Blog - Grow a Good Life

A tomato trellis is a freestanding structure usually made from wood or metal that is used to support the sprawling vines and heavy fruit of the tomato plant. Providing support for your tomato plants helps keep the plants healthy, so they can produce maximum yields. The type of trellis support you will need for your tomatoes depends on the variety you are growing. Read on for some creative DIY tomato trellis ideas.

9 Creative DIY Tomato Trellis Ideas

close up of homemade egg noodles

Homemade Egg Noodles

Chitting potatoes is also called greensprouting, or pre-sprouting. Chitting it is a way of preparing potatoes for planting by encouraging them to sprout before planting in the ground. This gives the tubers a head start and encourages faster growth and heavier crops once the seed potatoes are planted.

Chitting Potatoes Gives Them a Head Start

Monarda is a popular perennial plant used in bee and butterfly gardens. It is commonly known as Bee balm and its fragrant blossoms attract bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, and other pollinating insects. Monarda also has a long history of medicinal uses by Native American tribes, American Eclectic physicians, the Shakers, and herbalist.

How to Grow, Harvest, and Preserve Bee Balm (Monarda)

Close up view of a hand planting seeds in the garden.

13 Easy Vegetables to Direct Sow

basket of colorful vegetables

10 Reasons to Grow a Vegetable Garden

Growing your own seedlings from seed offers you more flexibly and control over your garden. You can choose your favorite varieties, grow the number of plants you need, and work within the planting dates that suit your growing area. Here are ten steps for starting seeds indoors.

10 Steps to Starting Seedlings Indoors

The end of the year is always a good time to reflect on the gardening articles that received the highest views, so I can see which posts you find the most helpful and useful. Evaluating the most popular posts helps me understand what kinds of information you are looking for and will shape the articles I write in the year to come as we share the journey to Grow a Good Life.

Top 10 Gardening Posts of 2015

slice of tourtiere meat pie on a white plate

Tourtière: A French-Canadian Meat Pie Recipe

jars of home canned tomato sauce on a table

Seasoned Tomato Sauce Recipe for Home Canning

Taking the effort to clean up the vegetable garden beds in fall makes it very easy to begin growing the following spring. Tips to do before the snow flies.

7 Tips to Prepare Your Vegetable Garden for Winter

What do you do after you have preserved all the harvest that you can and the garden is still producing? Even when you take the time to try to estimate how many plants to grow for fresh produce and enough to preserve, often times there is a bumper crop of one thing or another. Here are some ways to share the harvest bounty instead of tossing the extras into the compost bin.

4 Ways to Share the Garden Harvest Bounty