Simple ways to save money while you garden
A packet of unusual flower or vegetable seeds for $2 can look like one of the easiest gardening bargains you’ll find online. But if the seller is shipping those seeds from another country, you’re not simply ordering inexpensive garden supplies—you may legally be importing plant material into the United States. The USDA’s Animal and Plant…
Fall cleanup can leave you staring at a pile of vines, weeds, branches, and dead plants that seems perfect for the backyard fire pit. Before striking a match, though, take a much closer look at what’s actually in that pile. Certain plants you should never burn contain oils or toxins that can become part of…
Your lawn turns brown during a drought, you cut back on irrigation to conserve water, and then an HOA violation letter arrives telling you to restore the grass. It sounds absurd, but conflicts over HOA drought rules are real enough that states have passed laws specifically addressing what associations can demand from homeowners. The answer…
Gardeners are accustomed to squashing pests between their fingers, especially when an insect is chewing through a prized tomato plant. But there’s one garden visitor you definitely don’t want to crush with your bare hands: the blister beetle. These insects contain cantharidin, a potent chemical that can irritate skin and cause painful, fluid-filled blisters when…
When the vegetable garden starts turning brown in fall, the instinct is often to grab the rake, pruning shears, and yard-waste bags and make everything look tidy again. But some of those dead stems, fallen leaves, bare patches of soil, and scruffy corners may be doing something more useful than making your yard look neglected….
That rosemary plant may have cost $5 in spring, but after months of growth, throwing it away when cold weather arrives can feel like tossing money in the trash. Bringing potted herbs indoors can extend the harvest and help tender perennial herbs survive until next spring, but moving them straight from the patio to the…
By late summer and early fall, a perfectly healthy-looking squash, cucumber, bee balm, or zinnia can suddenly look like someone dusted its leaves with flour. Powdery mildew is extremely common, and once cold weather approaches, gardeners face a practical question: what should happen to all those infected leaves and vines? Tossing them seems wasteful when…
That packet of rare blue tomatoes or rainbow-colored roses may cost only $4.99, but wasting five dollars isn’t the biggest risk when buying questionable seeds online. You could spend weeks tending empty pots, receive something completely different from what was advertised, or unknowingly order seeds that don’t comply with U.S. import requirements. Online marketplaces and…
Imagine spending years turning your front lawn into a productive garden, getting written approval from your homeowners association, and then discovering that the approval doesn’t necessarily end the argument. That’s essentially what happened to Michael Sherman of Chino, California, whose front-yard “food forest” contains everything from passionfruit and Swiss chard to banana trees and sunflowers….