The best gardeners in the world have learned from their mistakes, but there’s no reason to repeat them. Learn from the mistakes of others if you’re just getting started in gardening. You can avoid a lot of problems, save time, and prevent the sad death of plants by learning some common and easy-to-make gardening errors before you make them.
If you’re looking for a game-changing medicinal flower, look no further than lavender. This fragrant herb isn’t just a delight for the senses—it’s packed with powerful health benefits that make it a must-have in any garden. Whether you use it for relaxation, skincare, or natural remedies, lavender is nature’s gift to your well-being.
For maximum benefits, plant English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)—the variety with the highest concentration of linalool and linalyl acetate, known for their calming and healing effects. This hardy plant thrives in full sun, well-drained soil, and dry conditions, making it an essential low-maintenance garden.
If you’re looking for an easy – and even free – way to supercharge your garden this spring, take a tip from coastal gardeners. Use seaweed. Packed with essential nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and trace minerals such as iron, zinc, and magnesium, seaweed is a powerhouse soil enhancer that can help your plants grow stronger, healthier, and more productive.
Beyond its rich mineral content, seaweed naturally contains plant growth hormones that promote faster root development and boost plant resilience. It also acts as a built-in pest repellent—its salty, rough texture deters slugs and other garden pests, keeping your crops safe without harmful chemicals. Simply lay seaweed around the base of plants as mulch, avoiding direct contact with stems, and let nature do the rest.
For an extra nutrient boost, try making seaweed fertilizer spray. Just soak seaweed in water for a few days to create a nutrient-rich liquid feed—perfect for tomatoes, cucumbers, leafy greens, apple trees, berries, and citrus plants.
If you don’t live near the coast, no worries! Many garden centers sell dried or liquid seaweed fertilizers. Many brands offer easy-to-use products that enhance soil microbial activity, improve soil structure, and help plants withstand drought, heat, and frost.
Whether you gather it yourself or buy it in-store, seaweed is an age-old gardening secret that can help you grow a thriving, pest-resistant garden with bigger, healthier harvests this year!
It’s spring, and for many gardeners around the country, it is time to prepare garden beds and start planting. One of the best things you can do for your plants is to supercharge your soil with rich, nutrient-dense compost. Don’t have time for composting? Don’t fret; there is one really neat compost trick that takes little time and effort but pays off big – building up the soil and making nutrients available to hungry plants and beneficial critters deep inside the soil.
I love sweet potatoes; they are a highly nutritious and delicious root vegetable. Known as Ipomoea batatas, sweet potatoes are not only one of the best vitamin A sources, but they are also packed with vitamin B5 niacin, thiamin, and carotenoids. Research has also uncovered a host of therapeutic benefits in sweet potatoes. They contain anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, and anti-diabetic properties. Sweet potatoes are a delicious addition to any meal and can even help keep your skin healthy.
You may have heard that poop is good for your garden. If you want to grow big healthy plants and beautiful produce, you need poop! However, all poop is not the same – some types may actually undo all the hard work you’ve put into cultivating your garden. Before you go putting poop on your garden beds, make sure you know the difference between good poop and bad poop.
Gardening and health are intrinsically linked. You grow your own fruits and vegetables, so you begin to eat more whole, fresh food. You have to harvest, plant, and tend your garden, so you get more physical activity and daily doses of fresh air and sunshine. However, unless you wear gloves all the time, you probably also experience the dry, cracking hands that come from spending hours digging in the dirt. Thankfully, all the herbs needed to create this soothing hand salve, and make dried out hands a thing of the past, can be grown right in your garden.
The rose family, scientifically known as Rosaceae, includes a diverse group of plants. Apart from roses (Rosa), the family contains many other well-known fruit-bearing plants and ornamental species. Here are some of the key members of the rose family:
These plants share certain botanical characteristics, such as similar flower structures and the presence of five-petaled flowers, and they are often grown for their fruit, flowers, or as ornamental plants.
Roses, in fact, bear fruit as well. The fruit of the rose plant is called a hip. Rose hips are typically small, round, or oval-shaped, and they develop after the rose flower has been pollinated. The hip is actually a swollen part of the flower’s base, and it contains seeds inside.
Rose hips are often red, orange, or sometimes purple, depending on the variety of rose. While they are not usually consumed raw due to their tartness and potential fuzziness from the seeds, they are commonly used to make jams, jellies, syrups, and teas. Rose hips are also valued for their high vitamin C content.
When you think of side hustles, ways to make a little extra money, you may conjure up images of things like selling clothes you don’t wear, walking dogs, babysitting, or even baking and selling cookies. But, have you ever considered taking your love of plants, gardening, and homesteading (even urban homesteading) and using it to turn a quick profit?
Yes, I get it; pests can be a problem. In just a few hours, pests gone wild can destroy your beautiful cabbage crop, annihilate your cucumbers, and leave your lettuce looking like it went through a war. All of this is heartbreaking, and I have had it happen to me more than once. There is a solution to this problem, and it is not to pour a vat of toxic chemicals into your garden either. Once I got the formula down – the best method to repel nasty pests – my garden has never been so beautiful. If I can do it, so can you.
If you are a gardener, it is likely that you, like me, love to touch, smell, taste, and even listen to plants. It’s not weird! When we garden, we like to gaze at plants, run our hands over the leaves and petals, and bring our noses down to take in the beautiful scent. Something about this brings me great pleasure – to know that I have planted and cared for such a beautiful thing and then to have the joy of partaking of it with all of my senses!
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