A Better Yard

Stop Overthinking And Start Planting Native Plants (Part Three of Three)

Lawns teach us to chase control, but a rebel garden is about building a living system that gets better every season. We walk through a practical, homeowner-friendly roadm

How to Reject the Status Quo with A Rebel Garden (Part Two of Three)

The hardest part of changing your yard isn’t the shovel work, it’s the moment you decide the “perfect lawn” game isn’t worth playing anymore. I’m continuing our three-par

How To Start A Rebel Garden Without Overwhelm (Part One of Three)

Your yard doesn’t have to be a weekly chore chart disguised as “curb appeal.” If you’re tired of mowing, watering, fighting weeds, and feeling boxed in by neighbor expect

Your Yard Can Feed Birds And Pollinators

Your yard can look “perfect” and still be a dead zone. I’m Brad Tabke, founder of A Better Yard, and I’m sharing what I keep seeing every spring: one property buzzing wit

Your Yard Already Knows How To Compost, Dummy

Your neighborhood calls it “yard waste.” I call it a pile of free fertilizer waiting for a truck. As summer hits Minnesota, I’m watching curb lines fill with bags of leav

The EFSS Filter for A Better Yard

Your yard is not a static backdrop. It’s a stream of decisions you make all season long: what you plant, what you spray, what you mow, what you water, what you pull, and

Stop wasting water on your lawn

Your yard might be using more clean water than your showers and laundry combined, and the wild part is you may not even notice it. We sit down with Noelle Johnson, author

Yard Waste Is Not Waste

“Free yard waste drop-off” sounds like a win, but it raises a bigger question: why are we creating yard waste at all? We look at the leaves, grass clippings, stems, and s

The Anti-Chemical Lawn Plan

Perfect lawns are a great business model and a terrible way to spend your weekends. We’re pushing back on the endless cycle of pre-emergents, blanket weed killer, multipl

Spring Yard Reset

Audio from our free seasonal tasks masterclass on March 31   Spring makes people want to rush outside and “fix” the yard, but we’ve learned that the fastest way to a hea

Spring's First Flowers While Hiking the Louisville Swamp

Pasque flowers are blooming in this transition to spring. I’m out hiking with Scout along the Minnesota River on federal land at the Louisville Swamp, narrating what we s

How Trees Know When to Turn: The Science of Fall Color 🍂🍁🍃

The leaves don’t wait for frost—they’re already counting the night. We dive into the quiet timing system inside trees that decides when the colors ignite, why some years

The Key to Healthy Soil

This episode is the audio from our October Masterclass: Key to Healthy, Living Soil and focuses on the importance of soil health in gardening, emphasizing the role of org

The EFSS Framework and Minnesota Gardening's Landscape Wellness Stages

In this episode of the Minnesota Gardening Podcast, host Brad Tabke reflects on personal challenges and the importance of community in gardening. He introduces the Minnes

Plant Helpful Plants: Part III of my 3x3 Course

We continue our 3x3 series with the final installment focusing on planting helpful plants to feed pollinators, save water, eliminate chemicals, and store carbon. This fre

Environmentally Friendly Landscape: Part II of my 3x3 Course

Fall is the perfect time to implement environmentally friendly practices in your landscape that support local ecosystems while reducing your workload. We explore part two

Sustainable Lawn Care: Part I of my 3x3 Course

Today is a wonderful day! Releasing our free course called 3x3: Nine keystone actions you can take today for a healthier lawn and landscape. Here is the audio of the fir

All about jumping worms with Laura Van Riper from Minnesota DNR

Spring plant sales and swaps are a great time for jumping worms to spread in our landscapes. Laura Van Riper, the Terrestrial Invasive Species Coordinator at the Minneso

When can I do Spring Gardening tasks?

I've been getting a lot of questions lately on the timing of spring gardening tasks. In this episode we talk through the timing on spring gardening tasks and how you

Regenerative Gardening with Stephanie Rose

In this episode of Minnesota Gardening Podcast, host Brad Tabke speaks with Stephanie Rose, author of 'Regenerative Garden.' They discuss Stephanie's journ