Question: I plant my annuals and perennials the same way, and some plants flourish while some just sit there. What am I doing wrong, and can the problem be fixed after the plant is in the ground? For instance, I planted six tomato plants at the end of May, and though their color is fine,…

By Susan McFarland From The Dallas Morning News McKinney—The heart of harvest season is here, and one Collin County farm offers not just fruits and vegetables but an agricultural experience. Pure Land Farm in McKinney uses agritourism—the combination of agriculture and tourism—to engage with and educate the public. It allows customers to pick their own produce…

Earth Day is April 22. How earth-friendly are your landscape maintenance practices? You can make your landscape a friendlier place through a few small changes. All of the plants in your landscape would benefit from better soil. Except for desert regions, adding compost to planting beds will make our plants healthier. A thin coat of…

Practicing sustainable habits isn’t just good for the environment; it can also help you save on energy costs and create less waste. Cutting back on water, electricity, gas, and disposable items are easy ways to make your kitchen more eco-friendly. Use our checklist to assess your cooking and cleanup habits, and discover how being greener…

If you drive through the countryside of Roanoke, Indiana, you will see acres of corn and soybean crops. This is fertile farm country, and this is what you’d might expect. However, if you’re lucky, you will find yourself at Seven Sons Farms, owned by the Hitzfield family, and here you’ll discover something surprising. At Seven…

Commentary Synthetic, or “chemical,” nitrogen fertilizers are bad for the environment, but “organic” fertilizers are good… Right? Well, not exactly. Oversimplified thinking like this has more to do with environmental ideology than environmental science, and can have disastrous effects when implemented as policy. Sri Lanka: A Cautionary Fail Nowhere has this been more poignant in…

Agricultural soil is an important resource for communities all over the world, not only because it provides humans with the majority of their food but because it also plays a major role in balancing the environment. Soil researchers have said investing in soil could help the world tap into an untold resource against environmental challenges…

For years, “sustainable” has been the buzzword in conversations about agriculture. If farmers and ranchers could slow or stop further damage to land and water, the thinking went, that was good enough. I thought that way too, until I started writing my new book, “One Size Fits None: A Farm Girl’s Search for the Promise…

New research shows how regenerative farming practices—soil-building techniques that minimize plowing, use cover crops, and plant diverse crops—affect the nutritional content of the food. Results of the preliminary experiment, which included 10 farms across the US, show that the crops from farms following soil-friendly practices for at least five years had a healthier nutritional profile…

One of the biggest modern myths about agriculture is that organic farming is inherently sustainable. It can be, but it isn’t necessarily. After all, soil erosion from chemical-free tilled fields undermined the Roman Empire and other ancient societies around the world. Other agricultural myths hinder recognizing the potential to restore degraded soils to feed the…