Just Grow Something | Evidence-Based Home Gardening

Sweet potatoes are one of my favorite things to eat and, subsequently, to grow. I can eat sweet potatoes baked, fried, mashed, chipped, like tater tots, as a pie, you name it, I’ll eat them. And it only takes a few plants to give you a really good harvest, so they’re perfectly suited for smaller garden spaces. Despite the name, they actually aren’t potatoes and what we eat isn’t a tuber, it’s a ro...

On Tuesday, we talked all about preserving our culture and our heritage through our food, which includes the plants we grow. Today, I’m joined by Marion Whitehead who is just as passionate about plants and their stories as a I am, maybe even more. I mean, I’ve not been known to write poetry about my plants, but Marion has! And she is uniquely qualified to do so, since she is immersed in plants, bo...

Do you have a favorite food from childhood? Do you have a favorite recipe your grandmother passed down to you from her grandmother? The history of our food is important to preserving our cultures and our heritage. Many times, the ingredients that go into those foods are very regional. But, what if the knowledge of those ingredients was lost somewhere along the way? What if nobody remembered how to...

I know many of you have already been planting your gardens and many more have transitioned from spring plants into warmer weather summer crops. But I also know there are plenty of you that haven’t started planting yet at all, whether your climate conditions aren’t right, or your garden space isn’t ready or whatever. And, honestly, planting is a season-long activity. We start with cold crops in spr...

The whole idea behind starting this podcast was to give you the information you need to grow your own food, no matter how much space you have. Most of what I’ve covered on this show has been toward in-ground gardens and containers, only briefly touching on growing indoors. That’s about to change. Whether you have no access to an outdoor growing space, you want to expand on what space you do have b...

One of the crops I really thought would be easy to grow that turned out not to be for me was peppers, specifically bell peppers. Turns out not only do peppers really prefer a lot of heat, they also prefer more water than I typically use in my gardens and in my fields. And peppers are one of those plants that I get asked about all the time in messages and at the farm stand. Because once you get the...

On Tuesday we talked about expanding your gardens and today I’m talking with my new friend, Katelyn Duban from the Rural Woman Podcast. Katelyn had never gardened before moving to her husband’s family farm in rural Alberta and she had never intended to garden even after moving. But after embracing the rural lifestyle, Katelyn dove into growing her own food beginning with a few pots of lettuce on h...

If your garden went really well last season, then you might be thinking of expanding your space this season. Even if you didn’t have a fantastic yield last year you may still be thinking of increasing your gardening area because you’ve seen food prices going up in the store recently, or you want certain heirloom varieties, or you just like a challenge! I am the first one to support relying more on...

When you’re planning your garden, do you have trouble determining how many plants you should grow? It’s very easy to overdo it, especially in the first few years because you don’t know how many plants you need in order to get the volume you want your garden to produce. I was guilty of not planting enough greens the first few years but way overplanting the cucumbers. So we ended up with too few sal...

I’ve done plenty of garden myth episodes before on this podcast so when the subject of molasses in the garden was brought to my attention, it piqued my interest. I do know that molasses as a food has a good amount of nutritional value for us as humans and it stands to reason that those same nutrients would be good for the soil microbes and for our plants. But does it make sense to use molasses as...

A few years back I began to pay more attention to the ingredients in my tea. And I discovered that many of the tea blends I was using contained artificial flavorings. Even the organic teas used so-called “natural flavorings” without indicating the source of that ingredient. So, I started making my own tea blends from herbs I grow in my own garden. I sell many of these herbs as plants at our farm s...

Back in 2020, otherwise known as “the year that shall not be named” growing luffa became this sort of garden craze. I have no idea how it got started, but it seemed like everywhere I looked on social media gardening accounts they were talking about growing luffa. Now, if you didn’t jump onto the luffa bandwagon back then or if you’ve not been successful yet in your luffa growing adventures, you ar...

Last week we talked all about what goes into creating and managing your compost pile and then we talked with Stan Slaughter who gave us even more info and talked a little about how beginners can get started composting. Now that we know what the essential components are for an effective compost pile, let’s talk about the different types of compost systems that are out there. Whether you opt for a p...

Kansas City based artist and educator Stan Slaughter has been traveling the country singing songs and sharing stories with kids and adults since 1987. Stan helped create the very first Earth Day celebration in Kansas City and has made “Every Day is Earth Day” his motto ever since. Speaking at Master Gardeners’ groups, teaching adults in compost workshops , singing at water festivals and zoos, and...

Right now, many of us are getting our garden beds ready for the gardening season or if you’re in a warmer climate, your beds may need a refresh before moving on to your next round of planting. In either case, you know I’m going to recommend the use of compost. Not only is compost great at adding nutrients and increasing the soil organic matter, but it’s also a great way to feed the microbiota in t...

I started gardening when some of my kids were fairly young. The youngest was in kindergarten, but the oldest was already a freshman in high school. But, my mom had my brother and I in the garden when we were still in preschool. In fact, that cover photo for this episode is my brother and I in our backyard garden in Colorado. I don’t remember a whole lot of specific things about being in the garden...

When you walk into the garden center, that potting soil aisle can be absolutely overwhelming. Potting mix, potting soil, seed starter, soilless medium; the variety and possibilities are endless. Which do you choose? And does it really make a difference when you’re starting your seeds indoors? The answer, like most everything in gardening, is … maybe. Today I’m going to talk about the difference be...

It is time, my gardening friends! Many of us are getting our spring seedlings going as we speak. Now whether you’ve been starting your own seeds indoors for years or you are new to getting a jump on the gardening season in this way, it can sometimes be a challenge. One year you may have beautiful, strong plants that take off the moment you put them outside in the garden and the next year you may h...

I talk all the time about the importance of soil testing and usually we’re chatting about the nutrient deficiencies that can be discovered and amended through those test results. But what we don’t talk about as frequently is one other result you get from a soil test and that’s your soil’s pH. Most garden vegetables do best in a soil pH that’s slightly acidic, generally between 5.8 and 7.0, with a...

Last week we talked about timing your seed starts for your cool weather crops and that was based mainly on the last average frost date in spring for your area or your average daily temperatures, for you warmer climate folks. But, what about the warm-weather plants? If you determined to save some money in the garden this year by starting your own summer crops from seed instead of buying starts from...

The start of the new year in the northern hemisphere often turns us toward thoughts of our garden already. Those seed catalogs start rolling in, the days slowly start to get a little bit longer, we start to get a little restless, but it really isn’t time to start those seeds just yet in most areas. This will depend on your growing zone, of course, and when your last spring frost date is, but it wi...

Hello my gardening friends. I hope you are having a wonderful start to the new year thus far. Right now, I am working on all kinds of new things for the second season of the Just Grow Something podcast along with some other projects all designed to help you get the most out of your garden in 2022. Because of this, I will be taking a few weeks off from recording new episodes and, instead, will be r...

Hello my gardening friends. I hope you are having a wonderful start to the new year thus far. Right now, I am working on all kinds of new things for the second season of the Just Grow Something podcast along with some other projects all designed to help you get the most out of your garden in 2022. Because of this, I will be taking a few weeks off from recording new episodes and, instead, will be r...

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: testing your soil is the best way to find out what is lacking in your garden as far as nutrients are concerned and the earlier you test it, the better. Testing your soil in the off-season before spring rolls around gives you an earlier start toward correcting any deficiencies. Fall and winter are the best times to amend your soil with organic components b...

This episode let’s reflect a little bit on our gardens this past year. What went well? What didn’t? I refer to these as wins and lessons, not losses, because every activity in the garden is a learning experience. Some are just a little bit less pleasant than others. Even though they may not have been productive in the sense of producing a harvest, they will always be productive in the sense of bet...