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."
cinnamon doesn't prevent damping off—but this does
If you start a lot of seeds indoors, you've probably seen it at some point: happy healthy seedlings one day, then wizened stems and floppy seedlings the next. Damping off disease is pretty common, especially when you're starting seeds en masse and especially if you're using a humidity dome, have a heavy hand with watering, let your seedlings get super tall or all of the above. It's a condition that makes seedlings keel over and die overnight, which means it's near impossible to treat by the...
did you direct sow seeds and they're still not coming up? 🤔
If you sowed seeds for peas, lettuce, kale, carrots, and other spring crops a while ago and seeing patchy germination (or no germination at all), the problem likely isn't the seeds... but the temperature of your soil. Although all of these seeds prefer cool weather—and don't mind cool soil—there's a sweet spot that gets them to sprout within a reasonable amount of time instead of waiting weeks for the soil to warm up. Peas, for example, could germinate in soil temps as low as 40°F, but would...
how being lazy helped me achieve a better garden 🌿
Pssst… we’re coming up on my favorite day of the year. Yes, it’s my daughter’s birthday 😉 but also, it’ll be the first official day of SPRING tomorrow! 🌱🌼🐞🌈 My plants have been tucked in their garden beds since last fall, sittin’ cozy under a thick layer of last year’s plant debris. I use old plants as a free mulch throughout my garden because 1) they’re free, and 2) they add nutrients to the soil as they break down. The plants are cut down at soil level once they start dying back—leaving the...
have you made this mistake when growing strawberries? I have! 🤦🏻♀️
My experience with strawberries is rather unique because I've grown them across 2 totally different climate zones: 10b and "technically" 6b but what is actually more like zone 5. (Moving 5 climate zones to a much colder place to start a permanent homestead is definitely one of the crazier things I've done. 🤪) I've grown all kinds of strawberries from seeds, bare roots, and potted plants, and I've also heard from people each year about their lackluster harvests. What I've found is that they...
I'm making grow lights easy to understand and use
Ohhhmygossshh... I'm watching the weather forecast for the coming week and it's supposed to be in the high 60s to low 70s in Central Oregon‼️ (And let's not talk about the heat dome happening in the southwest. 🥵) This time last year, it was actually still winter. We had a big snowstorm on my daughter's birthday, and I wouldn't start seeds indoors for another three weeks. But this year, the abnormal weather is making me rethink my timing for seeds. I've begun to organize all my trays and pots...
why you should soak your seeds first 💧
Do you have trouble keeping your seeds (and soil) moist enough after sowing? Do you find it tricky to get the timing just right when planting peas and other cool-weather crops—crops that prefer to grow in spring conditions, but sometimes take a long time to germinate in cooler soil? If so, you should think about using this little trick: presoaking. With this method, you can shave a few days to even a week or more off the germination time! Faster germination outside means your seeds are less...
save this email for the next time you can't sleep 😴
I just re-read the subject line of this email and had a chuckle. It sounds like you're about to dive into an incredibly boring and long-winded email, right? 😆 But this will be neither. (I hope.) Most people across North America lost an hour of sleep this weekend due to Daylight Saving Time. ⏰ For a lot of us—namely night owls and folks with kids, both of which I am—it's a tough shift in the sleep routine. I know I need to be getting in bed earlier, but I often can't fall asleep if I do, and...
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."