Grow Food

Every year, gardeners everywhere sow seeds indoors. After all, starting your own seedlings offers a host of benefits over buying them. But there are three things you need to do …

If you still haven’t tried mycorrhizae, consider this your wake-up call – your plants are missing out! Your vegetables, your houseplants, the flowers you plant in the front flower bed, …

It’s February, and I’ll bet you’ve got blueberries on the brain. No? Well, if you have blueberry bushes, you should be thinking about blueberries. Despite the fact that it’s still …

Blueberries are a favorite fruit to grow among home gardeners because they’re delicious, don’t take up a ton of room, and are pretty easy to grow as far as fruit …

We’ve all heard that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The same goes for gardening. Or would it be something along the lines of an ounce …

Let’s take a look at Oregon Spring, the tomato variety created at Oregon State University specifically for the short, cool summers of the Pacific Northwest. Whether you live in a …

There’s something about growing tomatoes that begs for experimentation. Rarely do we get excited about a new carrot variety or see all the green beans in a catalog and think, …

Did you know two vegetables need to be started in January each year? If you wait, it will be too late to grow them this season. Join me as I …

Normally, if you clicked on an article with a similar title here at Rural Sprout, you would be looking at your plants for symptoms. However, we want to make gardeners …

I did not receive these raised beds for free from Vego Garden. I bought them myself because, after several weeks of research, they were the brand I liked most. I’m …

I have a couple of friends who are very much into board games. They seem to remember the rules of 15+ games by heart and juggle an impressive number of …

As the gardening season comes to an end, we’re faced with the task of clearing up before winter arrives. While the general rule for generations has been to tidy up …

Urine is an excellent natural fertilizer and among the very oldest ways to create fertile soil. After all, pee plays quite a crucial role in the earth’s nitrogen cycle. Mammals …

As the leaves change color and fall from the trees, most of us are busy closing up our gardens for the season. But don’t put your garden tools away just …

September is often an odd month. If you’ve got school-aged children, you go from a noisy house to a silent one. At least, until they start bringing germs home from …

I don’t grow a garden without mulch. Period. Putting down a protective layer over the bare soil in my garden provides a multitude of benefits. Unfortunately, after three successive seasons …

There are plenty of reasons to love growing determinate tomatoes. As bush-type tomatoes, they are biologically limited to a height of around four feet. They grow until the terminal bud …

I love volunteer plants. You know, the ones where you plant it once, and it self-seeds every year after that. I can’t tell you how nice it is not to …

It’s that weird part of the summer where you know there’s still plenty of warm weather left, but that little voice begins to whisper in the back of your brain …

When you’re growing vegetables, you rarely want your plants to get sick. We put a lot of work into making sure they don’t. So, it’s usually an upsetting surprise to …

With summer temperatures climbing higher each year, many gardeners suddenly find it harder to grow tomatoes. Plants that used to burst with fruit come July now seem stuck. Thankfully, an …

Gardeners – and especially those who garden organically – ought to be well-acquainted with nitrogen. As the N in N-P-K, it’s the first nutrient you’ll learn about as a budding …

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. We tomato growers are a bit touched. We’ll try just about anything to grow the tastiest tomatoes, the earliest tomatoes and …

Here’s a quick tip: did you know that picking tomatoes at just the right time will give you tomatoes that don’t spoil as fast and encourage your plant to put …