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 plant fall crops in the heat of summer 🔥
Let's talk about fall. I know, we're still in summer and it sure feels like it... 🥵 Which brings me to today's topic: planting a fall garden when it's pushing 90°F outside. Maybe you want to start seeds. Maybe you've already started seeds and your seedlings are ready to move into the garden. You're probably wondering how to get fall crops like kale, broccoli, and lettuce to survive the blistering heat outside. These cool-season plants are susceptible to transplant shock, early bolting, or...
why's that tomato leaf curling?
I love growing tomatoes in summer, but at the same time... I feel like these plants really keep me on my toes all season! If they aren't complaining about the weather (first it's too cold, then it's too hot), they're pouting in the garden by rolling up their leaves or drooping or making you guess at what other problem they're having. Right?!It's definitely hard to be this invested in your plants! Here's something I see occasionally in my own tomatoes and what I've found is pretty common with...
why your tomatoes look weird like this 🐱
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 resemblance—I guess whoever coined the term thought their puckered tomatoes looked like cat's cheeks? 🤷♀️). And while most catfaced tomatoes are still edible, so long as they haven't started rotting where the wounds are, it...
the best time to pick tomatoes is NOT what you think
If you were asked when the best time to pick a tomato is, you'd probably say: when it's ripe. And you wouldn't be wrong. After all, the idea of a warm, sun-ripened fruit on the vine is what all our tomato dreams are made of. But even though the ultimate goal is ripe tomatoes, picking them when they're fully ripe isn't always the best call if you also want high-quality fruit before they fall on the ground, before the squirrels and birds get to them, or before the skin splits and cracks. Also:...
the fix for yellow tomato leaves
It might start as a few splotchy leaves here and there, but before you know it, entire tomato stems turn yellow and brown. What does it mean? What can you do? And will it spread to your other tomato plants? Of all the issues I see in the garden, yellowing leaves are one of the most common and also the most confusing, because they represent any number of things that could be going wrong depending on where—on the leaf and on the plant—they're turning color. It's kind of like asking, "Why isn't...
heat problems
Hot weather isn't just hard on humans... many plants (even warm-weather crops) suffer when temperatures rise too. My climate doesn't get as scorching as other areas. We usually top out around 95°F in peak summer, but evenings cool down significantly into the 40s. That doesn't make summer any less hard on my plants though. Tomatoes, peppers, squash, beans, and cucumbers are all, surprisingly, sensitive to different things once the weather turns hot. Maybe you're seeing something like this...
how to cure and store onions for *months*
Yesterday I wrote about the 3 signs your onions may be ready to harvest. If all of those point to yes for you—hooray! Let's get to work. You can absolutely keep onions in your pantry or on the counter to eat within the next couple weeks, but homegrown onions can store for much, much longer than that... think months! Some varieties can even go a whole year without spoiling, but they need a simple extra step right after they come out of the ground: curing. Curing is just one part of the...
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."