Garden Planet Book

Most garden advice online is repeated, not checked. It gets copied from one blog to the next until nobody remembers where it started, and a fair amount of it is simply wrong — the ladybugs you release mostly leave, the compost you keep adding can eventually cause a problem, and the frost date you planted around was a coin flip you did not know you were taking.

This site is an attempt at the other thing. Every claim here traces back to university extension research or published trial data, linked so you can check it yourself. Where the research is ambiguous or where good sources disagree, it says so instead of picking whichever answer makes the better headline.

The focus is organic and no-spray growing — soil, pests, seed starting, and berries — for people growing food at home rather than at scale.

Start with a silo

• Organic Gardening, Actually — what the labels mean, what certification covers, and the half of the small-producer rule everyone omits
• Building Garden Soil — testing before amending, and why more compost is not always better
• No-Spray Pest and Disease Management — what works, what is folklore, and why "organic" does not mean "safe for bees"
• Seed Starting and Season Extension — frost date probability, soil temperature, and getting transplants through hardening off
• Growing Berries Organically — strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and the diseases that arrive on the plants

Reference

• Berry Planting Calendar by Zone
• Blackberry Chill Hour Requirements
• Glossary
• Extension Sources

New here? Start Here has the shortest useful path through the site.