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."
how to make the best garden soil (for cheap)
My husband has been collecting bags of ugly produce from our local grocery store. Think: wilted chard, ripe bananas, and bruised apples—it's astounding what they get rid of! The scraps are meant for composting, but we also use them to give our chickens something to do in winter when there's not much to forage in the yard. We chop it all up and dump everything into a raised bed that we built specifically for composting, and the chickens do all the work of turning the scraps while getting some...
you don't need to wait till last frost to sow these seeds
When you're a gardener, waiting until the last frost can feel soooo long in winter, especially if you've had a false spring and are feeling the itch to get something in the ground. (Hopefully no one in Central Oregon fell for it this week, because the next few days are gonna be cold and rainy! We need the precip though.) But—did you know you don't have to wait for the last frost to start planting? (Find out when that is in your area with this tool.) You can actually sow many types of seeds...
did you know you should NOT start these seeds indoors?
If you're like me, you might be starting to think about what kinds of seeds you want to start indoors and how much space you'll need. I'm rearranging my seed starting setup in the garage this month since my husband is building me a new rolling potting bench! (SO happy to finally have a place I can work at, instead of spreading all my supplies across the floor like I usually do.) Meanwhile, I'm sketching out a rough garden plan for spring (using my Ultimate Garden Diary) to see which plants...
you don't need all those things in your seed starter mix
Last week, Punxsutawney Phil (the celebrity groundhog) said there would be 6 more weeks of winter... Which means it might be time for you to start your seeds indoors (or at least start thinking about it) so your seedlings are ready to transplant once the weather warms up. Because I like to save money (and I bet you do, too), I often make my own seed starting mix at home. And why would I do that, considering you can find seed starting mix in stores right now? This is why: Some—not all—seed...
the game-changing items I use to start my seeds every year
Funny thing here—I originally wrote a different email for today to go over the must-have items in my seed starting kit, the ones I've used for many years that I would buy again and again (if I had to—but I haven't, because they're going on seven years and still look and perform great). And the email got so long that, well, it ended up turning into a blog post because I just had so much to share! If you're curious what I use to start my seeds every year, I just compiled a list of my 5...
when to start seeds (+ a hack for the old ones)
After a couple weeks of gloomy and frigid weather (but no snow, what's up with that?!), we finally got some sun the last few days and, unfortunately, a string of warm temperatures. (I know a lot of people are probably ready for spring, but we're in desperate need of snow in Central Oregon!) Although it feels good to be outside, this mild week (and unseasonably warm winter) is making all our plants confused. Some of my raspberries never dropped their leaves this season, and a few friends have...
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."