Raised garden beds have gained popularity, especially by new gardeners. However, there seems to be confusion about raised garden beds vs container gardens. They often look the same, but they are fundamentally different. We wanted to explain it in this blog article. A raised garden bed is ...
Soil Preparation
Soil For Seedlings, Container Gardening, and Raised Beds
Good soil is essential for healthy plants. Soil for seedlings, container gardening, and raised beds is different than the dirt in your garden. Container gardening soil needs to be light, be able to retain moisture, and have enough nutrients to keep the plant growing. Here we share two ...
3 Great No Till Gardening Methods
We are constantly on the lookout for simpler and more effective gardening methods. Discovering the no-till method was a big step in this direction. I must admit that at first it almost sounded too good to be true. We were used to spading the whole garden by hand. But then again what does a "whole ...
Growing an indoor edible garden in soil
In this post, we talk about growing an indoor edible garden in soil. In our outdoor garden, growing in good organic soil is our very first choice. In an indoor garden, however, it is not our first choice. Why is that? Success and failure in growing great plants depend mostly on the ...
Preparing the Garden for Winter
Preparing the garden for winter is important for the garden soil and the perennial plants. We are in Zone 3 meaning winter temperature can drop to -40 degrees. In our particular area, this does not happen very often, but it might happen after a warm spell, where most of the snow melts. Protecting ...
Do Not Use Weed Control Fabric in the Garden
Just to roll some Weed Control Fabric (a.k.a. landscape fabric) out in your garden and not to worry about weeding anymore sounds good. Stopping weeds without dangerous chemicals, and doing it for many years - some give a 25 years guarantee, wow! But is this true, does it work as promised? Here are 3 ...
All About Starting a Garden
Here at Northern Homestead, we write about gardening a lot, general, and also especially about cold climate and short-growing season gardening. We have so much information here that it can be hard for a newbie to find it. So today we merge as much information as possible about starting a garden in ...
To Till or Not to Till the Garden
To till or not to till the garden is a blog post that we first published 5 years ago. We have gained more experience in no-till, and have also seen some confusion. So we thought that it's time to review the post and bring it up-to-date. Growing up on a homestead, our garden was cleaned up, ...
How to Create a New Garden Bed
Not even 100 years ago every family had a garden. Children learned from their parents and every house came with a more or less established garden. That has changed, but more and more people want to go back to gardening, and growing theyr own food. Gardens are rewarding and fun. How to create a new ...
Convert a hay field into a garden
How to convert a hay field into a garden. This spring our Community Garden offered us to do a no-till garden trial. We were immediately on board. We have been using a no-dig or till method in our home garden quite successfully. To convert a hay field is a bit of a different story, but eh, we are up ...
