Garlic belongs in the fall garden, but the calendar matters more than many gardeners realize. Plant too early and the cloves can push up tender growth before winter, while planting too late can leave them scrambling to build the root system they need. That makes garlic a little different from the vegetables that demand attention…
vegetable gardening
Fall Garden Clearance Has Started: These 7 Things Are Worth Buying Now and 5 Aren’t
Fall garden clearance has started, and that means garden centers are making room for the next season while shoppers get a chance to snag useful supplies for less. The catch? A red sale sticker does not magically turn a struggling plant, outdated product, or wildly inappropriate purchase into a bargain. The smartest clearance shopping focuses…
September Isn’t the End of the Vegetable Garden: These 8 Crops Can Still Go in the Ground
September does not have to mean waving goodbye to the vegetable garden. Depending on your climate and first frost date, plenty of cool-season crops can still go into the soil now and give you fresh food long after the tomatoes start looking exhausted. The key involves choosing vegetables that actually enjoy cooler weather instead of…
Growing Your Own Food Doesn’t Always Save Money—Here’s When It Actually Does
Growing your own food can save money, but a garden does not automatically turn a grocery bill into pocket change. Seeds cost money, soil amendments cost money, containers cost money, and that adorable little tomato plant at the garden center somehow knows exactly how to make a gardener spend more money. A garden can absolutely…
7 Seeds You May Be Better Off Buying Fresh Next Year
Not every seed packet deserves a long retirement in the back of the garden drawer. Some vegetable seeds lose germination power much faster than others, which means an old packet can turn next spring’s carefully planned garden into a patchy experiment in optimism. That does not mean every seed left over from this season has…
9 Seeds Worth Saving From Your Garden Before the Season Ends
Garden season may be winding down, but some of its best souvenirs hide inside the vegetables and flowers already growing outside. Saving seeds lets gardeners carry favorite varieties into another growing season, and it can turn one especially delicious tomato, sturdy bean plant, or gorgeous flower into next year’s starting lineup. Not every seed deserves…
Fall Is the Time to Decide Which Garden Plants Aren’t Worth the Money Next Year
A garden can look wonderfully productive from a distance while quietly wasting money up close. Fall makes those disappointments much easier to spot because the growing season has finally handed over the receipts: Which plants produced plenty, which struggled all summer, and which seemed determined to occupy valuable space while contributing almost nothing? That makes…
Should You Save Seeds From Grocery Store Produce? Sometimes It Works, Sometimes It Doesn’t
That tomato from the grocery store could become next summer’s tomato plant, but it could also become a very elaborate science experiment with leaves and no decent fruit. Grocery store produce sometimes contains perfectly viable seeds, yet the seed’s ability to grow tells only part of the story. The bigger question involves what kind of…
9 Popular Garden Purchases Frugal Gardeners Can Usually Skip
Gardening can turn into an expensive hobby remarkably fast. A few seed packets become a cart full of gadgets, specialty mixes, decorative containers, and tools that promise to make every tomato, flower, and cucumber perform like a champion. The good news is that plants rarely care how much money gets spent on them. A decent…
The Cheapest Vegetable to Grow Isn’t Always the One With the Cheapest Seeds
A seed packet that costs a couple of dollars can look like a garden bargain, but the cheapest seeds do not always produce the cheapest vegetables. A crop can demand more water, fertilizer, garden space, support, pest control, or time than another vegetable with a slightly pricier packet. That changes the math considerably once the…