Garden Betty
For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."
12 tips for perfect tomatoes 🍅
We all want perfect tomatoes, right? Or at the very least, a good tomato crop where flowers are abundant, pests and diseases are kept in check, and fruits actually ripen before the first frost. I've been growing tomatoes for nearly 20 years every which way: in the ground, in raised beds, in containers, and even indoors. I've killed plenty of seedlings and struggled with blight. So you could say... I know a thing or two about tomatoes. 😆 Which is why I'm excited to share my newly updated post...
how to fix tall, spindly seedlings 🌱
If you started your seeds in front of a window—and I'd guess that many of us do—you're probably seeing your seedlings stretching toward the light and getting taller and lankier every week like this: Or this: Even if they're in front of a south-facing window that gets sun all day, early spring light usually isn't enough for seedlings that spend several weeks indoors before they're transplanted outdoors. Most seedlings need a minimum of 12—but preferably 15 or more—hours of light per day to...
did you know these seeds *need* light to germinate?
If you started your seeds 2 or 3 (or more) weeks ago and they still haven't germinated, you probably wrote them off as a lost cause. Maybe the seeds were too old. Maybe they got damaged by pests. Maybe they hadn't matured by the time they were collected. Or maybe... Those seeds actually needed LIGHT to germinate. While our natural tendencies are to bury seeds beneath the soil, a good number of them (around a third of the seeds we commonly start) won't germinate unless they're exposed to...
this is how long to run your drip irrigation ⏱️
One of the hardest things to figure out when you have drip irrigation is how long to run it. I was just pondering this question as we're getting ready to restart the drip irrigation in our raised beds and at my kids' school garden this week. Besides determining how much water your plants need (an amount that changes throughout the season), you also have to factor in water pressure, emitter flow rates, number of emitters, and emitter spacing. But guess what? I came up with an easy-to-use...
how to save your tomatoes from frost ❄️
Early spring weather is like a yoyo. We had 80°F days last week, followed by a 26°F freeze a couple nights ago. Several of our fruit trees had broken dormancy due to the heat wave and were budding out. This meant potential disaster for the season ahead if our fruit trees ended up losing their blossoms, so we set sprinklers on a thermostat and sprayed our trees with water for a few hours overnight to thwart the freeze. (If this is something you're interested in learning more about, let me...
give those roots some space
Did you know tomato roots can extend as far as 3 feet deep? That's why, if you plan to grow tomatoes in pots, your best bet is a half whiskey barrel to give those roots room to roam. (Depending on the barrel, this can range from 20 to 26 gallons.) I see a lot of people trying to grow tomatoes in 5-gallon buckets and while that's an economical and easy way to go, it doesn't let the plants reach their full potential. Those kinds of buckets work great for cherry tomatoes and other determinate,...
my new book is HERE! 🇺🇸
Just released!!! 🎉 About two years ago, my longtime book editor asked if I would write a book about Route 66, America's most recognizable roadway, to honor the Route 66 Centennial in 2026. 🇺🇸 It would be very different from all my other cookbooks and on the surface, it didn't seem doable: I knew little about Route 66, none of the recipes would be my own, and was it all going to be diners, drive-ins, and dives? You could only have so many recipes for burgers and pies, after all. But the more I...
For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."