Soil
-
Putting Raised Beds to Bed Without Tilling
Somewhere along the way, putting the garden to bed became synonymous with digging it up. Fall spading, tilling in amendments, turning the beds, all of it framed as good hygiene. Putting raised beds to bed without tilling is not just possible, it is a sound way to build soil over time, and it happens to…
-
Mulching Your Garden for a Montana Winter
Bare soil has a rough time over a Missoula winter. Between freeze-thaw cycles, wind, and the snowmelt that comes and goes all season, an uncovered bed can lose structure, crust over, and greet you in April with a weed crop underway. Mulching for winter heads off much of that for the cost of an afternoon,…
-
Cover Crops for Missoula Gardens: Feed Your Soil While It Rests
One of the cheapest soil improvements available to a Missoula garden is a bag of seed you scatter in September. Cover crops, plants grown not to eat but to protect and feed the soil, are standard practice on good farms and weirdly rare in home gardens, mostly because nobody tells home gardeners how simple the…
-
Missoula Soil: What You’re Working With and How to Fix It
Many struggling Missoula gardeners say they’ve tried everything and their garden still isn’t producing the way they expect. They’ve watered consistently, chosen good varieties, and planted at the right time. Often the problem is the soil. Missoula soil varies more than people realize, and what’s under your garden has a big influence on how your…
-
Growing More Than a Garden: Lessons from Missoula’s Short Growing Season
There was a point when I thought gardening was just about growing plants. You put something in the ground, water it, maybe add some fertilizer, and hope for the best. And sometimes it worked… but a lot of times it didn’t. I’d get frustrated with pests, tired of watering constantly, and confused about why some…