If you love buying nuts with their shells, you likely have wondered if you could find a use for all those empty shells. Next time you have a large pile of nut or seed shells, don’t throw them out. Use them in your garden instead. Nut and seed shells can be easily composted, although being … Read more
Americans drink around 146 billion cups of coffee every year. If it takes 2 tablespoons of coffee grounds to make 1 cup of coffee, that’s nearly 4.8 trillion gallons of coffee grounds every single year. Naturally, gardeners want to avoid waste as much as possible, and will seek ways to use kitchen waste to fertilize … Read more
With growing concerns about runoff and contaminated water, homeowners with private wells are concerned about using chemicals in the yard and how it could affect their water supply. We all know that we should be extra careful when using pesticides on our property, but does lawn fertilizer pose a risk to well water? Is it … Read more
Any food you can think of will break down if left outside long enough. This is even true of harder organic materials like bones and shellfish shells. But just because it will eventually break down, does that mean you should compost it? Shellfish shells can be composted but will break down very slowly unless they … Read more
Lettuce is one of the easiest vegetables to grow, and it’s also one of the fastest to reach maturity, after radishes and small turnips. Lettuce is also a relatively light feeder – it doesn’t need high amounts of fertilizer. That said, lettuce grows very quickly in the presence of fertilizer. You can even try it … Read more
We’ve all heard that compost is practically the be-all and end-all of organic gardening, and I’m willing to accept that, but can you grow vegetables in only compost? This was a question I asked myself a few years ago, and now with a few more years of gardening experience, I’m in the camp of yes, … Read more