Turfgrasses split into two camps, and the dividing line is temperature. Cool-season plants do their real growing when the air sits between 60 and 75°F. Warm-season plants want 80 to 95°F before they move. Those two windows barely…
Glass or polycarbonate is the choice that shapes everything else in a greenhouse. It sets your winter light, your heating bill and how often you climb a ladder with a tube of sealant. I have built four houses. I have repaired two…
Two summers ago I lost a full truss of tomatoes in one afternoon. The house was at 22°C (72°F) when I left at eight. By four it had reached 47°C (117°F). Every open flower on the lower trusses had dried brown at the stalk. I had vents that…
Most greenhouse owners I know run two seasons, not four. Tomatoes from May to September, then the door shuts and stays shut. The house sits idle through the months it could be feeding them salad. I did exactly that for three winters before…
The first bad frost of my third winter growing arrived on a still night in late November and took a bed of mizuna I had left uncovered. The forecast said -3°C. That is 27°F. I had talked myself into believing the plants were tougher than…
I keep two thermometers in the garden. One is a min-max unit clipped to a fence post at head height. The other is a cheap probe I lay flat on the grass at the edge of the salad bed. On the night of 3 November the post gauge bottomed out at…
Water retention is a soil property before it is a plumbing problem. Almost everyone reaches for the tap first. That order is…
Every decent garden plan begins with light. Not the light you remember from last summer. The light your plot actually…
Most people start a garden by buying seeds. That is the wrong end to begin at, and it is why so many first gardens fail quietly in…
I have watched beginners lose an entire tomato crop to one mistake, and it was not disease. The plants looked fine. The watering was regular. Three inches down, the soil was saturated and the roots had given up. Nobody had checked. That is…
