Garden Planting

What is Direct Sowing? Best Plants to Direct-Sow in Your NJ Garden

What is Direct Sowing? Best Vegetables to Direct Sow in Your NJ Garden Are you new to gardening? Then you may wonder what it means to direct-sow garden seeds. To direct-sow simply means planting your garden seeds outside in the soil, as opposed to planting them in little, peat-filled containers indoors. Either method of planting seeds can […]

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The Advantages of a Raised Bed Garden

Thinking about creating a garden this year? Then take a lesson from the Chinese, who successfully cultivate prolific, raised bed gardens in miniscule backyards. High, mounded garden beds yield nearly twice the amount of produce than traditional row gardens. The plants also tend to be bigger and bear more fruit. Here are a few more

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Peppers Planting Instructions for NJ Zone 6

Peppers Planting Instructions for NJ Zone 6 Peppers are a summer-loving plant here in NJ. The milder ones such as bell peppers lend a nice snap to summer salads as well as the soups and chilis of September. All peppers contain high amounts of vitamin C. Hotter varieties such as cayenne, jalapeno and habanero boast

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Is Rototilling Necessary? To Till or Not to Till Your NJ Garden Beds This Spring

“To grow healthy, productive plants you need healthy, productive soil. It is the organisms in the soil that provide the food plants need, in the form they need, when they need it.” -Dr. Elaine Ingam, SoilFoodWeb.com The first year we had our little backyard garden, we rented a rototiller and went to work processing the soil

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How to Grow Vegetables from Seed

by Maria G. I wrote a recent entry about how I grew some beautiful lettuces from seed. Today, at a garden center, I came upon a rather expensive shallow pot filled with the same types and colors of lettuce that I had successfully cultivated myself. These ready-to-eat lettuce plants were large, and evidently heavily fertilized. Looking

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How to Grow Strawberries Organically – NJ Zone 6

Strawberries are tough to grow for a few reasons. For all the work and planning they require, the harvesting season is pretty brief. Here in Zone 6, we plant strawberries in the early spring, to be harvested by end of May, and June in the case of some varieties. Strawberry plants are susceptible to viruses,

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