Why Climate Matters to the Home Gardener

Raking Leaves is bad. Never rake your leaves again. Today while driving on a short errand, I saw a gentleman with a leaf vacuum attached to a riding lawn mower in a small front yard sucking up his leaves to deposit into the street. Next I saw an old woman raking leaves by hand in a…

Last year my husband and I started making a concerted effort to protect Monarch butterflies in our backyard. We would sometimes see Monarchs in our yard and a little later, we would spy their striped caterpillars on my single milkweed plant but what happened to them after that was a mystery. Over time, my single…

This post was most recently updated on March 10th, 2021 If you are wanting to maintain a self sustainable chicken flock, you will probably be looking for the best broody chicken breeds. Broodiness varies in both breeds and individual birds and will fluctuate over the seasons. Please read: This information is provided for educational purposes only…

Prince Charles visiting Common Good City Farm in Washington, DC. It’s coronation time in Britain and some of you may be getting up at 5 tomorrow morning (or earlier, depending on your time zone) to watch it live. Me, I’ll watch the highlights but I’m genuinely excited to see how the King’s passion for gardening…

Bob Hill is back and overcome by impulse. Problem No. 1 was I left my reading glasses in the car. Problem No. 2 was I was out foraging box-store garden centers in frosty December for whatever was left. Problem No.3 was that in having approached eight full decades of life I have taken a solemn…

  I sometimes go catatonic while standing over an appealing plant I haven’t seen before. Looking like Mr. Pitiful, shoulders slumped, my eyes are fixed on the prize in front of me. I am silently pleading mercy. Gardeners will often rescue me if they’ve got enough time and plants to spare, especially if there is…