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."
a bonus garlic harvest before your 🧄 is ready
Okay, let's talk garlic. This is a staple in my vegetable garden because it's incredibly easy to grow. Butttt... It's also one of the latest-maturing crops, taking up to 9 months to harvest. That means garlic planted last fall (usually in late October) is still a little ways away from being ready. However! This is the time when hardneck garlic starts offering up a delicious bonus harvest weeks before you can pick the bulbs. (Sorry, Southern gardeners: This does not apply to softneck garlic.)...
a big list of my favorite (and surprising) edible flowers 🌼
I've seen a lot of vegetable gardens over the years, big and small: private gardens, community gardens, demonstration gardens, school gardens.And what I've noticed is that many of them don't grow nearly enough flowers alongside their vegetable crops. I get it. If you've got limited space, why waste it on flowers when you need to maximize every inch for your tomatoes and squash? Sure, you might grow a patch of milkweed for the butterflies or plant some bee-friendly annuals here and there, but...
the trick to knowing when your garlic is ready 🧄
I won't lie, it takes a lot of patience to grow garlic. We're 8 months after planting and that garlic crop is looking reeaaaally good right about now (if it didn't get affected by garlic rust, that is). The stems are stiff and upright, the leaves are green and full, and it seems like all those bulbs should be ready to pick, right? Maaaaybe... but probably not. For most people—and depending on the type of garlic grown—harvest time could still be a few weeks away. But unlike its allium cousin,...
here's your guide to raising healthy baby chicks 🐥
This time of year when I visit the local feed store with my kids, they immediately make a beeline to the baby chick area. It inevitably results in many oohs and ahhs and endless begging to bring home "just one more" baby chick. 😍 We're maxed out right now with 9 chickens at home, but I promised I'd think about it for next year (or after we get around to building a bigger coop). Secretly, I'm taking notes on the breeds of chickens I want next. 😆 (And also sketching out potential new coop...
my favorite edible ground covers (that are actually delicious)
If you grow vegetables, you likely mulch with straw, leaves, compost, or something similar. If you grow berries or fruit trees, they're probably surrounded by grass, wood chips, bark, or gravel. But have you ever thought about growing a living mulch? A low-mounding, wide-spreading plant that grows among your other crops and does all the same things "regular" mulch does (protect the soil, retain moisture, smother weeds) but is also edible and worthy of its own harvest? This is how I take...
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."