how long do seeds stay viable?

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…

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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…

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Overwintering Rosemary

Rosemary is a wonderful plant for gardening. I love it as a ornamental shrub as well as an edible herb. The problem is it CAN be finicky. Sometimes the winter cold is too tough for rosemary and it sadly dies over the winter. Fortunately there…

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Maples, Oaks, and Invasives! Fall Color 2024

The historic dryness finally gave way to some rain on Halloween. About 0.83 inches came down that day give us a good soaking. We still need more rain, and regular rain but it definitely helps. I’ve been concerned about the lack rain and the fall…

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Fall Color in Tennessee 2024 so far…

I have a fondness for fall color. I think we all do this time of year. We like seeing the transition of green to gold or red and oranges. There’s a little bit of a feeling of closure that begins to come to us through…

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Fall 2024 Garden Tour

I find Garden Tours fun to put together. It’s an opportunity incessantly talk about plants, plans, and ideas and that is one of my favorite things to do! I put together a garden tour of our current garden on YouTube which you can watch down…

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How to grow garlic

Fall is for Planting Garlic in the Garden

It’s October and the temperatures are getting cooler which makes it ideal for planting garlic! I just planted two raised beds full of garlic a few days ago. Garlic loves to start in cooler weather and this coming week we are predicted to have some…

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Garden tips for before a frost

Garden Tips for Before a Frost

As the first frost approaches, now is the time to take essential steps to protect your garden and set yourself up for success next spring. Below are a few simple garden tips that can help you save money and preserve your favorite plants while extending…

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Growing Sweet Bay Magnolia from Seed

How to Grow Sweetbay Magnolia from Seeds

No matter where I go when I see seeds that are ripe I’m tempted to collect them. That was the case when walking around Knoxville last year and seeing some ripe magnolia seeds on some Sweetbay magnolia plants. Sweetbay magnolias have several names including: sweetbay…

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Where are the Monarch Butterflies?

All summer I’ve been watching and waiting to see a flock of Monarch butterflies soaring through the air to lite upon our abundant field of milkweed. So far I’ve been disappointed. The Monarch butterflies on our property have only numbered one. I was mowing along…

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Bulbs, Corms, and Rhizomes to Plant in Fall

It’s almost that time of year again: Fall Planting Season! When the weather cools off, the days become shorter, Pumpkin Spice is everywhere (OK that may not be the greatest thing), and it will be time to get your fall bulbs and rhizomes planted in…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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raised bed garden questions answered tips

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…

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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

How to Propagate a Deciduous Magnolia Through Layering

Layering is a fantastic way to make more free plants with very little risk. Propagating a plant through layering usually involves pinning down a branch to make contact with the soil so that the branch can begin forming roots.  I’ve used layering to propagate more…

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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…

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How to Grow Buckeye from Seed (Aesculus pavia)

A couple years ago I bought a fantastic native plant at a local native plant nursery. It was a red buckeye (Aesculus pavia) and is great for attracting everyone’s favorite tiny garden visitor, the hummingbird. The flower clusters are red (you probably expected that from…

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How to Propagate Basil

Rooted Basil It’s no secret that I love to propagate plants. I especially love to propagate the easy plants. The ones where success is almost 100% assured! Believe it or not there are a few of those. Basil is one that I almost always can…

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Garden Shed Plant Propagation Update

This year was the first year I’ve been able to house my cuttings in the garden shed. It’s been great so far. There’s no heat but the plants have been protected from the coldest of the winter lows. Essentially I’ve moved them 1-2 heat zones…

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Growing Home Vegetable Gardens

Articles with tips and ideas on how to grow a great vegetable garden.

Growing Broccoli in the Garden

Last weekend we went to a family wedding in West TN. While out there we stopped by and visited my wife’s Uncle Joe in Jackson who loves to garden. He has a variety of plants ranging from broccoli, radishes, and spring greens to tomatoes and peppers. Since I don’t grow broccoli in my garden (I like it but my family…

Woodle Orange Heirloom Tomato

Summer is the peak time for tomatoes which makes it the perfect time for tantalizing tomato talk! I’m pretty excited about this particular tomato that my wife selected from the Baker’s Creek Catalog last winter. I’m talking about ‘Woodle Orange’! It’s a funny name and prior to reading it in the catalog I had never heard of it before. Because…

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…

Pruning off The Lower Leaves of Tomato and Pepper Plants: Limbing Up

Every home gardener wants their plants to thrive and do well. Often there are little, easy to do things that can greatly improve the chances of plants in your garden succeeding. Here we are going to talk about one thing you can do to help your tomato and pepper plants grow great: pruning off the lower leaves or as I…

How Tall Should a Raised Bed Be? (5 More Raised Bed Design Tips)

Have you ever wondered exactly how tall a raised bed should be?  Here’s the answer: 11 and 5/16ths.  Yep that’s right, 11 and 5/16ths.  Of course not!  The real answer is that the height of a raised bed is dependent on a number of factors which makes each situation different.  Today’s Friday Fives post is another raised bed design post…

The Best Way to Keep Green Onions Fresh

Green onions are a delicious topping to many soups and salads but they will go bad fast when stored in the refrigerator crisper drawer. However there is a way to keep green onions fresh for several weeks or more, and it’s so simple! To keep your green onions fresh put them with the bulb end down in a jar or…

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