How To Grow Garlic At Home

Growing garlic yourself is astoundingly simple; there are just a few rules you have to follow to ensure a healthy crop. Also it should be mentioned that there are two different groups of garlic: softneck and hardneck varieties. Today, we are talking about hardneck...

Making Garden Beds with Hand Tools

Spring is right around the corner, which means it’s time to start prepping our garden beds for this years first plantings! At the BELL Garden we grow in several types of garden beds including raised beds, but today we are going to learn how to start a garden with...

What is an indeterminate tomato?

If you have heard the terms “determinate” and “indeterminate” in regard to tomatoes, what does that mean? In general, an indeterminate tomato plant is one that will produce fruit (the edible tomato) over an extended period of time.  This allows the gardener to harvest...

A Short Lesson on Seed Starting

We are nearing that time of year to start our seeds indoors. Today we are going to talk about what a seed needs to sprout so that we can have healthy plants to set out in spring. Germination Before you start seeds at home, there are a few things you should know about...

Starting Seeds with Egg Cartons

It’s February, which is the time to finish up the garden plan you’ve been working on and get some seeds started indoors! Today we are going to learn how to use recycled egg cartons to start a variety of seeds and then transplant them to larger pots until they are...

5 Tips for Starting Seeds Indoors

We have all been in the position where we are wanting to start giving our green thumb a go. Having seedlings sprout up is just about as heat warming to us gardeners as watching a child be born or watching our favorite pet grow up. We sometimes because of weather,...

When is the best time to plant tomatoes?

Spring is here and the stores are full of tomato plants ready to be picked up and plopped in the ground. But when is the best time to do that? The first thing to think about is that tomatoes are warm weather plants, so you don’t want to get them in the ground until...

How To Make A Lasagna Garden Bed

At the BELL Garden we try to promote gardening tactics that are accessible to the home gardener and reduce their workload while building fertility. Lasagna gardening (or sheet composting) is one method of bed preparation that is easy, effective and sustainable. It can...

Infusing Oils for Kitchen & Body

Infusing herbs in oil is one of the easiest ways to extract the medicinal or culinary properties of herbs that make them so desirable. Using these infused herbal oils, different body care products like salves, lip balms, lotions and massage oils can be made. You can...

Making Herbal Salves At Home

Last week we learned how to infuse our own herbal oils. Today, we are going to learn how to make our own healing salve using what we made. What is a Salve? A salve is a versatile ointment applied to the surface of the body. It can be used to help heal small wounds,...