Getting Started
Take time to plan your garden: where it should go, what to grow, and how to evaluate and improve your soil and growing conditions. Better Homes and Gardens garden editor Doug Jimerson covers the essentials of seed starting, soil prep, site selection, fertilizing, and watering. Your access to the class never expires, so you can watch these videos as often as you want, year after year.
Doug's Garden Tip: Succession planting enables you to make the most of small garden spaces.
Cool-Weather Crops
Get ready to garden as soon as the soil can be worked in your region. Doug gives an overview of early-season favorites: salad crops, root crops, and members of the cabbage family. Your Garden Fresh class includes a printable list of plant varieties, products, and online sources.
Doug's Garden Tip: Start a second round of these early-season vegetables at midsummer, and enjoy the harvest well into the fall .
Spring Greens
When you just can't wait to get started, lettuces and other greens let you get a jump on your spring planting. Doug covers salad favorites and lots of other healthy green vegetables, including some that may be new to you, such as Swiss chard and arugula. The class also lets you ask Doug questions and post photos of your garden triumphs and trouble spots.
Doug's Garden Tip: These economical favorites are sown directly from seed for both spring and fall harvest. Cover them with a frost blanket to protect the greens' tender leaves from cold and wind.
Root Crops
Potatoes, onions, leeks, garlic, and shallots galore! Expand your root crop selections, and see how easy it is to grow these underground edibles. In Garden Fresh , Doug teaches you how to select the best varieties for fresh use or long-term storage . The Craftsy.com platform lets you use video notes to bookmark your favorites or jot down ideas.
Doug's Garden Tip: Root crops like moist, rich soil; cool weather; and a cover of mulch to keep weeds down.
Cole Crops
Broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and kale fall into the category of cole crops. Easy to grow, delicious, and good for you, these favorites round out your spring garden. Garden Fresh includes 19 professional vegetable garden plans to download and print. Plus, all 14 interactive lessons are available to watch on your schedule, as many times as you want!
Doug's Garden Tip: Those delicate white butterflies that flit across your yard are cabbage loopers, and their hungry larvae love cole crops. Control them with weekly application of the natural pesticide Bacillus thuringiensis (or Bt).
Warm-Weather Crops
Once the soil warms up in your region, you can really get growing! In this session, you'll get an overview of vining crops, such as melons and squash, as well as popular summer favorites, such as eggplant, peppers, corn, and beans, and also a little about tomatoes. The Garden Fresh class comes with a 100 percent money-back guarantee.
Doug's Garden Tip: Beans are probably the easiest vegetable plant to grow. Broadcast bean seeds in a trench, cover them with soil, add water, and wait!
Vine Crops
Vining crops such as cucumbers, melons, and squash are easy to grow, but they take up a lot of room in the garden , and insect pests love them, too. Doug offers space-saving planting ideas and a roundup of bug-beating strategies. Get a closeup look at gardening techniques in these 14 HD video lessons.
Doug's Garden Tip: The floating row covers, or frost blankets, that protect your tender plants in the early season also do a great job of keeping insect visitors away.
Summer Favorites
In this session of Garden Fresh , Doug covers the ins and outs of growing popular Mediterranean vegetables including eggplant and all kinds of peppers. Is it true that planting in mixed groups makes hot peppers sweet and sweet peppers hot? Find out here! Talk over your garden issues and get solutions from Doug and other members of the Craftsy community.
Doug's Garden Tip: New and rediscovered heirloom varieties of eggplant include all kinds of shapes, colors , and flavors, including round white eggplants that actually look like eggs.
Growing Tomatoes
Tomatoes -- America's favorite summer crop -- are fun and easy to grow in all their varieties of color , flavor, shape, and growth habit. Doug shares his favorite varieties and talks about planting to extend the season. Get his smart tricks for avoiding common problems such as cracking and blossom-end rot. This interactive course brings the expertise of the Better Homes and Gardens garden team to you whenever you need it!
Doug's Garden Tip: Tomatoes should be stored out of the sun in a single layer. Don't pile them in a bowl , and don't put them in the refrigerator.
Growing Herbs
Herbs are beautiful, useful, tasty, and fragrant. Take a second look at your herb garden , and discover new possibilities. Doug will show you unusual herbs such as scented geranium and rue, along with herbal favorites such as basil and parsley. You'll meet the walking onion, a flavorful plant with a strange growth habit. Take this informative class when it's convenient for you.
Doug's Garden Tip: Plant a little extra parsley; it's the natural habitat of the caterpillars that become Tiger Swallowtail butterflies.
Berries & Grapes
Time for dessert! Nothing beats the taste of fresh summer berries, and they're easy to grow. You'll learn the special cultivation and pruning needs of strawberries, raspberries, grapes, and other vine and cane fruit. Plus, you can upload photos and let Doug and fellow gardeners diagnose your trouble spots.
Doug's Garden Tip: When buying bare-root strawberry plants, choose plants that have a few green leaves. Soak them in a bucket of water, and place the crown level with the surface of the soil.
Fruit Trees
Fruit trees take a little effort, but a bountiful harvest -- and great pies -- can be your reward. Grow apples, pears, cherries, and other fruit using Doug's tips for selecting and caring for fruit trees. You can watch these lessons as many times as you like!
Doug's Garden Tip: Prune apple trees in February or March when the tree is completely dormant. Take off any crossed branches, as well as water sprouts, the vertical branches that grow up from the top of existing branches.
Bonus: Perennial Produce
Two edible perennial plants, asparagus and rhubarb, allow you to plant once and harvest forever. Doug shows you methods to put savory asparagus and tangy rhubarb on your early-season table, year after year. Keep track of your garden's progress. The Craftsy video notes feature is like an online garden journal . Take advantage of all the gardening benefits when you purchase the Garden Fresh interactive video class.
Doug's Garden Tip: Harvest rhubarb through midsummer, then let the plant's leaves grow the rest of the year. Cut off the fuzzy flower heads to direct the plant's energy to the roots.
Popular Slideshows
Grow a healthy, beautiful vegetable garden with th...
Enjoy tasty, homegrown vegetables on your doorstep...
These brand-new varieties for 2013 offer exciting ...
Connect with Us
