Garden Betty

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...

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...

In summer when your vegetables are growing vigorously, they need all the nutrients they can get to produce an abundant, healthy crop. Oftentimes, these nutrients are already in your soil if you practice cover cropping, composting in place, or mulching with organic matter. But sometimes—especially with heavy feeders like tomatoes and squash—your plants could benefit from a little boost. That's when fertilizer can come in handy, but before you sprinkle it around your plants, here's something to...

Squash vine borers are probably one of the most disgusting pests you'll come across in a garden. It's not that the grubs themselves are gross—but the damage they do is surrounded by piles of moist orange frass inside and outside of the hollow stems they consume. Yes, all that orange stuff is poop (Frass, in case you've never heard this term, is a funny way to say insect poop.) Besides being unpleasant to come across, squash vine borers are highly destructive pests and can cause entire plants...