematodes, protozoa, and countless species of bacteria. Also, above ground there are...
by Ken Miller | Dec 1, 2022 | 2022, 12 December, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
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 poinsettias were sold in the U.S., almost all of them between...
by Harold Schrock | Nov 1, 2022 | 2022, 11 November, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
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 should begin preparing at least the fall before we plan to plant. Take a...
by Harold Schrock | Oct 1, 2022 | 2022, 10 October Bonus Readers' Issue, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide, Trees
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 you want to enjoy the tastiest tree-ripened fruit, you probably have to...
by Harold Schrock | Sep 1, 2022 | 2022, 09 September, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
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 crops, cool-season species will give us much of the benefit of cover...
by Harold Schrock | Aug 1, 2022 | 2022, 08 August, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
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, weeding, fertilizing, or harvesting. What it does mean is to have something...
by Harold Schrock | Jul 1, 2022 | 2022, 07 July, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
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 aluminum. Healthy soil needs lots of pore space; at least fifty percent...
by Harold Schrock | Jun 6, 2022 | 2022, 06 June Readers' Issue, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
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 that is used in a process called solarization. The other type is black...
by Harold Schrock | May 1, 2022 | 2022, 05 May Story Contest, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
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 the benefits of drainage. Also, lower beds require that you bend over...
by Harold Schrock | Apr 7, 2022 | 2022, 04 April, Articles & Stories, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
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 much as possible. On a garden-sized scale, this means separating the...
by Harold Schrock | Mar 4, 2022 | 2022, 03 March, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
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 was any other way of preparing a garden. It was/is a system of garden...
by Harold Schrock | Feb 9, 2022 | 2022, 02 February, Answer Key, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
by Harold Schrock | Dec 20, 2021 | 2021, 12 December, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
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 you want to enjoy the tastiest tree-ripened fruit, you probably have to grow it...
by Harold Schrock | Oct 22, 2021 | 2021, 10 October Bonus Reader's Issue, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
Photo © Olga Volodina/Dreamstime.com I am a strong proponent of extending the growing season whenever possible, and utilizing row covers, tunnels, and greenhouses to keep up the flow of fresh foods to our tables. However, most of us live far enough north that we...
by Harold Schrock | Sep 6, 2021 | 2021, 09 September, Articles & Stories, Gardening, Nature-Friendly Gardening, Plants & Fungi, Study Guide
One of the blessings most North American gardeners enjoy is the cyclical nature of the pastime. While I have written about the joy of season extension and greenhouse production, having a season of rest makes the garden that much more appealing as spring approaches....
