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 ...

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 ...

Pine straw mulch, the dried byproduct of fallen pine needles, is a popular mulch because it is lightweight yet remains stable and cohesive. Mulch is an indispensable part of landscaping and gardening.

Mulch has many benefits in the garden, like retaining soil moisture, insulating roots, and deterring weeds. Spreading a layer of mulch also makes your landscape look tidier. But there are so many ...

Peppers, tomatoes and cabbage getting started, soon after being planted in straw bales. Growing vegetables out of straw bales is a hot topic lately after a web-site and Facebook frenzy led to a book ...

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 ...

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.

Garden columnist Dan Gill answers readers' questions each week. To send a question, email Gill at [email protected]. I took some elephant ears and banana plants from Thibodaux and planted them at ...

Slouching like a gardener on a hot summer afternoon, my straw bales are sagging under the weight of their growing load. Four humongous squash plants form a green umbrella with their large leaves, ...

A recent conversation with Carol Reese took me back, way back to my earliest days as a gardener. Carol, who retired in 2021 from a distinguished career as a horticultural extension specialist in the ...

Wood mulch and wood chips will mat down to make a firm but spongy surface for your garden paths and around playsets. Pine straw is too slippery to walk on, so skip it when mulching these high-traffic ...