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."
my trick for germinating spinach in the heat
Spinach is notorious for being extra picky about the soil temperature at which it germinates. Too cold and you'll be waiting weeks for the first sprout. Too hot and your seeds will refuse to germinate at all. And by "too hot," I mean anything over 75°F, which—in most climates—your soil has long surpassed. So you see the conundrum here: How do you get spinach to germinate in summer if you want to harvest it in fall? And keep it from bolting when you plant it out next month? You're gonna have...
the key to insane flowering all season long 🌼
What if I told you that the secret to healthy plants, stronger growth, and spectacular blooming all season long lies in a simple 2-second technique? I don't feel like this is talked about much in backyard gardening circles, but it's so easy to do and gives such great results that I need to put it out there: deadheading. It's a way to keep your annuals flowering continuously or encourage a second big flush of flowers later in the season. Even perennials benefit as it helps channel energy to...
throwing shade
I can't remember a summer in Bend where it's been this hot for this long. My local gardening group is full of posts from people whose plants seem to have stopped growing. My friends are lamenting the lack of tomatoes in their gardens. And my garden? At least 3/4 of it is under shade cloth. Shade is the only way I'm able to keep my plants productive during this intense heat. My lettuce and arugula have been under shade since late spring, but my tomatoes and cucumbers appreciate the respite...
do your carrots look all weird like this?
Back in my old SoCal garden, where I dealt with heavy clay soil, I used to joke with my non-gardening friends that my carrots were "organic" (with their twisty-turny roots and funny shapes and little "hairs") because they were far from the perfectly smooth and uniform carrots at the store. And of course, they were grown organically but that's not the reason I sometimes pulled up carrots that looked like this: Or this: Or my favorite, which I dubbed "Leaping Dancer": Some harvests were better...
what to do if your tomato blossoms keep dropping
In summer, it's common to see a few tomato flowers fall off here and there. But what if you're seeing it happen a lot? Or if they keep shriveling up before any fruits have developed? Blossom drop is the bane of gardeners who live in hot climates. Even in my zone 5 microclimate, we get stretches of 90-plus degree weather (Fahrenheit) that can take a toll on tomato plants. (And blossom drop affects other vegetables like beans and cucumbers too.) You see, tomatoes are warm-weather crops, but...
I'm shipping organic walking onion seeds!
If you've been with me for a while, you might remember that last fall, I offered organic walking onion seeds from my own garden. (And they sold out!) This year, I harvested my seeds earlier so I can bring them to you in time for your fall garden! Organic seeds from my own garden in Bend, Oregon Egyptian walking onions are a type of perennial onion that can be harvested for its green stems (like chives or scallions) as well as its bulbs (which kind of resemble shallots). Walking onions are...
why the cure for blossom end rot is NOT adding more calcium
Let's talk about an issue that frequently pops up in my inbox this time of year: blossom end rot. You know, the dark, sunken-in spots you sometimes find on the bottom of your tomatoes (as well as your peppers, cucumbers, melons, eggplant, or squash). These spots might look like some kind of plant disease or pest problem, but blossom end rot is actually a physiological condition that tends to appear early in the growing season. If gone unnoticed, the decaying spots get larger and eventually...
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."