Good Gardening Ways Newsletter

Weekly practical gardening advice, book and tool reviews inspiration to help you grow the garden you’ve always dreamed of, no matter your space or season. We also dispel gardening myths and look at subscribers’ gardens.

Featured

Aug 29, 2025

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19 min read

Home Gardening Newsletter - Edition 3

In this issue, we will delve into the fascinating world of gardening and learn about a striking plant from South Africa. We will also explore how using the wrong mulch can rob your soil of a vital nutrient, dispel a common myth about ripening tomatoes, and discuss a great garden-cutting tool. Additionally, we will review a book all about growing great winter vegetables, examine a famous garden quote, and as a special treat, take a look at Janette and my 1-acre home garden.

Jason Good

Sep 26, 2025

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19 min read

Home Gardening Newsletter Edition 7

In today's edition, we look at the amazing flowers of Winter Roses or Hellebores, dig deeper below ground to uncover more about what life is down there and how it interacts with our garden plants, discuss a myth about acid soils, review trimming tools, look at a book about Plant Collectors that’s close to home, show our home gardens Woodlands Walk garden room (which is my favourite) in the subscriber section, and introduce a new section that looks at plant diseases and pests and what to do about them.

Jason Good

Oct 24, 2025

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16 min read

Home Gardening Newsletter Edition 11

In today's edition, we look at another shade-loving plant that not only has interesting leaves but also beautiful flowers, explore the world of fungi underground and look deeper into how it helps your garden plants, dissect a quote by a famous Roman statesman, explore a myth about composting weeds, review a beautiful book that takes us on a journey creating one of the world's most magical gardens, look at a suburban garden created by an avid gardener and learn how to control slugs and snails.

Jason Good

Articles

Oct 9, 2026

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4 min read

Home Gardening Newsletter Edition 61

We visit Dena’s garden in South Devon, where Janette lent a hand with encroaching ivy, dry conditions and the uncertainty of knowing what to cut back. Back at Apple Blossom Farm, there is progress around the Orangery foundations and a closer look at the unusual green blossom of our ‘Ukon’ flowering cherry. In Weed Watch, we meet ribwort plantain and explain how to recognise and remove it, while this week’s Handy Tip gives a long-handled pooper scooper a surprisingly useful new job picking up sticks.

Jason Good

Oct 2, 2026

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7 min read

Home Gardening Newsletter Edition 60

The Orangery has arrived, its concrete footings are poured, and a gifted aviary means we are preparing for our first budgies. In the garden, a once-gangly flowering plum is putting on a beautiful display, while one of my favourite rhododendrons brings delicate purple flowers to the Shade Garden. We decode fertiliser numbers, tackle creeping speedwell and introduce Plant Problems with our reluctant alliums beside The Green. There is also a garden-centre visit with Janette and Dena, and a quick way to empty a bird bath.

Jason Good

Sep 25, 2026

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8 min read

Home Gardening Newsletter Edition 59

This week, Robert takes us around his woodland garden near Bowral, sharing practical lessons in drainage, reviving tired plants and caring for established trees. Back at Apple Blossom Farm, the wedding went ahead, two spring favourites are flowering. We explain how pellets and liquid feeds can work together and meet a scrambling visitor in Weed Watch.

Jason Good

Sep 18, 2026

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7 min read

Home Gardening Newsletter Edition 58

Come explore the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh through Janette’s photographs. From striking foliage combinations to planting that draws you around the next corner, we uncover ideas you can bring home to your own garden.Back at Apple Blossom Farm, we untangle the differences between Seasol, PowerFeed, GOGO Juice and POPUL8. Four familiar bottles with different jobs but which one does your garden need?There’s spring perfume from the hyacinths, golden diosma brightening our Hebe Walk, and a prickly weed worth catching before its seeds take flight. We’re also preparing for a garden wedding.

Jason Good

Sep 11, 2026

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7 min read

Home Gardening Newsletter Edition 57

This week, fresh bark gives our garden paths a lift as wedding preparations continue, and we revisit practical ways to get your garden ready for an event. Daffodils and spring starflowers bring seasonal colour, while Sticky Weed makes an appearance in Weed Watch. We explore what bottled microbes can and cannot do for your soil, then return to the Eden Project for ideas on creating better microclimates at home.

Jason Good

Sep 4, 2026

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7 min read

Home Gardening Newsletter Edition 56

Spring has officially arrived at Apple Blossom Farm, although our mountain garden is still awakening at its own unhurried pace. This week, discover two early-flowering plants, follow the exciting next steps in our Orangery project and learn why not all organic matter performs the same job. In Weed Watch, we expose the quiet but prolific threat hiding behind tall fleabane’s tiny flowers. Then, in Postcards from Britain, Janette takes us inside the Eden Project’s remarkable Rainforest Biome and reveals what its manufactured landscape can teach us about creating the right conditions for plants to thrive.

Aug 28, 2026

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10 min read

Home Gardening Newsletter Edition 55

Are we feeding our plants or should we be feeding the system beneath them? This week, we look at how understanding the soil food web changes the way we approach fertilising our gardens.We also meet a weed capable of catapulting its seeds up to six metres, discover three plants flowering at Apple Blossom Farm, and visit the magnificent RHS Garden Rosemoor to see what its design can teach us about our own gardens.And with summer approaching, Nancy's garden in Britain provides a timely warning: summer resilience starts long before the first really hot day arrives.

Jason Good

Aug 21, 2026

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11 min read

Home Gardening Newsletter Edition 54

Spring is almost here, and this week there are plenty of signs of it around Apple Blossom Farm. We take a closer look at our flowering apricot and quinces, then head beneath the surface as Cultivating Greenery moves from understanding the Soil Food Web to actually managing it. There's also a tiny weed causing us a surprisingly big problem, some wonderful inspiration from Britain's spectacular hanging baskets, and a visit to Nancy's garden in Bristol that carries an important lesson for Australian gardeners as summer approaches. Plus, Episode 2 of the Good Gardening Ways Podcast is now live, as our audio tour of Apple Blossom Farm continues through the Metal Arbour and into the Antique Perennial Garden

Jason Good

Aug 14, 2026

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8 min read

Home Gardening Newsletter Edition 53

We begin our second year with a new weed series inspired by a Scotch thistle outbreak in the Parklands, go searching for the possibility of a truly unique Apple Blossom Farm flower, and share a colourful postcard from England. There’s also news of an unexpected September wedding at the farm, a quick look at what’s flowering in the garden, and another step forward inside our 1975 heritage bus.

Jason Good

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