Bachelor’s Buttons – A Warning Before Planting
There’s no doubt about it but Bachelor’s buttons (also known as Cornflower, Centaurea cyanus) are beautiful flowers in the spring garden. They have amazing blue colored petals with a darker blue center. Bachelors buttons grow very easily from seeds and require no real care to…
Bridal Wreath Spirea: A Gardener’s Overview
Over the weekend we went to visit family at my in-laws’ house for Easter. While there I saw this amazing flowering display on the Bridal Wreath Spirea (Spiraea x vanhouttei). It was literally covered in branches of white blooms. They planted this spirea well over…
Coir Pots: The Pros and The Cons
When transplanting plants it helps to have a great container that allows the seedlings to flourish. I’ve found over the years that coir pots are a great option. I used to use them as part of my farmer’s market plant sale business. Today I use…
Why Planting Onions and Potatoes Together Makes Sense
Companion planting is a great technique for a successful gardening. There are many combinations of garden plants that work well together including onions and potatoes. Here’s why! What is Companion Planting? How does it work for Potatoes and Onions? Companion planting takes advantage of complementary…
A New Vegetable Garden Layout
Over the years I’ve done several vegetable garden layouts for my garden. I’ve always tried to make improvements to the vegetable garden. My goal is to make it more efficient for growing yet still aesthetically pleasing and fun to be in. This year however isn’t…
Seed Starting Update – February 2025
February means I am well into seed starting for the year! It’s exciting to see those newly planted seeds turn into sprouts and begin growing. Every year I try to plant a large variety of vegetable garden plants including the must have tomato and peppers…
When Should You Cut Back Perennials for Spring?
Spring is just around the corner but the cold days of winter are still present here in Tennessee. Sometimes we have really nice, beautiful, spring-like days in February and it’s so tempting to get in the garden and get a lot of work done. One…
Kingsyard Squirrel Proof Birdfeeder
One major reason many of us garden is to enjoy seeing wildlife. I think it’s pretty rare to find a gardener who doesn’t also enjoy a little bird watching. Birds can be great to have around the garden as well. Kingsyard recently sent me a…
Garden Project Goals for 2025
Every year I like to create a list of garden projects that I plan to tackle for the year. It’s a list of goals that I would love to accomplish but often due to time I find I planned for more than I can do….
How Long Do Seeds Last? (Seed Viability)
Everything has it’s own time, even seeds. They just don’t last forever! Fortunately though many seeds do last a long period of time and you can use seed from previous years to grow your garden. I’ve had tomato seeds germinate that were over 10 years…
Things to Know About Using Woodchips and Leaves in the Garden
If you are a gardener you have probably heard people talking about how great woodchips are. That is probably because they are a very good resource for building up organic matter. Woodchips and leaves are also very easy to acquire and and best of all…
Compost Bins from Pallets
Compost bins are essential in the garden. They take the waste materials from the yard, garden, kitchen, or farm and turn it into usable soil. Good compost is worth its weight in gold to gardeners which is exactly why it is nicknamed “gardener’s gold.” One…
Thank you for visiting Growing The Home Garden! I started Growing The Home Garden in 2007 as a way to chronicle my experiences in the garden.
All the content here is based on my personal experiences and research. A lot of my content is focused on raised bed gardening and plant propagation.
There is also a YouTube Channel for Growing the Home Garden which is over 30,000 subscribers (as of March 2024) that has a lot of gardening videos you may find helpful. Growing The Home Garden on YouTube. Thanks for reading and watching!
Raised Bed Gardening
How Deep do Raised Garden Beds Need To Be?
Raised beds are a great option for gardeners but how deep do they really need to be? The depth of a raised garden bed is an important factor to consider because it can greatly impact the health and productivity of your plants. The true answer to How deep do raised gardens need to be really is it depends! What the…
Raised Bed Garden Ideas (Planning for the New Garden)
Pretty soon we’ll be relocating to our new home. Our family is very excited about this but it also means starting the garden all over again. Everything including raised beds, sheds, and arbors will have to be rebuilt. While this is a tremendous amount of work I think it’s a great opportunity to start again and redevelop our garden with…
How to Fill Raised Beds Cheap!
I love gardening in raised beds. It is one of the simplest ways to have success with a vegetable garden. That doesn’t take anything away from all the other methods of gardening, only that I believe that raised beds are a great way for gardeners of all backgrounds and skill levels to garden successfully. The best reason to like raised…
Common Raised Bed Garden Questions Answered
Raised beds are one of the absolute BEST ways to grow a garden but there can be challenges to growing in raised beds. Often gardeners have questions about the best methods to grow in a raised bed. In this post I’ve taken some common raised bed garden questions and put together some answers based on my experience. I’ve grown in…
Plant Propagation Information
Plant propagation is one of my favorite things to do in the garden! Below are some articles on how to propagate various plants. You can also check this page out with specific info on plant propagation: Plant Propagation for Home Gardens
Germinating Japanese Maple Seeds in a Plastic Bag
I love a nice Japanese maple! Who doesn’t? There are Japanese maples with variegated leaves, ones with deep burgundy colors, others with interesting shaped leaves that are highly dissected and many other kinds. The fall color on a Japanese is almost always guaranteed to be something special. Their…
How to Propagate Arborvitae from Cuttings
Fall is officially here but that doesn’t mean it’s time to stop propagating. In fact it means that many of the best plants are in their ideal state for hardwood and semi-ripe cuttings. Arborvitae is one such plant that does very well from cuttings taken…
Oak Leaf Hydrangea Propagation (Cuttings) the Results
Oak leaf hydrangeas are an awesome landscape shrub to add to the garden. They get big and need room and enjoy part shade/part sun locations but if you have the right spot for one by all means add one! I’m always trying to propagate a…
How to Propagate Leyland Cypress from Cuttings
Plant propagation can continue at almost every time of the year, the winter is no exception. This is especially true if you have a little space in your house to put your cuttings or can manage to manipulate them into interesting centerpieces! In this post…
How to Propagate Montauk Daisy
Plant Propagation Bench for Seedlings and Cuttings
I’ll continue with the Seed Starting 101 Series tomorrow but I thought I would use today’s post to share with you a related project. Recently I purchased a seedling heatmat that I’ve been testing in the garage to see how seedlings will grow out there. …
Growing Home Vegetable Gardens
Articles with tips and ideas on how to grow a great vegetable garden.
Fast Growing Vegetable Garden Plants
When your goal is to produce food from your garden as fast as possible you want to select vegetable plants that have a very quick turn around. When we are discussing fast growing vegetables we need to look at the days to maturity. Days to maturity means the approximate days from germination until harvest. Notice two important words here: from…
My Favorite Tomato and Pepper Varieties
It’s getting close now. Can you feel it? Seed starting time! In preparation for my seed starting activities of 2020 I thought it would be fun to tell you about my favorite tomato and pepper varieties for Growing The Home Garden. In this video I go through some of my tried and try peppers and tomato varieties. They may not…
Vegetable Garden Checklist for the End of March
Everyone is thinking about the garden right now, if not they should be! The vegetable garden is where you can really reap the rewards of your backyard. Sometimes though you don’t know what you should be doing and when or (if you’re like me) forget a few things every now and then! So here is a little garden checklist for…
Propagating Peppers Through Cuttings
You might think that peppers are one of those seed only grown plants. For many gardeners they are, but what if you want an exact copy of a favorite pepper plant? With peppers we typically sow the seeds in late winter and grow the seedlings on to plant out in the spring. Through cuttings we have another way to grow…
A Few Tips on Fall and Winter Gardening
So many of us gardeners tend to think of one thing when it comes to the vegetable garden – tomatoes! I know I do, although in recent years I’ve become very partial to peppers. The garden doesn’t have to just be about those summer vegetables. In many areas you can continue to garden well into the winter months. Here in…
My Raised Bed Vegetable Garden Changes for 2010
Each year I try to expand the vegetable garden a little bit more. The first year in our home I didn’t have time to put together a garden before the growing season started and we missed out on any vegetable garden. The “L” Shaped Raised Beds: The second year I put together a set of raised beds that were arranged…