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Home Garden Tips

Gardening is a fun hobby, but it can be hard to get started. Home Garden Joy strives to make it easy and fun to begin your new garden. This section is devoted to many how-to tips: watering, soil, seed starting, composting, USDA hardiness zones, and all the things I've learned as I grew up with experienced gardeners by my side.  You'll find tips and tricks, and plenty of practice advice, too.

 

a tomato hornworm with parasitic wasp larvae on it

How to Get Rid of Tomato Hornworm

pink rose

Organic Gardening Tip: Banana Peels, Coffee Grinds and Eggshells for Composting

bee watering

Make a Bee Water Station with Dollar Store Finds

a slope in the garden planted with phlox

Easy Landscaping Ideas for a Hill or Slope

watering can with plants

Japanese Beetle Grubs: Identify and Control

fall garden update

Pruning Crape Myrtle – the Basics

squash bug nymphs

Where Do Bugs Go in the Winter?

clover in the driveway

New Weed Killer Tips Video

What Is Organic Gardening and Why Go Organic?

a red wheelbarrow filled with mulch with a shovel leaning against it

Cold Frame vs Greenhouse

a wheelbarrow with bag of soil, trowel, pots and plants

Easy Monthly Fall Garden Clean-Up Checklist

Homemade Weed Killers – More Harm Than Good

Planting a Symbolic Garden – Remembering People by Their Plants

a wheelbarrow with bag of soil, trowel, pots and plants

Why Get a Soil Test Done in the Fall?

spittlebugs

What Is This Foam on My Plant?

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Pumpkins in the pumpkin patch

October Gardening: Tasks and Tips

October is the time of year for pumpkins, squash, scrunching through piles of fall leaves, and enjoying the last of the lovely weather before winter sets in. Here in Virginia, October can go either way — sometimes it stays warm, and sometimes the first frosts move in and finish off the summer vegetables. At this…

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A head of bok choy growing in my garden.

How to Grow Bok Choy

I learned how to grow bok choy through trial and error. Last fall, I noticed some beautiful heads of Chinese cabbage (napa cabbage) at our local farmer’s market. When I asked the proprietor where it was grown, I found it was grown not five miles from my house! Well, that means I could grow all…

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A bench with a zinc pail filled with apples. On the bench, squash, apples, and gardening tools

September Gardening: Tasks & Tips

Fall is the time for mums, for pumpkins, and another round of pansies — for soft golden twilights and leaves crunching underfoot. September is the last month here in zones 6 and 7 when the garden is still lush and full. We’re harvesting the last of the tomatoes here at Seven Oaks, my farm near…

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An assassin bug, blending into the roadway

Assassin Bugs – Scary Looking, But Beneficial Insects

We meet the strangest neighbors while walking the dog. This assassin bug was strolling across the pavement on a hot summer’s evening when we walked our dog. At first, I thought it was a wolf spider, but the leg arrangement, plus the narrower body, made me decide to snap a picture and use Google Lens…

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