When the uninitiated see a pile of compost they may see just a pile of regular dirt; but there’s more to compost than that. Quality compost is a dark color, usually richly colored, and it should have a sweet, earthy smell. If you were to make your own compost, at home, then you would find…
Compost is an extremely popular and useful soil amendment that most gardeners can’t go without. Perfect for adding nutrients and breaking up heavy soil, it’s often referred to as black gold. So if it’s so good for your garden, why use soil at all? What’s to stop you from growing plants in pure compost? Keep…
Beginning seeds indoors is a fun way to get the garden going early; imagine being able to extend the harvest of springtime plants; imagine being able to put out the tomatoes and cucumbers that have grown to a full foot-high at the annual Memorial Day planting session. All that work, usually, begins indoors. The indoor…
There are numerous winter chores that can help to expedite the spring planting season. Too often the frosts of fall lay everything flat, and folks wait for spring before they clean the beds, tools, structures, etc. But the fall and winter are the perfect time to prep for spring’s growing season. In fact, the cleaner…
A great garden typically requires a thoughtful preparation. There is an adage that says that the best garden is the one you will plant next year. One of the reasons for the adage is that preparation and experience are key components to successful gardening; gardeners have to control some of the variables in their garden…
When planting season arrives, it’s always good advice to make a thorough plan and stick to it. If the plan is executed well, then all or most of the problems that could potentially derail the planting will be negated. But for those who rely on organic methods of pest control, there are methods, both commercial…
It would sound like a negative thing to hear someone say that his or her garden needed more microorganisms living in the soil, but beneficial microbes are something that could help any garden come to life. The reason being is that beneficial microbes are responsible for something called soil aggregation. And, for those of you…
Compost is great for your vegetable garden, and companies like Rocky Mountain Compost are ready to supply you. But did you know that you can supplement your compost needs at home? We all need to recycle more, and that’s essentially what composting at home would be: recycling organic waste to enrich garden soil for the…
Most people associate the word recycling with plastics, glass and paper products, but in fact, you can also recycle many organic materials into compost. Compost, a rich soil, can be made by mixing plant materials and assorted manures together to slowly decay over time. After about six to nine months, the materials decay to form…
These days we really have to take a conscious look at how we utilize our natural resources. Water is one of the biggest. In places like California, places suffering from extreme drought, water is getting scarce. But how can we more responsibly consume water on an everyday basis? The obvious answer is to look at…