joegardener® | Organic Gardening Like a Pro

I am a firm believer that understanding the "why do" behind the "how to" drives us to become better, more confident gardeners. One of the best people I know to explain the science behind great gardening is Dr. Lee Reich, and on this week's encore episode I am revisiting an insightful conversation we had a few years back on how expanding our scientific knowledge a little can help our gardens a whole lot.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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I love to eat okra, but it’s not a love we all share — and that’s okay. Okra is a vegetable you either like or you don’t, though we can all agree it provides great ornamental value to any landscape. In flower, the plant is striking as an attractive backdrop. And if the flower looks […]

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Tomato expert Craig LeHoullier and I have been working all year toward this week's launch of the newest joegardener Online Gardening Academy™ course, Growing Epic Tomatoes, and Craig now joins me on the podcast to share our excitement for what's in store.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Eggplant is a warm-season crop that you’ll love eating, and as a bonus, it adds a lot of visual interest in the garden with its purple flowers and gorgeous fruit. Eggplant is related to tomatoes and peppers, so if you’ve ever grown either of those, you’re already off to a good start — but no […]

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Fertilizers give food crops and ornamental plants the nutrients they need to thrive, but when used unnecessarily or incorrectly, they can do more harm than good. In this week's encore episode, I share the basics you need to know for the most efficient and effective use of fertilizer.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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It's always a pleasure speaking with Dr. Doug Tallamy, a renowned entomologist and advocate for native gardening. Based on the feedback his past appearances on the podcast have received, I know listeners will be just as excited as I am that he is back this week discussing North America's most important native tree: the oak.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Blueberry bushes add year-round visual appeal to a landscape and provide a bounty of tasty fruits each summer. Getting started is easy — if you have a sunny location and well-drained soil, you can grow blueberries — but there are a few things to know first. For the best advice on how to grow blueberries, I turned to Dr. Lee Reich, an Upstate New York gardener and horticulturist with more than three decades of blueberry-growing experience.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Spinach is a cool-season plant that’s one of the first crops of spring and a great fall crop as well. You’ll enjoy growing this undemanding plant and will enjoy eating it even more. Harvest spinach any time to enjoy raw in salads or cook it up in seconds for a delicious side dish that’s loaded […]

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We're all anxious to get our plants in the ground, but if we're not careful and we rush it, we can really set our plants' progress back significantly. It's an exciting time in the garden, but also a time to exercise restraint and self-discipline. On this week's podcast, I share tips for setting plants up for success in spring, starting off with the art and science of hardening off.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Composting is one of my favorite gardening topics to discuss, and I found a kindred spirit in our shared love of composting, with Dr. Lee Reich. He has been perfecting the art and science of composting for more than 40 years. This week's podcast is an encore of our conversation from a few years back on why composting is a fulfilling activity and how composting challenges can be overcome.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Peas, as one of the first crops that can be sown outdoors in spring, are a harbinger of the growing season. There are climbing-type and bush-type peas, peas with colorful and interesting flowers, shelling peas and peas with edible pods. If you want to grow peas in your garden, here’s everything you need to know. […]

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The growing season is quickly approaching, and there are a number of things to take care of now to get the best results during the rest of the year. This week, I present a timely encore of my list of the Top 10 Things to Do Now to Prepare the Garden for Spring.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Regenerative agriculture, permaculture and soil health have come to the forefront of gardening conversations in recent years, but for the layperson, useful definitions for these terms can be elusive. Fortunately, to explain this soil and agriculture terminology in an approachable way, my guest this week is Dr. Jake Mowrer, an expert on all things soil.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Peppers are one of the most rewarding plants grown in an edible garden. They are very productive — giving gardeners all the fruit they can eat, and then some — and the fruit look gorgeous as they develop. If you want to grow peppers in your garden, here’s what you need to know. You can […]

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Monty Don is the biggest name in gardening in the United Kingdom, and this week he's my guest for the very special 200th episode of "The joe gardener Show." In our conversation, he shares his behind-the-scenes experience as Lead Presenter of the No. 1 British gardening show, Gardeners' World during a pandemic and discusses the takeaways from his tour of the United States to film "Monty Don's American Gardens."

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For the very first episode of The joe gardener Show that's dedicated solely to growing potatoes, I couldn't have asked for a better guest than Jim Gerritsen, the founder of Wood Prairie Family Farm in Bridgewater, Maine, where he has grown potatoes organically for 45 years. Jim generously shares everything to know about growing epic potatoes, from before you plant to storing the harvest.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Hydrangeas are beautiful flowering plants with dramatic blooms that provide color and drama in the summer garden, but they can be fussy if they don't get the proper care and attention. Proper hydrangea care for late winter is key. Improper pruning and other common mistakes, compounded with difficult weather, can lead to disappointment. Luckily, my podcast guest this week, Lorraine Ballato, is a hydrangea expert who will help you overcome the biggest hydrangea challenges.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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When planting a naturalistic garden, is having more plants always better? If you ask Kelly Norris, my podcast guest this week and the author of "New Naturalism: Designing and Planting a Resilient, Ecologically Vibrant Home Garden," the answer is, unequivocally, "yes." He is an advocate for biodiverse, abundant landscapes that use every square foot to its maximum potential.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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The science behind the relationship between plants and light is complicated, but my guest on this week's encore episode explains it in an accessible, easy-to-understand way. Her name is Leslie Halleck, and she is an expert on lighting for indoor growing. In our conversation, Leslie explains what gardeners need to know about light to raise houseplants as well as herbs and vegetables indoors.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Before attempting a pest control method that may prove to be unnecessary, ineffective or complete overkill, the first step a gardener should take is to correctly identify the problem. Positive identification of garden pests paired with the appropriate intervention will yield the best results while minimizing or eliminating negative impacts. My guest this week, Susan Mulvihill, has penned a new book on solving common pest problems that will arm you with all the information you need to make the right control decisions.

Download my free guide- 10 Common & Destructive Garden Pests: Prevention and Control. This will help you prevent and control 10 common garden pests.

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No-dig gardening is a simple gardening method that many gardeners — who were taught for years that they had to till or turn their gardens annually — still have many questions about. To demystify no-dig gardening and explain its benefits, my guest this week is my longtime friend Charlie Nardozzi, a nationally recognized garden writer, speaker, and radio and television personality.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Brussels sprouts are cool-season brassicas that taste even better after they have been kissed by frost. Nothing complements a main course in fall quite like fresh Brussels sprouts that came straight to the kitchen from the garden. They have a delicious, slightly crunchy, nutty flavor and can be served roasted, sautéed, steamed and even raw. […]

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Many factors affect whether seeds started indoors will grow to become seedlings that are strong and healthy enough to transition into the garden, survive and prosper. On this week's encore episode, John Porter of The Garden Professors shares his non-negotiables for success when seed starting.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Indoor seed starting time is nearly upon us, and whether you are starting seeds yourself for the first time in 2021 or you have prior experience, I'm certain you'll find my discussion with tomato growing expert Craig LeHoullier enlightening. In this encore presentation, Craig and I share tips and tricks to successfully start seeds indoors.

Download my free chart- Seed Starting Soil Temperature Chart- Get Optimal Soil Temperatures for Germination of Common Vegetable Seeds.

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Winter sowing is an easy and fun way to scratch the gardening itch in the coldest months while also getting a head start on growing flowers and cool-season crops that will then take off in spring. In this week's encore episode, I explain how winter sowing works and identify the types of seeds that are the best candidates to successfully employ this easy seed-starting method.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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From time to time on the podcast, we've touched on growing herbs, but this week's episode is the first that is dedicated solely to growing herbs. My guest to help us dive into this topic of these workhorse plants for every garden is horticulturist Sue Goetz, whose new book, "Complete Container Herb Gardening," was published just last month.

Download my free guide-How Do I Grow Herbs. The basics of how to grow fragrant and delicious herbs in your garden.

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Growing culinary herbs is the easiest way to start a kitchen garden, as herbs are undemanding and produce continuous harvests throughout the season. Even if you have no room for a garden — as long as you have sun — you can grow herbs in containers. If you want to grow herbs, here’s what you […]

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From a large back yard to the tiniest balcony, the garden is a place of refuge, and never has that been more true than in 2020. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, gardeners new and old have realized the many ways that gardening enriches their lives, and how that joy and satisfaction is compounded when they share their bounty and their love of gardening with others. On this week's podcast, I'm highlighting a few stories about the bright spot that gardening provided in 2020.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Lettuce is a fast-growing cool-season crop for spring and fall that is attractive in both vegetable and ornamental gardens and is suited to container gardening as well. If you want to grow lettuce in your garden, here’s what you need to know. You can also download my How Do I Grow Lettuce? one-sheet and keep […]

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Have you ever compared a packet of conventional seeds and a packet of organic seeds and wondered what the difference truly is? My guest this week — to demystify what it means when seeds are organic — is Tom Stearns, a pioneer of growing and selling organic seeds.

Download my free guide- Seed Starting Chart. Before you start flipping through those seed catalogs, don't forget to take an inventory of what seeds you already have and determine if they are still viable.

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Artichokes are delicious to eat roasted, grilled, fried or steamed, and in the garden they provide incredible ornamental value with their structural form, silver-green foliage and blazing neon purple color when allowed to bloom. If you want to grow artichokes in your garden, here’s what you need to know. You can also download my How […]

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Cabbage is a brassica crop — related to broccoli, cauliflower, kale and Brussels sprouts — that thrives in cold. Because of its frost tolerance, cabbage is perfect for starting your gardening season early in spring or for extending it into the fall. If you want to grow cabbage in your garden, here’s what you need […]

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Before placing your order online or filling out a seed catalog order form, be sure you are making the best buying decisions. In this week's episode, I'm sharing tips to help make you a more informed seed shopper. I'll explain what to do before you start, how to process the plethora of seed catalogs arriving at your home or in your email inbox, and the types of seed to look for to meet your needs. I'll also get into the differences among the various seed companies, large and small, and other sources where you can get seeds for a very low price or even free.

Download my free guide- Seed Starting Chart. Before you start flipping through those seed catalogs, don't forget to take an inventory of what seeds you already have and determine if they are still viable.

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Buying an artificial Christmas tree and reusing it for years may seem like a more environmentally friendly option than buying a real, cut tree every holiday season, but when you dig a little deeper you'll find that real trees are truly the sustainable choice. In this week's podcast, I'll explain the benefits of real trees as well as how to care for a live tree in your home so it retains needles and looks great through Christmas.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Strawberry plants are cold hardy and easy to grow, and they thrive in containers and raised beds. Best of all, home-grown strawberries taste a thousand times better than any store-bought variety. If you want to grow strawberries in your garden, here’s what you need to know. You can also download my How Do I Grow […]

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If you’ve never grown onions, you’ll be pleasantly surprised because they’re super easy to grow, hardy through winter, and ready to harvest anytime you are. Young plants are harvested as green onions or scallions. But the longer you wait, the bigger the bulb — at least until they reach full size at maturity.  Here, I’ll […]

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The American chestnut tree spanned the eastern United States and numbered in the billions before blight wiped out most of the population. In this week's episode, I'm sharing my personal affection for the American chestnut and speaking with an expert from The American Chestnut Foundation about what devastated this tree and what's being done to save it.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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While I am a big proponent of learning through experience, I also hone my gardening skills and draw inspiration by regularly dipping into my library of books on horticulture and the natural world. In the nearly two and a half years since I first presented an episode on my favorite books for gardeners, I've added more must-haves to my list, and I am sharing them with you this week.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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As we approach Thanksgiving, a time for taking stock of all the things we are grateful for, it feels like a good time to reflect on our gardening successes this year. I'll admit I'm guilty of talking about how challenging this summer was in the garden for many of us while failing to highlight the achievements. This week, I am rectifying that at the suggestion of podcast listener Tom Discordia, who encouraged me to do an episode on everything that went right this year. And I agree. So with that, in this episode, we're showcasing some of your gardening successes in 2020.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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When you plant vegetable and flower seeds in your garden, do you ever think about where exactly those seeds came from? Could you even imagine certified-organic seeds being collected from a one-acre farm in the middle of the second-largest city in California? That's exactly where my guest this week, seed grower and farmer Brijette Peña, trials, breeds and produces the Certified Organic seeds for her business, San Diego Seed Company.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Gardeners know that eating food you grew yourself raises your spirits in a way that few things can. My guest this week, educator and author of The Power of a Plant, Stephen Ritz, recognized the benefit of growing edible plants to enrich students' bodies and minds in a variety of ways, and his Green Bronx Machine has now inspired a documentary on the far-reaching benefits of raising and sharing nutritious food.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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One of the best decisions that gardeners can make to increase the diversity of wildlife on the land that they steward is to “leave the leaves.” This easy-to-remember turn of phrase means refraining from raking, blowing, or mowing the fall leaves that butterflies, bees, moths, spiders, toads, salamanders and other critters rely on for habitat […]

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Ornamental grasses are eye-catching, low-maintenance additions to home landscapes that offer color, texture and seasonal interest, but they continue to be underutilized. To share the many benefits of using ornamental grasses, my guest this week is horticulturist, lifelong gardener and author Brie Arthur.

Download my free guide- Growing & Using Ornamental Grasses in the Home Landscape. How to Select, Grow, and Care for Ornamental Grasses and Grass-like Plants.

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Companion planting has been practiced for centuries, but it's not always clear why some plants perform better when paired with others. To separate conjecture from facts, my guest this week, horticulturist and author Jessica Walliser, has penned a new book on companion planting strategies supported by science.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Houseplants bring life to our indoor environment, and caring for them can bring both joy and challenges. To answer how to pick the right houseplants for your home and how to best look after them, joining me this week is Jane Perrone, the host of "On the Ledge," the No. 1 houseplant podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

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Ornamental grasses are now common sights at nurseries and garden centers, but that hasn't always been the case. One of the earliest advocates of incorporating native and ornamental grasses and grass-like plants into American gardens was horticulturist and landscape designer John Greenlee — a well-known and respected expert in grass ecology known as the "Grassman" or "Grass Guru," among other monikers — and he's my guest on the podcast this week.

Download my free guide- Growing & Using Ornamental Grasses in the Home Landscape. How to Select, Grow, and Care for Ornamental Grasses and Grass-like Plants.

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The most satisfying triumphs in the garden are built on experimentation and, yes, what many call failures, but what I always call learning opportunities. Perhaps no one I know pushes the boundaries of what's possible in the garden further than veteran gardener, Meg Cowden of the blog Seed to Fork, so I invited her on the podcast this week to find out what lessons she's learned from her garden in 2020.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

Subscribe to the joegardener® email list to receive weekly updates about new podcast episodes, seasonal gardening tips, and online gardening course announcements.

Check out The joegardener® Online Gardening Academy for our growing library of organic gardening courses.

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Garlic is an easy-to-grow crop that requires little to no care, and if you set aside a head or two from each harvest for planting the next season, you’ll never have to buy garlic again. Garlic is in the Allium genus, which also includes onions, shallots, leeks, scallions, chives and ornamental Alliums.  Because garlic grows […]

The post The Complete Guide to Growing Garlic (Everything You Need to Know) appeared first on joegardener® | Organic Gardening Like a Pro.

Despite the best efforts of gardening educators to debunk poor gardening advice, bad information continues to be shared online and elsewhere by well-meaning, though ill-informed, gardeners. To keep up the fight against bad gardening tips that persist, this week I am sharing once again my conversation about decoding gardening advice, with Dr. Jeff Gillman, a horticultural scientist who puts common gardening recommendations to the test to determine what's really backed up by science and what advice is a waste of time — or even detrimental.

Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions.

Subscribe to the joegardener® email list to receive weekly updates about new podcast episodes, seasonal gardening tips, and online gardening course announcements.

Check out The joegardener® Online Gardening Academy for our growing library of organic gardening courses.

Follow joegardener® on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter, and subscribe to The joegardenerTV YouTube channel.

When vegetables are not actively growing in your garden, planting a cover crop can be an excellent, and potentially better option to both protect and improve your soil. It’s beneficial to plant a cover crop any time a bed is allowed to go dormant. This could be in anticipation of winter or between plantings of […]

The post A Guide to Using Cover Crops in the Home Garden appeared first on joegardener® | Organic Gardening Like a Pro.