Garden Betty
For people who want to grow more food with less work. š± This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribersāhere'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."
how to divide perennials šŖ» and when to do it ā°
Continuing with the theme of fall planting (if you've been reading my other emails from the past month), let's talk perennials. In last week's email, I went over what you should plant right now (in this late summer to early fall period when the soil is still warm) if you want beautiful spring color. One of the things you could plantāor more accurately, replantāare the divisions from perennials you're already growing. You've probably heard of dividing plants as a way to get more plants for...
how to fix these common carrot growing problems š„
I just harvested over 10 pounds of carrots from my garden this week. Correction: My kids harvested over 10 pounds of carrots. They were only supposed to pick a few for dinner and the following day's lunch, and before I knew it, they got overzealous and picked almost the entire bed! I was in the middle of cooking and had no room in the kitchen to wash and prep them, so I did what any reasonable person would do: I filled the bathtub with water and dumped all the carrots in there until I could...
what to plant in fall for the best spring color šø
If you've opened some of my other emails these last few weeks, you know I'm a fan of fall planting. The weather's cooler, the soil's still warm, and if you struggled all summer with pests and diseases, fall is a good time to get a "do over" because these problems become less of an issue. While now is the ideal time to plant cool-season vegetables like leafy greens (and yes, you can still get these seeds in the ground for a harvest in 40 days, or even overwinter them without a greenhouse by...
5 things to do in your garden in September
September is a weird month for me, personally. It's still very much summer (we just had a 90Ā°F day š„µ) but the kids are back in school and fall is all around us. I just saw my first pumpkin beer in the store last week! (Not to mention all the pumpkin lattes and Halloween displays out in full force.) But while it seems like things should be winding down, there's still plenty to harvest and enjoy in the garden. We have a few more weeks before the official start of fall, so before we get into...
how to use persephone days if you want to harvest all winter
Today I just seeded another round of winter-hardy greens in my garden: Senposai (a mild mustard green that's a cross of komatsuna and regular cabbage) Tokyo bekana (a lettuce-like Asian green) Fun jen (a Chinese cabbage that looks and tastes like lettuceāpronounced as foon yen) Tatsoi Mizuna (All of those seeds are linked to my favorite seed sources.) These are all Asian greens that easily survive and even thrive in my zone 5 microclimate without a greenhouse. They're fast-growing and...
tomatoes not ripening? this is why
We've been lucky to have a relatively mild summer in Bend up until this point. But the past week, we've had a few days nearing 100Ā°F š„µ and I never wanted to leave the pool! These are the dog days, for sure. My husband has been waking up at 6am to tackle weeds before the day's heat sets in, and I usually don't make my way to the garden until 7pm, my favorite time to be out there these days. (Gardening through dusk is the bestāit's a really different feel when everything has settled down.) Heat...
why tomatoes look weird and deformed like this š±
If you love to grow big, beautiful tomatoes (especially heirloom tomatoes) then you've probably had your share of weird-shaped fruit with bulges, bumps, and brown scars that sort of look like zippers. It's a common condition called catfacing (though I don't really see the resemblanceāI guess whoever coined the term thought their puckered tomatoes looked like cat's cheeks? š¤·āļø). And while most catfaced tomatoes are still edible, so long as they haven't started rotting where the wounds are, it...
my new book is available for preorder!
Last week I got the long-awaited email from my project manager: the final edits for The Route 66 Cookbook were approved, and the manuscript was on its way to the printer! š In approximately 10 weeks, we should have the first copy of my new book in hand! If you've been following since last year, you may remember that I signed on to write a special centennial cookbook that honors the culinary history and food icons of Route 66. This fabled highway marked the beginning of modern American...
For people who want to grow more food with less work. š± This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribersāhere'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."