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 homegrown garlic lasted 11 months in storage—here's how that happened
Can you believe I just finished up the last of the garlic that I grew LAST summer?! And it was still perfectly good, firm, and flavorful like the day I harvested it. That's 11 months in storage (in my garage, piled into mesh bags and placed on a wire shelf), which is a new record for my Music garlic. What's even better is that I'm only a couple weeks away from my next garlic harvest, so I'm pretty dang pleased that I only have to buy garlic once before that happens. 😄 If you planted garlic...
how (not) to fertilize your garden in summer
In summer when your vegetables are growing vigorously, they need all the nutrients they can get to produce a good, 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 keep...
when aphids get really bad—here's what to do
Aphid season is upon us! In my region, they're affecting fruit trees particularly bad right now and I've seen a number of people in my local gardening group post pictures for help. In my own garden, I've got a small infestation of aphids on a patch of overwintered volunteer pea plants. They appeared seemingly overnight, but since the plants are far enough away from my other crops (and the peas are on their way out for the season anyway), I've left them alone. That's because the infested...
using trap crops to keep pests in check
When I first started gardening, I wanted to maximize my vegetable harvests so I focused on growing mostly food crops. It wasn't until a few calendula and nasturtium plants got away from me in the following years (thanks to their prolific self-seeding all over my yard) that I realized just how important it was to plant lots of flowers alongside all my vegetables. I've visited hundreds of vegetable gardens over the years and many of them have the same thing in common: food crops are the stars...
how to order the best garlic for fall planting 🧄
I just got an email this week from one of my favorite gardening suppliers about garlic preorders. If you haven't ordered seed garlic for fall, Peaceful Valley has an impressive selection of both organic and conventional garlic that you can preorder now to arrive in late September, just in time to plant. I usually save my largest bulbs when I harvest and replant those cloves, but I've been growing Music garlic for several years now (as it's super reliable and stores well) and I'm itching to...
my new book is available for preorder!
Last week I got the long-awaited email from my project manager: the final edits for The Route 66 Cookbook were approved, and the manuscript was on its way to the printer! 🙌 In approximately 10 weeks, we should have the first copy of my new book in hand! If you've been following since last year, you may remember that I signed on to write a special centennial cookbook that honors the culinary history and food icons of Route 66. This fabled highway marked the beginning of modern American...
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."