About

Answers for your home garden questions

Gardeners in the Southeast have fewer written guides available, as sources for reliable  gardening information, than gardeners in other regions of the US.

Small Garden News helps narrow the information-gap, providing information to help you grow more organic vegetables, herbs, fruits, and flowers in your organic home garden. More veggies, herbs, fruits, and flowers means your meals can be more varied, interesting, and hopefully healthful!

The information here is both experience- and research-based. The experiences are my own and those of other Southeastern gardeners. Where there is a conflict between research and reported experiences, you will get both, but research from reliable institutions (such as the research gardens of Rodale, assorted Universities, and Ecology Action) wins.

Pollinators also get a lot of coverage on this site, because without them our gardens would be less productive, and then our meals would get boring.

I love plants, especially the ones I can eat. Gardening, for me, is just one piece in that love of plants. I have come to love a lot of insects and other creepy-crawlies, too (but not all of them), because they are such a big part of the lives of plants.

My garden nerdiness, which shines through most of the writing here, I am sure, is also reflected in my having a degree in Botany and training in horticulture. 

That education and training has been tested in real-life experiences of gardening. I have been growing vegetables, herbs, fruits, and flowers in the Southeastern US for more than three decades.  I spent a couple of years gardening on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and then almost 30 years gardening in the Piedmont region of North Georgia. Then, I began a new gardening adventure on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in Spring of 2020.

All of this background and experience combines, through this website and other published materials, to help you grow more good food.

In addition to this writing online, I speak about gardening and related topics and give workshops and classes for garden clubs and other interested groups; I also write for others on a broader range of topics.