Planting and growing guides
Whether you’re a seasoned landscaper, just starting to garden, or need help with an established plot, we have guidelines and best practices for growing healthy plants in your yard and garden.
The Upper Midwest home gardening calendar shows the recommended timing for everything you need to do to grow great flower and vegetable gardens in Minnesota.
Check the Master Gardener Seed Trial recommendations each year for newly tested varieties of flowers and vegetables that grow well in Minnesota gardens.
Starting a garden
- Starting seeds indoors
- Planting the vegetable garden
- Raised bed gardens
- Growing edible container gardens(video)
- Cultivo de verduras, flores y hierbas en contenedores(video)
Maintaining and harvesting your garden
- Growing herbs in home gardens
- Companion planting — Companion planting is a great way to use space efficiently in the garden.
- Extending the growing season — Practical methods for heating the soil in spring and protecting your garden through the first frost.
- Planting for fall harvest — When you plant is as important as where and how if you want vegetables well into the fall.
- Composting in home gardens
- Controlling weeds in home gardens
- Cover crops and green manure in home gardens - Cover crops form a living mulch in gardens because they grow thickly among each other. They help reduce soil splash and erosion, and keep weeds in check.
- Herbicide injury on garden plants - Fruit, vegetable and ornamental plants can be injured by drift from herbicides that are sprayed on nearby lawns and crop fields to kill weeds.
Small-scale hydroponics — Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil. You can grow hydroponically all year long.
Care and maintenance of lawns and landscape plants
The Minnesota lawn care calendar is a handy schedule of activities that will help you keep your lawn healthy throughout the year.
- Clean and disinfect gardening tools and containers
- The effects of deicing salts on landscapes
- Hiring a tree care professional
- How to manage flood damage to trees
- How to manage deer damage on trees and other plants
- How to manage vole damage on lawns, trees and shrubs
- Planting and transplanting trees and shrubs
- Pruning trees and shrubs
- Staking and guying trees
- Storm damage to landscape trees
- Watering established trees and shrubs
- Watering newly planted trees and shrubs
- Winter care for trees and shrubs
- Woody vegetation control
- Video: Pruning Hydrangeas: Equipment, techniques and timing(7:33)
- Gardening in the shade
- The effects of deicing salts on landscapes
- Conserving water on drought-affected lawns
The Best Plants for 30 Tough Sites (2007)— Download a book of recommendations from Master Gardeners on the best plants for 30 tough garden sites, such as dry shade, slopes, lakeshores, etc. Includes lists of plants with special traits such as self-seeding, long-blooming, and minimal litter trees.
- Clean and disinfect gardening tools and containers
Properly disinfecting your tools can help keep diseases out of your garden and potted plants. - Herbicide injury on garden plants - Fruit, vegetable and ornamental plants can be injured by drift from herbicides that are sprayed on nearby lawns and crop fields to kill weeds.
- How to manage deer damage on trees and other plants
- Protecting plants from deer - RSDP research report
- How to manage vole damage on lawns, trees and shrubs
- How to trap moles
- Preventing pests in your yard and garden
Grow and care for houseplants
- Clean and disinfect gardening tools and containers
Properly disinfecting your tools can help keep diseases out of your garden and potted plants. - Growing bulbs indoors
- Light requirements for houseplants
- Starting seeds indoors
- Managing insects on indoor plants
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