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."
the most destructive caterpillars in spring are tiny—here's how I control them 🐛
This time of year, I have an abundance of cabbage, kale, broccoli, kohlrabi, and pak choi seedlings (all members of the cabbage family) in the garden. These cool-season crops love our mild spring weather (which stills drops into the 30s Fahrenheit at night) and grow enthusiastically until summer's heat sets in. The only problem is... I'm not the only one who finds them tasty. Peak season for the cabbage family also happens to be peak season for tiny pests like cabbageworms and cabbage...
your next salad could come from your lawn 😋
While cleaning out a raised bed this week, I found a few clumps of dandelions (not ones that I've purposely grown) hiding in the corners. Instinctively I pulled them out, but instead of throwing them in the compost pile like most people do, I threw mine in the sink to be washed for that night's dinner. Walking around my raised bed, I then saw this: A wild salad bar growing in my lawn Some people might look at this picture and think—ugh, more weeds. Me, on the other hand... I see a free salad...
instant food crop without planting anything
It's 60°F in town today. (Nothing to get excited about—our last frost date is still months away.) But the last few weeks of warm weather has meant many things are going off in my garden: rhubarb, walking onions, potato onions, garlic, and lots of leafy greens like bloody dock, garden sorrel, true French sorrel, salad burnet, and sea kale. Walking onions (with purple sprouting broccoli behind it, a crop that I planted in fall and overwintered) Sea kale and rhubarb, with chives re-emerging in...
12 tips for perfect tomatoes 🍅
We all want perfect tomatoes, right? Or at the very least, a good tomato crop where flowers are abundant, pests and diseases are kept in check, and fruits actually ripen before the first frost. I've been growing tomatoes for nearly 20 years every which way: in the ground, in raised beds, in containers, and even indoors. I've killed plenty of seedlings and struggled with blight. So you could say... I know a thing or two about tomatoes. 😆 Which is why I'm excited to share my newly updated post...
how to fix tall, spindly seedlings 🌱
If you started your seeds in front of a window—and I'd guess that many of us do—you're probably seeing your seedlings stretching toward the light and getting taller and lankier every week like this: Or this: Even if they're in front of a south-facing window that gets sun all day, early spring light usually isn't enough for seedlings that spend several weeks indoors before they're transplanted outdoors. Most seedlings need a minimum of 12—but preferably 15 or more—hours of light per day to...
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."