Gerd Garden

Growing food and shade in a hot, dry yard, in the space you actually have.

Gerðr, whose name means an enclosed field: the garden the sun-god crossed nine nights to win.

Picks

Half the Plant Cover Chart Is Not About FrostTen of the twenty best-selling plant covers are frost cloth. Six protect tree bark. And the two with real review counts rank fourteenth and sixteenth.Read →
What to Give a Gardener When the Chart Sells PoisonSeventeen of the top twenty products on the gardening chart are pest control. There is not one garden tool on it, which makes it a poor place to buy a gift.Read →
The Indoor Gardening Chart Has No Light On ItThe indoor growing chart is fertilizer and potting mix top to bottom. It sells no grow light at all, and light is what actually limits a houseplant.Read →
What a Raised Bed Costs You in WaterFifteen of the top twenty watering products are hoses, nozzles and sprinklers. A raised bed wants none of them, and the chart has no answer for one.Read →
Container Gardening for Beginners: Pots, Soil and DrainageThe soils chart's number one is a cactus mix and twelve of its top fifteen are houseplant food. What that tells you about growing in pots.Read →
Mosquito Control for a Backyard: What the Chart SellsFour of the six best-selling garden products are flying-insect traps, and none of them touches a mosquito. The one that works sits at number fifteen.Read →
Expandable Garden Hose vs Rubber: What the Chart SaysThree expandable hoses sit high on Amazon's watering chart with the lowest ratings on it, against a hose at number one with a hundred thousand reviews.Read →
October Is the Desert SpringPhoenix plants its real spring in October. What the seed and soil charts are selling right now, and what a low-desert fall planting actually needs.Read →
Surviving a Phoenix August: Shade, Mulch and When You WaterThe garden charts sell hoses, nozzles and fertilizer. What gets a plant through a Phoenix August is shade, mulch and the hour you water.Read →
Backyard Birding Is Mostly a Squirrel ProblemThe birding chart is nectar, seed, and three different ways of losing an argument with a squirrel. Two of them actually work.Read →
A Phoenix Yard in Summer Is Mostly a Pest ProblemThe number one seller in Amazon's whole gardening category is ant bait. In a desert yard that tracks — summer here is less about growing than about defending.Read →
Beginner Garden Tools: What to Buy FirstPruners, a trowel and reusable ties do most of the work in a small yard. What to look for, and the mistake that wastes the money.Read →
Drip Irrigation for a Phoenix Yard: What to Buy FirstThe four parts of a drip system that survive a Phoenix summer, and the two mistakes that kill new gardens here.Read →

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