Beginner-friendly gardening guides from Laura Bennett — a backyard gardener in Asheville, North Carolina (USDA Zone 7a) who’s been growing food and cut flowers for nine years. Her 14-raised-bed garden, cut-flower patch, and dahlia collection are where every guide starts. You’ll find seasonal planting calendars for Zones 5–9, step-by-step guides for raised beds and container gardens, dahlia and hydrangea care, companion planting, no-dig methods, pest control without chemicals, and the mistakes Laura made so you don’t have to. If a technique survives a North Carolina summer and a wet spring in her own beds, it makes it onto HomeGlowHacks. Browse the latest gardening articles below.
No-dig gardening is exactly what it sounds like — you build a garden without ever turning the soil. No tilling, no double-digging, no back-breaking spade work. You simply layer compost on top of the ground and plant directly into it. And here is the part that surprises most people: no-dig gardens consistently outperform tilled gardens … Read more
Why Birds Belong in Your Garden A garden without birds is just a collection of plants. Add birds, and it becomes something alive — a dynamic ecosystem where chickadees hunt for caterpillars on your tomato plants, goldfinches perch on your coneflowers, and hummingbirds hover at your salvia. Birds aren’t just beautiful visitors. They’re pest controllers, … Read more
Growing an avocado tree from a pit is one of those garden projects that feels like actual magic. You take the seed from an avocado you just ate for lunch, stick some toothpicks in it, suspend it over water, and watch it crack open and send out roots and a stem over the next few … Read more
The first year I grew lettuce, I planted forty seedlings on the same Saturday in April. Three weeks later I had more salad than my entire street could eat. Two weeks after that, every single head had bolted and turned bitter in the heat. I had gone from drowning in lettuce to having none at … Read more
I built my first raised bed from a Pinterest tutorial that looked gorgeous in the photos. Six weeks later the untreated pine was warping, the soil had sunk four inches, and my tomatoes were drowning because there was no drainage. The bed looked pretty but it did not actually work for growing food. After rebuilding … Read more
You do not need a garden bed, a raised bed, or even a yard to grow incredible tomatoes. A 5-gallon bucket, some potting mix, and a sunny spot on a patio, balcony, or driveway is all it takes — and the tomatoes you grow in a bucket will taste infinitely better than anything from the … Read more
Why Most People Struggle With Peppers Peppers are one of those garden plants that seem like they should be easy — and in many ways, they are. But a surprising number of gardeners end up with pepper plants that grow lush, green foliage and then produce barely any fruit. Or they get a handful of … Read more
After a long winter of looking at brown, matted grass, there is nothing more satisfying than watching your lawn come back to life in spring. But here is the thing most beginners do not realize — what you do (and do not do) in March, April, and May sets the tone for your entire lawn … Read more
If you missed the early spring window and now it is April and you still have not planted anything, take a breath. You are not behind. April is one of the best months to start a vegetable garden across most of the United States, and depending on your USDA zone you can plant both cool-season … Read more
Weeds are the number one frustration for every gardener, and it feels like they grow faster than anything you actually want in your garden. But reaching for chemical herbicides is not the answer — especially if you are growing food, have pets, or care about the health of your soil. The good news is that … Read more
