When Should You Sow Your Next Crop? Count Back from Frost
Skip the month-by-month chart. Count back from your last and first frost dates using days to maturity, frost tolerance, and fall day-length.
Planning and Design
Strategic garden planning, variety selection, planting calendars, layout, crop rotation, and companion planting guides.
Will That Variety Even Finish Before Your First Frost?
Days to maturity only means something against your frost-free window. How to subtract the 10-14 day buffer packet numbers leave out and pick varieties that finish.
You Can Still Grow a Full Harvest in Acidic or Alkaline Soil
Sort vegetables by the width of the pH band each one tolerates, then match them to the soil you already have instead of rebuilding the bed this season.
Four-Year Rotation Order That Keeps Small Beds Productive
A concrete four-year rotation order for small raised beds and containers: legumes, brassicas, roots and alliums, fruiting crops, how to run it in less space.
How to Plan Companion Planting Around Evidence, Not Folklore
Companion planting works when you pick the mechanism first — host-finding disruption, trap crops, beneficial habitat, legume nitrogen, or shade — instead of copying a chart.
Why Trap Crops Beat Companion Planting for Flea Beetles
Flea beetles ignore repelling companions. Trap crops work because they concentrate the pest where you can remove it, plus the timing and the swap-out.
How Crop Rotation Tells What to Plant After Lettuce and Peas
Plant peas or beans after lettuce and brassicas or leafy greens after peas. A family-first rotation plan for small urban beds and containers.