This site is a wealth of gardening resources and information! From gardening to using a compass to food preservation and off-grid living, there’s a very useful library here! But how do we find it? I’ve yet to meet a friendly website search engine. Here’s one compilation that will help, and I’m including more gardening-specific resources in this article.
But first, a few pointers about Internet searching. Plug your desired term into your favorite search engine and chances are it’ll return hundreds, if not thousands of hits. This site’s Search feature returns 19 pages using the term (without quotes) “gardening,” 17 pages using the term “garden resources,” and 41 pages using the term “garden plan.” That’s a lot to dig through! How can we cut that down to find the information we’re actually looking for?
How to efficiently search for gardening articles
The first way, whether using a website Search feature or a search engine, is to use very specific terms. For example, the terms (again, without quotes) “garden plan” and “apartment gardening” return articles on the first page of search results that directly address those topics. Boolean searching, which uses specific operators to refine results, can be very helpful but can also be a bit problematic. For example, enclosing the phrase “apartment gardening” in quotes doesn’t yield the article on apartment gardening. This is because using the quotes tells the Search feature that both words are required in the results. However, enclosing the word “apartment” in the search query yields not only the apartment gardening article but a few more interesting hits involving safe rooms, making jerky, and hardening your space.
The AND operator requires both terms in the returned results and can be used to combine two or more criteria. Including the AND operator in your search for apartment gardening so: apartment AND gardening yields 4 pages of articles on small space gardening along with a few of Selco’s interviews involving prepping in general. Interesting stuff but not directly related to apartment gardening. However, it’s noteworthy that the apartment gardening resources on this site are the first 5 articles on the results page. Much better than looking through 17 pages of hits!
The OR operator expands results to include one criterion, the other, or both. Using this operator as apartment OR gardening yields 4 pages of results with apartment gardening right on top. Other first-page search results include Kratky jars, small space gardening, urban/suburban prepping, and an urban gardening course. Again, much better than 19 pages of hits!
The NOT operator, expressed in your search string as NOT or a – sign, excludes things you’re not looking for. In the case of searching apartment – gardening or apartment NOT gardening, we come up with results similar to using the OR operator. Not perfect, but at least it’s not 41 pages worth!
For more information on using Boolean search operators go here.
And now, as promised, the compilation.
Garden planning, starting, and review
- Planning Your Garden? Read This First
- Growing Vegetables Is Back in Style: Here’s How to Start Planning Your Garden
- What I Learned From This Year’s Annual Garden Review
- What You Need to Know to Start a Fall Garden
- Confessions of a Community Garden Tenant
- Garden Rebels: 10 Ways to Sow Revolution in Your Back Yard (and Why You MUST Declare Your Independence)
- My 7 Worst Gardening Mistakes and What I Learned From Them
- Garden Like Your Life Depends on It!
- What You Need to Know About Seed Selection and Acquisition
- A Gardener’s Guide: When to Plant Seedlings Outside (or Not)
- How to Grow a Successful Garden in (Almost) Any Climate
- In Defense of Organic Farming
- 22 Ways to Boost Food Production in 2022
Gardening in small spaces
- Apartment and Condo Gardening Help You to Bloom Where You’re Planted
- How to Grow Your Own Urban Vegetable Garden
- Container Gardening: How to Grow Food With Limited Space
- 8 Inexpensive Options for Small Space Gardening
- How to Have a Vegetable Garden When You Don’t Have a Yard
- How To Grow Tomatoes Indoors
- How to Grow Your Own Mushrooms With Sawdust Blocks
Hydroponics
- Here’s How Hydroponics Can Help You Save Money on Food
- Tabletop Hydroponics: What I’ve Learned About the Quirks of Kratky Jars
- Hydroponics: How To Grow Food With A Kratky Jar
- Can Tabletop Hydroponics Keep You Fed?
How to
- The Growing Importance of Creating Your Own Fertilizer
- Integrated Pest Management: How to Sustainably Keep the Pests Out
- How Do You Fight Septoria Leaf Spot in Your Garden?
- Intercropping Is the Key to a Food-Laden Garden
- Here’s the Dirt on Healthy Garden Soil
- More Food Shortages? Phytophthora Fungus Infects Vegetable Gardens Across the Country
- What to Do When Things Are Not Going Well in Your Garden
- How to Get Started With Kitchen Scrap Gardening
- Cut-And-Come-Again Gardening Will Boost Your Production
- How to Grow an Indoor Garden
- How We Made a Thriving Garden with Minibeds on Plastic
- How to Water Your Garden (Even If There’s a Drought)
- Creating a More Self-Sufficient Garden for the Long-Term
- What You Need to Know About Growing Potatoes
- How to Make Your Own Seed Starting Mix and Start Seedlings
- Practical Tips on Making Your Own Mushroom Master Cultures
- 8 Reasons You Should Be Collecting Rainwater
- Old-Fashioned Pest Management: A Skill You’d Better Learn Fast
- How to Grow Culinary and Medicinal Mushrooms
Garden OPSEC
- Do You Know How to Grow a Secret Garden?
- How to Have Good OPSEC in the Garden With Edible Landscaping
Garden Cheap Garden
- A Free Solution For Raised Bed Gardens
- 5 Easy Ways to Start a Beginner Autumn Garden on a Budget
- Thrifty Gardening Gems from the Tightwad Gazette
- The Many Ways To Repurpose Household Items For Your Garden
- Cheap Garden Tools You Need to Grow Food
- Gardening on a Budget: How to Grow Food Dirt Cheap
Other gardening resources
- Herbal Skills Intensive online course
- The Urban Agriculture Comprehensive online course
- How to Grow Culinary and Medicinal Mushrooms online course
- How to Feed Your Family No Matter What: An Anthology of Self-Reliant Food Production, Acquisition, Preservation, and Preparation in paperback or PDF
These are but a few of the wonderful resources available on this site! Hopefully having a compilation will make them easier to find, and a knowledge of Boolean search operators will also help.
Do you have a favorite gardening resource? Are there any Internet search tips you’ve learned? Was there a specific gardening article on The OP that inspired you? Please share your resources and thoughts in the comments section!
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State agriculture departments offer a lot of very useful information, especially when it comes to plants and varieties that thrive locally.
As my neighbor likes to say “Gardening is an annual experiment and no two years are the same.
so do local county extension agents —
Growing veggies is complicated…but has been more and more rewarding over the decades.
I became a believer in the K.I.S.S. plants…it saved me years.
Picture books help…but OJT teaches.
Planting an orchard (75 fruit & nut trees – well over a 100 separate berry bushes and a seven plant grape arbor) expands the dream every year for the last 13 years…and has been occasionally been fruitful (every pun intended) but mostly proving my fruit tree JACK doesn’t know SHIT.
Fish pond is a part time job…but the freezer actually has catfish waiting for their first fry.
Have DREAM…No need to travel…bring TIME & MONEY…
Old Paladin
PS: It gets really hot…wear a white wifebeater, thick sweat band, wide brimmed straw hat and thick high boots…the Copperheads are for real…keep your two shot Bond Arms loaded with 4/10s and four extra on your belt…sometines the snakes can have two legs.
Wow. We have 9 fruit trees so far. If we can get up to 75 I think that will fill in the West side of our driveway. It has been an adventure getting everything planted and irrigated and we are still not done.
I am bookmarking this article.
Last year, I started keeping seeds from some of my plants and have been quite pleased with the results in the fall and this spring. I have tried to stick with heirloom varieties so they will reproduce “truthfully”.
I am a small scale gardener and only grow stuff the wife and daughter will eat. A neighbor has about 5 acres and grows lots of corn and field peas that he shares. The problem is it all comes in at once and the processing is very time consuming, but it is great to grab a bag of creamed corn in January and have it taste the same as it did in July.
All in all it is quite gratifying and it gives me something to do with my time. I keep copious notes, just as I would with any experiment and diagram where everything is planted so I can keep a good 4 year rotation plan. Any spare space goes to peas for the nitrogen.
Small scale gardener here too. From May to October, I am running my eyeballs off. Grew a shitload of lettuce I didn’t even have time to fix. Started my lettuce in January in my greenhouse. Staring to bolt now.
My lettuce and spinach have been overwhelming this spring. Spinach is done, and lettuce is not far behind. Had a couple of volunteer Osaka Purple Mustard plants come up (probably from the mesclun mix planted last year). They have been so pretty that I am letting them go to seed for planting this fall for some color & to eat.
All I did with my pastures last year was mow and now I have hop trefoil growing everywhere which I am quite pleased with. I will take any free legumes on this poor soil. But I finally have a solid plan for amending by the fall. I will let the animals take care of the N.
I am learning all my foliage with the Picture This app. Turns out we have more Asian species on our land than I think Asia has. The newest example I have identified is Japanese Brome which is growing everywhere.
So basically, shitting on your neighbor’s garden should be considered doing them a favor. That’s what I told him.
Humanure!
This year after planting some flowers in the boxes that step down from the sides of my deck, the worms are off the hook! I have never seen so many. It is almost what it used to be like 10+ years ago. For gardening in small areas my only advice is to chose a spot if possible with the most amount of light. Plants crave sunlight. Happy Gardening!
I have seen a couple of monster worms digging in our garden patch. I am not even sure they were regular earthworms. I love seeing worms in the soil. I pretty much love everything growing around if it is not hurting anything. I was mowing a line for the movable goat fence today and ran over a 50 year (guessing) snapping turtle, and I felt absolutely terrible. I had to put it down and I will be checking my mowing paths in the future, but I was mowing a wider path because I didn’t want the timber rattlesnake I saw to come back. .
Gardeners can also order garden worms online for their gardens & compost piles.
SamFox
Every year I’ve been gardening here (6 yrs), every year I see more and more worms. Love it!
I’ve been liking this guy lately, lots of stuff I did not know:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheMillennialGardener
I mostly watch “Grow Veg” (sue me, I love an English accent), and MIGardener. I really detest the ones who spend a lot of time yakking, saying little of import, just like listening to the sound of their own voices. Like that woman on “Rogue Farms” I think it is. I really don’t care that you took your dog to get fixed.
Gotten himmel
What a comprehensive post!
This guy explodes a pile of gardening myths, in particular pertaining to soil science.
https://www.youtube.com/@Gardenfundamentals1
This guy explodes a ton of gardening myths, in particular pertaining to soil science.