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Donna Balzer

Donna Balzer

Experience

After thirty years answering garden questions on radio across Alberta, Canada, three seasons as a Television host on HGTV's internationally aired show Bugs & Blooms, and twenty years writing about gardening, Horticulturist Donna Balzer has accumulated a wealth of gardening information and experience. Speaker, author and gardener, Donna started with a degree in Horticulture. Now, she has a massive vegetable garden and greenhouses where she grows food and flowers year-round. Growing everything she dreams of, Donna builds soil and eats healthy home-grown food every day in her Northern garden.

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Family Handyman

Articles

Layered soil displays distinct textures: the upper layer is light-colored and gritty, while the lower layer is darker and more coarse, indicating different soil types. Tout icon

What Is Clay Soil?

Everyone's heard of clay soil, but do you really know what it is? If your garden beds are clay, here's what you need to know — and it's not all bad.
Three large white mounds of material are situated in a dry, golden field, with green hills and a clear blue sky in the background. Tout icon

Should You Use Gypsum for Soil?

If you have hard clay or noticeably salty soil, gypsum can make healthy growth much easier for your garden plants. Here's what you need to know.
A woman pours soil from a yellow bucket onto a mound covered by a blue tarp, surrounded by a garden on a wooden deck. Tout icon

What To Know About Soil Amendments

From our first-hand experience, learn how soil amendments work and which ones are right (and wrong) for your yard and garden.