Milpa Gardens - guides and explainers https://milpa.garden/feed.xml 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z Milpa Gardens What's eating my plants? Reading the damage before you act https://milpa.garden/guides/whats-eating-my-plants/ 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z Match the holes, the trails and the cut stems to the culprit first - then use the fix that actually works. Most of it isn't spray, and some damage costs nothing. Weeds - what actually works, and the folklore that doesn't https://milpa.garden/guides/weeds/ 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z Two habits beat everything: never let a weed set seed, and keep the soil covered. The mulch depths, the shallow hoe, the vinegar myth, and the weeds you plant yourself. Soil myths - sand in clay, coffee grounds, banana peels, and what actually works https://milpa.garden/guides/soil-myths/ 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z The most-repeated soil advice online is free, sounds sensible, and mostly does nothing - and one tip makes your soil worse. Each one, and the boring thing that works. Saving seed - which crops come true, and which will surprise you https://milpa.garden/guides/seed-saving/ 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z Tomatoes, peppers, beans and peas come true from saved seed. Squash, corn and the cabbages will surprise you. Which is which, and how to clean, dry and store seed. Making compost - hot piles, cold piles, and what to leave out https://milpa.garden/guides/making-compost/ 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z How to make compost that actually finishes: what goes in, hot versus cold piles, the myths worth skipping, and the one contamination risk worth taking seriously. Homemade pest and weed remedies - what backfires, what fades, and what actually works https://milpa.garden/guides/homemade-pest-remedies/ 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z Dish soap, vinegar, eggshells, human hair - the free kitchen-cupboard fixes. The one most often sold as the safe choice is the one that damages your plants. Harvest and keeping - when to pick, and how to make it last https://milpa.garden/guides/harvest-and-keeping/ 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z The picking signs for each crop, which ones must cure before they'll keep, the three kinds of pantry, and what should never see the refrigerator. Garden folklore - moon planting, midday watering, and talking to your plants https://milpa.garden/guides/garden-folklore/ 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z Three old beliefs that cost nothing to hold - except the one that leaves a wilting plant unwatered in a heatwave. What's actually known about each. The fruit tree guild, role by role - which parts are load-bearing and which are folklore https://milpa.garden/guides/fruit-tree-guild/ 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z The permaculture apple-tree guild looks the same on every blog. Some of it is real, some has nothing behind it - here's the whole thing graded, claim by claim. Do plants really affect their neighbours? Allelopathy, living mulch, and what the evidence supports https://milpa.garden/guides/do-plants-affect-their-neighbours/ 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z Some plants genuinely change the ground for the ones beside them - and one will kill your tomatoes. But the real effects look nothing like the companion chart. Cold frames and low tunnels - honest weeks, bought cheap https://milpa.garden/guides/cold-frames-and-low-tunnels/ 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z What cold frames, low tunnels and row covers really buy - the degrees, the weeks, and the venting chore that decides everything - plus what to grow under each. Your hardiness zone does not know your frost date https://milpa.garden/explainers/your-zone-does-not-know-your-frost-date/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z Zone, frost dates and latitude are three different numbers that answer three different questions. Nearly every garden tool uses the first one for all three. Why this planner will never give you a companion-planting chart https://milpa.garden/explainers/why-no-companion-planting-chart/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z The grid of good and bad neighbours is the most-copied thing in garden writing, and one of the least examined. Here's what happens when you actually check it. What pollination actually needs, and what nobody can tell you https://milpa.garden/explainers/what-pollination-actually-needs/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z Some crops set fruit alone; some need an insect to carry the pollen. That difference decides what a bad year means - and one part, no app can honestly claim to know. What a milpa is, and why Three Sisters is only part of it https://milpa.garden/explainers/what-a-milpa-is/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z The best-known polyculture in North American gardening is really the northern tip of a much older field system - and the difference comes down to scale. What a garden planner usually is, and what this one is instead https://milpa.garden/explainers/what-a-garden-planner-usually-is/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z The category is a solved product with a dozen good versions. This one is built on the opposite premise - not a feature you could bolt onto the others. Rotation belongs to the ground, not to the bed https://milpa.garden/explainers/rotation-belongs-to-the-ground/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z Most garden apps pin crop history to a bed - move the beds and it's gone. Here's why this one attaches history to the soil instead, and what that gets you. How this is built - a rules corpus in git, and an app that is only its front end https://milpa.garden/explainers/how-this-is-built/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z The real product is a versioned YAML corpus with evidence grades and an engine checked against it. The web app is a thin layer on top - the least interesting part. Growing tomatoes - the crop that needs a decision before a seed https://milpa.garden/guides/growing-tomatoes/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z A tomato is either determinate or indeterminate. That one word on the label decides its spacing, its support, and when it stops - everything else follows. Growing summer squash - two plants is plenty https://milpa.garden/guides/growing-summer-squash/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z The most over-planted vegetable in the garden. Why one zucchini buries a household, what bush-or-vining changes about its space, and why the first flowers fall off. Rhubarb - the stalks are food, the leaves are poison https://milpa.garden/guides/growing-rhubarb/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z Rhubarb is one of the easiest perennials to plant, and the only common vegetable where part of the harvest is toxic. Which part, why, and two myths worth ignoring. Growing peas - the crop that wants to be planted too early https://milpa.garden/guides/growing-peas/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z Peas punish waiting. They go in weeks before the last frost, climb with tendrils, and quit the moment summer arrives - which changes how you plan the whole row. Growing grapes - a decade-long tenant that arrives before its house https://milpa.garden/guides/growing-grapes/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z A grape isn't a vegetable-bed decision. It lives twenty years, needs its trellis up before planting day, and wants the job most gardeners skip - real pruning. Growing cucumbers - a vine that pays you back for a trellis https://milpa.garden/guides/growing-cucumbers/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z Cucumbers grow fine on the ground and better up a trellis - straighter fruit, less space. Vining or bush, why you pick daily, and why a bitter one is stressed. Growing beans - pole or bush, and what the roots leave behind https://milpa.garden/guides/growing-beans/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z The same bean is a knee-high bush or an all-season climbing vine - the packet decides. How to grow both, and the truth about the nitrogen everyone repeats. Currants and gooseberries - check your state before you plant https://milpa.garden/guides/currants-and-gooseberries/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z One of the few fruits that crop in part shade - and the only one with a legal history. What that old ban actually protects, and how to plant around it. Bush or vining? Why the same squash seed needs one metre or four https://milpa.garden/guides/bush-or-vining/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z Two packets can both say "squash" and grow plants that need four times the room. The word that decides your spacing isn't the one most people read. Don't plant berries where the tomatoes were - the rotation rule that rotation misses https://milpa.garden/guides/berries-after-tomatoes/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z You can rotate perfectly, wait three years, clear the debris, and still kill a raspberry patch. Verticillium ignores plant families and lingers in soil for years. Why won't my tomatoes set fruit? Heat, blossom drop, and the fix that isn't shade https://milpa.garden/guides/why-tomatoes-dont-set-fruit/ 2026-08-21T00:00:00Z A tomato plant covered in flowers that drop without making fruit is usually being told to stop by the temperature - and specifically by the night temperature, which is why the shade cloth everyone reaches for does nothing. What is a milpa? The fuller system behind the Three Sisters https://milpa.garden/guides/what-is-a-milpa/ 2026-08-21T00:00:00Z The Three Sisters is the famous three-crop version; the milpa it comes from is a whole interplanted field. What the milpa adds, what it looks like planted, and how to grow a piece of one. How to transplant seedlings https://milpa.garden/guides/transplanting-seedlings/ 2026-08-21T00:00:00Z Moving a seedling into the garden is where a lot of them get set back or killed. How to harden off, handle, and set a transplant - plus the one crop you plant deeper than it grew, and the reason. The soil test - the best $15 in gardening https://milpa.garden/guides/the-soil-test/ 2026-08-21T00:00:00Z A soil test replaces guessing with knowing - what it measures, why no honest tool will hand you fertilizer numbers without one, and how to take one. The rare piece of garden advice that saves money. Starting seeds indoors https://milpa.garden/guides/starting-seeds-indoors/ 2026-08-21T00:00:00Z Which crops actually need a head start, how many weeks before your last frost to sow them, and the honest list of what you should just sow straight in the ground instead. Staking, caging, and trellising - how to support your plants https://milpa.garden/guides/staking-and-support/ 2026-08-21T00:00:00Z Some plants can't hold themselves up, and left on the ground they sprawl, rot, and yield poorly. Which crops need support, what kind, and why you put it in the day you plant - not the day it flops. Do you need to rotate crops in a raised bed? https://milpa.garden/guides/rotate-or-replace-raised-bed/ 2026-08-21T00:00:00Z Yes - the pests and diseases live in the soil, not the frame, so a raised bed needs rotating like any ground. Here's why, and why digging out the soil is the costly way to do the same job. How to read a planting calendar https://milpa.garden/guides/read-a-planting-calendar/ 2026-08-21T00:00:00Z A planting chart that says "sow in April" is wrong for most of the country. The skill worth having is reading any calendar as an offset from your own frost dates - here's how, at both ends of the season. What to do with last year's raised bed soil https://milpa.garden/guides/raised-bed-soil/ 2026-08-21T00:00:00Z Your raised bed soil isn't used up at the end of the season - here's why it settles, how to refresh it with compost, and why replacing it is almost never the answer. Growing carrots and other root vegetables https://milpa.garden/guides/growing-root-vegetables/ 2026-08-21T00:00:00Z Roots are among the easiest crops to grow and the easiest to get subtly wrong - here's the loose soil they need, why feeding them like leafy crops backfires, and what actually causes forked carrots. Understanding your frost dates https://milpa.garden/guides/frost-dates/ 2026-08-21T00:00:00Z Your last and first frost dates are the clock the whole garden runs on - what they mean, why they're a probability and not a promise, and how they decide when each crop can go out. Do beans really feed the corn? https://milpa.garden/guides/do-beans-feed-the-corn/ 2026-08-21T00:00:00Z The most repeated fact about the Three Sisters - that the beans fix nitrogen to feed the corn beside them - is half true, and the half that's wrong is the half people rely on. Here's what actually happens. Cover crops and green manure for the home garden https://milpa.garden/guides/cover-crops-and-green-manure/ 2026-08-21T00:00:00Z A cover crop is a plant you grow to feed the soil, not to eat - what they do, which kind fixes nitrogen and which just builds organic matter, and how to fit one into a small garden's off-season. Companion planting, honestly - what the evidence actually says https://milpa.garden/guides/companion-planting-honestly/ 2026-08-21T00:00:00Z Most companion-planting chart entries are tradition, not research. Here's the short list of pairings that hold up, the famous ones that don't, and how to tell which is which. How to build a raised garden bed https://milpa.garden/guides/build-a-raised-bed/ 2026-08-21T00:00:00Z How wide, how long, how deep, and what to build it from - the one dimension that actually matters, why the rest is up to you, and how to fill it without wasting money. Where to put a garden - sun, water, and drainage https://milpa.garden/guides/where-to-put-a-garden/ 2026-08-20T00:00:00Z The single biggest decision you make is where the garden goes, and you make it before you plant anything - how much sun vegetables need, why standing water is a dealbreaker, and how the site shapes the plan. Succession planting - a steady harvest instead of a glut https://milpa.garden/guides/succession-planting/ 2026-08-20T00:00:00Z Plant all your lettuce at once and you get a wall of it for two weeks, then nothing. Succession planting - small, staggered sowings - gives you a steady supply of the crops you eat continuously. Why is my squash not setting fruit? Pollination for the home gardener https://milpa.garden/guides/pollination-and-fruit-set/ 2026-08-20T00:00:00Z Lots of flowers and no fruit is usually not a disease - it's pollination. How squash, cucumbers, corn, and the crops that need a partner actually get pollinated, and the honest short list of what you can do about it. Plant your first bed, step by step https://milpa.garden/guides/plant-your-first-bed/ 2026-08-20T00:00:00Z A first-season walkthrough - pick a few forgiving crops, count from your frost dates, start what needs a head start, harden it off, and get it in the ground at the right time. How to water a vegetable garden https://milpa.garden/guides/how-to-water/ 2026-08-20T00:00:00Z How often, how much, and how - the honest answers. Why no one can hand you a watering schedule, the finger test that replaces it, and the two habits (deep, and at the base) that prevent most trouble. Field, in-ground bed, raised bed, or container - which to choose https://milpa.garden/guides/garden-types/ 2026-08-20T00:00:00Z The four ways to hold a garden, what each one costs and buys, and how to pick the one that fits your yard, your soil, and how much work you want. How to build a Three Sisters mound https://milpa.garden/guides/build-a-three-sisters-mound/ 2026-08-20T00:00:00Z What the mound is for, how big to shape it, and the staggered order to plant corn, beans, and squash - with the exact block the corn needs to pollinate. Frost dates vs hardiness zones vs day length https://milpa.garden/guides/frost-dates-zones-daylength/ 2026-08-15T00:00:00Z Three different numbers describe your climate, and they do three different jobs - your zone, your frost dates, and your latitude. Most garden tools blur them into "your zone," which is wrong. Here's which is which. Container vegetable gardening for beginners https://milpa.garden/guides/container-vegetable-gardening/ 2026-08-15T00:00:00Z You can grow real food in pots on a patio, balcony, or step - here's how to pick the pot, what to fill it with, what to grow, and the one habit that decides whether it lives. Floating row covers - frost protection, pest exclusion, and the one rule https://milpa.garden/guides/floating-row-covers/ 2026-08-14T00:00:00Z A lightweight fabric that buys you a few degrees of frost, keeps pests off physically, and warms the soil - plus the one hard rule about when you have to take it off, or you'll get no fruit. Crop rotation for the home garden https://milpa.garden/guides/crop-rotation/ 2026-08-14T00:00:00Z Move crops by plant family so soil-borne pests and diseases can't settle in - what to rotate, how far apart, and what rotation can and can't do. Blossom-end rot - why tomatoes rot at the bottom, and what actually stops it https://milpa.garden/guides/blossom-end-rot/ 2026-08-14T00:00:00Z The sunken black patch on the bottom of your tomatoes isn't a disease and usually isn't a calcium shortage - so the eggshells and Epsom salts won't help. Here's what it really is and the fix that works.