By joenesgarden, 1 year and 9 months ago

Newsy Notes - Gardening

New vegetable gardeners can gain a lot of information from seed packets, self-help books, a local nursery, and gardening contacts, but may not realize the importance of orienting planted rows of edibles relative to the sun. When researchers in Western Australia compared north-south or east-west orientation on yield of organically grown grain and other crops, they found grain yield improved with east-west orientation. Orientation did not seem to affect other broadleaf crops, such as canola and field peas likely, they say, because crops with large leaves shade out weeds that compete for soil nutrients.  Still they suggest that latitudes up to 55 degrees benefit from north-south orientation in the summer and east-west orientation the rest of the year – good to know when considering early spring and fall crops. Don't know your latitude? Find it through Project Budburst – a fun and worthy program for anyone interested in plants.

Keep reading →