Gardeners spend hours growing a few tomatoes simply because it’s the only way to get a truly great tasting tomato. What can you do in the garden to make your food taste even better? Learn to grow great tasting food Taste vs Flavor Do tomatoes have great taste or great flavor? Are taste and flavor just different words for the same thing? Unfortunately, the use of these two terms is often incorrect and the title of this post is a good example. In general conversation, we use the word taste to reflect the sensation of food in our mouth, but strictly speaking, taste only refers to the sensation th ..read more

The next book in my Science for Gardeners series is ready for pre-order on Amazon. This book is all about food nutrition and safety. The book answers the question, what is nutrition and how do garden practices affect nutrition. For example, does organic gardening produce more nutritious food? Are heirlooms more nutritious than hybrids? How do various cooking and preservation techniques affect the quality of food? Is spinach really full of iron and can our gut absorb it? A good part of the book is dedicated to food safety. What happens to pathogens during harvesting, preserving and cooking food ..read more

I had the pleasure of being a guest on the Bunny in the Garden Podcast show where we discussed growing nutritious food and my new book Food Science for Gardeners.  Join Bunny Guinness and myself as we discuss interesting things about food.  What is nutrient dense food? Does Brix indicate nutrition? How much do we really know about nutrition? Is organic food more nutritious What is in vegetable water? Listen to Bunny in the Garden Podcast now   Click to see other podcasts About Bunny in the Garden Podcast Bunny in the Garden with someone special, someone who is well known for ..read more

Raised beds can be a great way to garden but don’t believe everything you read about them. They aren’t magical! They are a box, that holds soil or a soil-like material. Plants get water and nutrients from them and sun from the sky, just like plants growing in the ground. If you understand these myths you will grow great food. What is a Raised Bed? The term raised bed is a bit confusing. If you add a few inches of soil to a garden bed so that it is raised a few inches above ground level, it is a raised bed. When most people talk about raised beds for vegetable growing, they mean a be ..read more

I had the pleasure of being a guest on Canada’s Local Gardener Podcast where we discussed nutrients in the garden.  Join  Shauna Dobbie and myself as we discuss interesting things about soil and fertilizer.  Do you need to fertilize We don’t feed plants Fertilizing soilless mixes Problem with too much phosphorus Do nitrogen fixing plants add nitrogen to soil Why organic fertilizer does not work in vegetable gardens Listen to Canada’s Local Gardener Podcast now   Click to see other podcasts About Canada’s Local Gardener Podcast Canada’s Local Gardener podcast features Dor ..read more

You built some great raised garden beds and now you need to fill them but soil is heavy to move and expensive. You look around for a better alternative and find a hundred suggestions online. Which is the best option? I started using raised beds back in 1974 and have tried a lot of variations over the years. In this post I’ll combine the science with my experience and tell you what works and what doesn’t, and give you the best option for filling raised beds. Wooden raised bed ready for filling, source: Laird Kitchen & Bath Height Matters If your raised bed is less than 12″ (30 cm) high, us ..read more

We have just launched the Garden Fundamentals Podcast Show. Now you can drive, jog and even work in the garden while listening to gardening information from Garden Fundamentals. Garden Fundamentals Podcast The Podcast Show will use a similar format to many of our YouTube videos where Robert Pavlis presents interesting gardening information. We may have guests from time to time, but that is not our main goal. It will cover a wide range of topics from seeding to growing and even garden design. And of course, we’ll discuss many gardening myths. How to Connect With the Podcast Each podcast episo ..read more

Adding clover to lawns is becoming very popular and it sounds so beneficial for pollinators. Unfortunately, the benefits are not nearly as good as claimed. If you are thinking of creating a clover lawn, you need to read this post. It could save you a lot of time and headaches. The claims for clover lawns are wishful thinking. What Is A Clover Lawn? A clover lawn can consist of only clover or a combination of clover and different types of turfgrass. Clover is a dense ground cover that it also known as a shamrock trefoil. It forms a nice green mat and spreads by stolons  and seeds. There ar ..read more

The snow has melted and it’s a tradition; dethatching your lawn. But should you be doing this to your lawn? Read on and you just might save yourself some work. Lawn Thatch – about 1.5″ thick, source: The Lawn Company What is Lawn Thatch? Thatch is the build up of old grass roots and rhizomes. It is not the result of leaving grass clippings on the lawn. In fact grass clippings left on the lawn will reduce the amount of thatch. As the clippings decompose they also help decompose old roots and rhizomes. Different grasses produce thatch at different rates. Warm climate grasses such as zoysia, Berm ..read more

Is the lawn good or bad for the environment? You can look at this problem from different points of view and today I would like to examine the specific question; do lawns reduce CO2 levels. A study done by Scotts  Miracle Gro concluded that “The lawn is a good and valued resource for sequestering carbon, even under various typical lawn management practices”. Is this really true??? The answer is more complicated than you might think. Lawns reduce CO2 levels, source: Jeremy Page  Carbon Sinking CO2 In our modernized society we produce too much CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) and if it is not causi ..read more