Growing Guides ·
How Deep to Plant Potatoes (And Why Hilling Matters More)
Four inches at planting, then hill as they grow. Why planting deep in cold spring soil backfires, and how depth differs in containers and no-dig beds.
Vegetables
25 guides in Growing Guides.
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How to Grow Beans: Bush or Pole, and Never Sow Early
Beans rot in cold wet soil and resent transplanting, so sowing date matters more than anything else. Bush versus pole, supports, and picking to keep them coming.
Growing Guides ·
How to Grow Peppercorns: A Tropical Vine in a Pot
Black pepper is a climbing vine needing warmth, humidity and three years before it fruits. What it takes indoors, and why all four peppercorns are one plant.
Growing Guides ·
When Is Corn Harvested? The Milk Test, Not the Calendar
Sweetcorn has a harvest window of a few days and starts losing sugar within an hour of picking. The three signs, and why you check by piercing a kernel.
Growing Guides ·
How to Grow Cabbage: Firm Soil, Wide Spacing, Mesh
Cabbages need firmer ground than most crops, more room than people give them, and a physical barrier against pests. Splitting heads and clubroot, explained.
Growing Guides ·
When to Plant Dahlias, and Whether to Lift Them
Dahlia tubers rot in cold wet soil, so the planting date is set by soil temperature. Starting them early under cover, and the honest case for leaving them in.
Growing Guides ·
Companion Plants for Potatoes, and What Ruins the Crop
Potatoes are greedy, shallow-rooted and need earthing up, which rules out most neighbours. What genuinely fits alongside them, and the two crops to keep well away.
Growing Guides ·
How to Grow Peas: Sow Cold, Support Early, Pick Often
Peas are a cool-season crop that stops in heat, so sowing early beats sowing well. Support at three inches, and the sugar-to-starch clock after picking.
Growing Guides ·
How to Grow Peppers: Start Early, Then Keep Them Warm
Peppers need more heat than tomatoes and stall in cool nights. When to sow, the temperature range that makes flowers drop, and why to feed them less than you think.
Growing Guides ·
How to Harvest Lettuce So It Grows Back Again
Cut-and-come-again gets three or four crops from one sowing, but only if you cut above the growing point. Where that is, and why lettuce turns bitter.
Growing Guides ·
How to Ripen Green Tomatoes Indoors After the Season
Tomatoes ripen on ethylene, not sunlight, so a windowsill is the wrong place. What actually works, which fruit will never ripen, and what to do with those.
Growing Guides ·
Companion Plants for Cucumbers, and What to Keep Away
Cucumbers need pollinators and hate competition for water. What genuinely helps, what the evidence is thin on, and the two neighbours worth actually avoiding.
Growing Guides ·
How to Grow an Avocado: From a Pit, and From a Tree
A pit sprouts easily and almost never fruits. What the toothpick trick produces, why grafted trees exist, and the A/B flowering quirk that decides pollination.
Growing Guides ·
How to Grow Cucumbers: Heat, Water, and Bitter Fruit
Cucumbers fail from cold soil at the start and inconsistent water later. Bush or vining, why the first flowers set nothing, and what actually makes them bitter.
Growing Guides ·
How to Grow Broccoli Without It Bolting or Buttoning
Broccoli bolts in heat and buttons when checked as a seedling. Timing the sowing, spacing for a decent head, and cutting so the side shoots keep coming.
Growing Guides ·
How to Grow Watermelon: Heat, Space, and Knowing When
Watermelon needs 70 to 100 warm days and more room than people give it. The three ripeness signs that work, and why thumping mostly does not.
Growing Guides ·
Types of Hot Peppers, Ranked by Heat and What They Taste Like
Scoville is only half the story — a habanero and a serrano at similar heat behave completely differently in a pan. Thirty peppers by heat, flavour, and best use.
Growing Guides ·
How to Grow Asparagus: Three Years to the First Real Cut
Asparagus is a twenty-year perennial that pays nothing for two seasons. Bed preparation, crowns versus seed, and the cutting discipline that keeps it going.
Growing Guides ·
How to Grow Carrots: Stones, Thinning, and Carrot Fly
Forked carrots come from obstacles and fresh manure, not bad seed. Sowing direct into stone-free soil, why you should barely thin, and the fly barrier that works.
Growing Guides ·
How to Grow Ginger From a Piece of Supermarket Root
Ginger grows readily from a shop-bought rhizome, given warmth, humidity and a wide shallow pot. Why it sprouts sideways, and the eight to ten months it needs.
Growing Guides ·
How to Grow Potatoes: Chitting, Depth, and Earthing Up
Potatoes form on stem, not roots, which is why you plant them deep and keep burying them. Seed potatoes, timing by variety group, and the mistakes that cost a crop.
Growing Guides ·
How to Grow Tomatoes: Determinate or Indeterminate First
That one word on the seed packet decides your spacing, your pruning, and your harvest shape. Then it is warmth, consistent water, and feeding at the right time.
Growing Guides ·
How to Grow Onions: Day Length Decides Your Bulb Size
Onions bulb on day length, not on age — so the wrong variety for your latitude never sizes up. How to pick the right type, plant it, and feed it to a full bulb.
Growing Guides ·
Companion Plants for Tomatoes (And 5 to Keep Away)
Basil, marigolds, and borage earn their place next to tomatoes. Fennel, potatoes, and brassicas do not. What to plant together, and why each pairing works.
Growing Guides ·
How to Grow Garlic: Plant in Fall, Harvest in July
Garlic is the easiest crop in the garden if you plant it at the right time. Here is the full cycle — choosing bulbs, planting depth, mulch, scapes, and harvest.
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