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This category covers a wide range of topics focused around the benefits you will see when you learn to grow your own food. Benefits like self-sufficiency, health, cost savings, flavor, and fun!!

Explore this category for:

This category covers a wide range of topics focused around the benefits you will see when you learn to grow your own food. Benefits like self-sufficiency, health, cost savings, flavor, and fun!!

Explore this category for:

**Note: To help with self-sufficiency check out our facebook group where we have an active sharing community of beginning and experienced gardeners, all interested in sharing successes and failures. The group is called Grow Your Own Food at Home

Homemade Potting Soil vs Commercial: + Preventing Damping-Off

On our small farm I start our tomato and vegetable seeds from a homemade organic mixture, but I grow seedlings at a large scale as I am growing for the farmers’ markets. If you just want a few vegetables for your backyard garden or if you are growing produce in a balcony garden, you may …

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Best Pepper Varieties for the Italian Kitchen Garden

Planting an Italian kitchen garden for all your Italian cooking needs? Be sure to include some peppers. You will find mostly sweet pepper varieties in the Italian garden, with a few that have a mild spice. Find out more about the best types of Italian peppers to grow, their flavor, growing tips, and classic recipe …

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Tips for Growing Vegetables in Pots or Containers

For many people in urban settings, growing tomatoes and edible plants in pots is necessary due to space constraints (or lack of an area with 6 hours of direct sunlight). This video and post explains the 6 key requirements for growing food in containers or pots.  Jump to: Growing Vegetables in Pots | Choosing the …

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Chicory Varieties for Italian Kitchen Gardens: Grow and Cook

If you love Italian cooking and are experimenting with growing your own Italian herbs and vegetables, you will want to try some chicory in your Italian kitchen garden. This guide on growing chicory will help you decide between the best Italian chicory varieties and give you tips on growing, cooking and storing this delicious leafy …

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Mini Vegetables for Small Space Container Gardening

Short on garden space? You can still grow your favorite vegetables on a balcony, on a deck, on a roof top, or in a small side yard. Growing vegetables in small urban spaces is easier however if you opt for growing baby vegetables (aka mini vegetables). Jump to: Benefits and Nutrition of Baby Veggies | …

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Winter Squash Varieties For the Italian Kitchen Garden

Love cooking Italian food? Winter squash is one of the more important vegetables to Italian cuisine. The tastiest traditional Italian winter squash varieties aren’t available in-store however, so you need to either grow them yourself or find them at select farmers’ markets. With this guide, I’ll help you discover the best Italian squash varieties, and …

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14 Best Tomato Varieties Italian Kitchen Gardens

Cooks who love Italian cuisine can be very picky about their tomatoes, as a good tomato is indispensable to Italian cooking. The best Italian tomato varieties are not always available in US grocery stores however, and many a cook will therefore opt to grow their own tomatoes, whether that be in a pot on the …

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The Italian Kitchen Garden: Step by Step

The Italian villa vegetable garden is sometimes showcased as an intricate formal affair with water fountains and intricately shaped boxwood trees. Well, not all of us have the budget or skill to design these picture-perfect gardens, but that doesn’t need to prevent home gardeners from designing a backyard Italian vegetable garden that is both productive …

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12 Must-Grow Vegetables & Herbs for the Italian Kitchen Garden

Love Italian food? Use your backyard, your balcony or your large garden plot to grow your own Italian kitchen garden. Forget about sad supermarket produce or boring vegetable varieties, and enjoy home-grown vegetables and herbs that are traditional to great Italian cooking. Jump to: What Is an Italian Kitchen Garden? | What To Plant In …

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Flat Beans (Romano Beans) for the Italian Kitchen Garden

Take a leaf out of the Italians’ book and learn to grow and cook with Romano beans, a broad, flat bean in the same family as garden variety string beans. Romano beans are juicy, with a sweet flavor and a great crunch, and they come in a wonderful range of colors. Italian flat beans taste …

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Tips for Pollinating Fruits and Vegetables

Did you know that most of the fruits and vegetables in your home garden rely on bees, insects, and other pollinators to be able to produce their delicious crops? Learn which plants need insect pollination and how to get beneficial bugs to visit your garden. Jump to: |Why Pollination is Needed | Which Crops Need …

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Guide to Using Mulch for your Vegetable Garden

When used correctly, mulch can help protect your fruit and vegetable plants against the winter cold. Let’s have a look at the pros and cons of different types of mulch and which fruit or vegetable plants need Winter mulch the most. Jump to: What Is Mulch? | Which Plants Need Winter Mulch? | Pros & …

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Humane Ways to Keep Cats Out of the Garden

Free-roaming neighborhood cats digging up your flowers and veggies and using them as a litter box? You’re not alone. Luckily, there are humane solutions! Find out how to protect your young plants and seedlings from cat damage by making your garden space as unattractive to them as possible. Jump to: Problems Caused by Cats | …

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How To Grow the Sweetest Raspberries

If you’re tired of bland store-bought raspberries that mold in a couple of days, try growing your own. By choosing the right raspberry variety and following a few simple growing tricks, you’ll be able to produce super-sweet berries bursting with real raspberry flavor! Let’s have a look at everything you need to know about how …

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