Farmers will often place sheets of plastic on the ground along their crop rows, in order to help hold moisture in the soil. According to a new study, however, the use of wax-coated sand may be a ...

In order to keep water from evaporating from the soil, farmers often cover the ground around their crop plants with sheets of polyethylene plastic. There could soon be a more eco-friendly alternative, ...

In all its variations, mulch is a garden's and gardener's best friend. You can shred all of those autumn leaves or use another type of mulch to feed your lawn, enrich the soil in the vegetable garden, ...

Mulching is one of the most basic and essential tasks of gardening. Most of us mulch because it helps reduce the amount of time we spend pulling weeds. Mulch provides many other benefits, however. It ...

Barry Friesen remembers the days when plastic wasn’t used on farms. “One of my first summer jobs was working as a farm hand on a dairy farm,” he recalls. “It would take a team of workers six weeks to ...

A gardener shovels mulch into garden beds around his home. - Georgepeters/Getty Images A good layer of organic mulch can suppress weeds, regulate soil temperatures, and help retain moisture so you don ...

Many years ago early in my agriculture/gardening career, I discovered a book written by a woman who developed a novel way of gardening. Ruth Stout’s gardening technique involved applying layers of ...

Editor’s note: Get Growing, written by the La Plata County Extension Office’s Master Gardener Program, appears every other week during the growing season. It features timely tips and suggestions for ...