Articles

Almost every fruit tree in a home orchard traces back to the same corner of Central Asia, and the wild ancestor of the modern apple is still standing there today.

Before you dig, decide what kind of garden you want. Containers, raised beds, or in-ground, this is the order to make the calls in.

Not every vegetable makes sense in a container, and the ones that do need more from a pot than people expect.

Raised beds solve specific problems, but they're not automatically better. Here's what each approach trades off.

A front yard has different constraints than a backyard vegetable bed. Here's how to plan around them instead of fighting them.

The UK, Canada, and Australia all rate cold-hardiness differently, and their zone numbers don't line up with USDA zones the way it looks like they should.

The spacing system behind our Garden Designer: why a grid of one-foot squares beats traditional rows for most home gardens.

Before you buy a single seed packet, these five decisions determine whether your first vegetable garden thrives or fizzles out by July.

What a USDA hardiness zone measures, why it's not the whole story, and where our zone 10 data comes from.

A stretched, pale seedling and one that collapses at the soil line are different problems with opposite fixes. Here's how to tell them apart.

A full harvest in one to three weeks, indoors, with almost none of the equipment a full vegetable garden needs.

From sowing to hardening off - the dome, the light height, the heat, the feeding schedule, and the shelving math that matters.

Why start seeds indoors at all, and the four things that determine whether they sprout: warmth, light, moisture, and timing.

A raised bed that was full to the brim in spring can sit two or three inches low by fall. Here's why, and what to add back.

The three numbers on a fertilizer bag correspond to different jobs, and matching them to what your plant is doing matters more than feeding more often.

Mulch does three jobs at once. Which material suits which bed, how deep is enough, when mulching early costs you a crop, and why wood chips don't steal your nitrogen.

A pH number is only useful once you know what it's telling your plants' roots. Here's how to read one and what to do about it.

Most watering problems are timing problems, not quantity problems. Here's how to judge it instead of guessing.

A stalled compost pile almost always comes down to one of three things: not enough air, not enough water, or the wrong mix of materials.

The same apple variety can end up 8 feet tall or 30 feet tall depending only on the rootstock it's grafted onto. Here's what each size class means for a home yard.

Chill hours, not hardiness zone, are the reason the same peach variety thrives in one warm climate and never fruits in another. Here's what the number means and how to use it.

Some fruit trees produce a full crop alone. Others produce almost nothing without a second, different variety planted nearby. Here's how to tell which is which before you plant just one.

A Honeycrisp seed doesn't grow into a Honeycrisp tree. Here's why fruit trees are grafted rather than grown from seed, and how a graft is made.

A leaf spot isn't just a leaf spot. Here's what the pattern, color, and spread of common garden diseases tell you, and what to do once you know.

A 135-day pepper in zone 10a runs into either summer heat or winter stall, depending on which 10a you live in. Here's how to time around both.

Where Reaper, Ghost, Scorpion, and Pepper X land on the Scoville scale, and how to handle, dry, and use a superhot harvest without hurting yourself.

A surprise frost after transplant doesn't have to mean starting over. Here's what protects a plant overnight, and what doesn't.

You usually see the damage before you see the bug. Here's what the holes, curling, and stripped stems tell you.

A handful of vegetable pairings have documented conflicts behind them. Here's what they are and why they matter.

One planting date leaves a bed empty for months of the season it could otherwise be feeding you. Here's how to stagger it instead.

What holds up about companion planting, what's folklore, and how to use it without overthinking your garden layout.