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."
are you making these seed-starting mistakes? (most of us do)
Before I get into today's email, I want to share that Peaceful Valley—one of my favorite online sources for all things gardening, including seeds, plants, trees, and tools—is running an early-season sale right now! Through March 19, you can save 20% off select items with code WINTERSAVE20. I'm personally picking up more cover crop seeds (you can read my post here on my favorite soil-building edible cover crops) and a new roll of floating row cover (I also wrote about row covers here—they're...
did the groundhog just say 6 more weeks?! 😯
If you're in a part of the country that's getting pounded by winter storms this weekend, I feel for you. We had our first big storm cycle of 2025 last week which brought snow and ice to town, but it hasn't been too windy so far. Our home is mostly electric, and we're fortunate to have a wood stove and plenty of firewood to keep warm. (We're considering getting this tri-fuel generator to connect to our transfer switch just in case, as we have a propane source, and hopefully we'll never have to...
you don't need to wait until the last frost to plant these
When you're a gardener, waiting until the last frost date can feel soooo long in winter, especially if you've had a few weeks of false spring (what I call June-uary) and are feeling the itch to get something in the ground. (Hopefully no one in Central Oregon fell for it last month when it's been high and dry, because this week it's gonna be COLD! We need the precip though!) But—did you know you don't have to wait for the last frost to start planting? You can actually sow many types of seeds...
the game-changing items I use to start my seeds every year
Funny thing here—I originally wrote a different email for today to go over the must-have items in my seed starting kit, the ones I've used for many years that I would buy again and again (if I had to—but I haven't, because they're going on seven years and still look and perform great). And the email got so long that, well, it ended up turning into a blog post because I just had so much to share! If you're curious what I use to start my seeds every year, I just compiled a list of my 5...
how to make the best garden soil (for cheap)
For the past year, my husband has been collecting bags of ugly or close-to-spoiling produce from our local grocery store. They offer these vegetables for people's compost piles (think: wilted chard, ripe bananas, and bruised apples—it's astounding what they get rid of!), but we also use them to give our chickens something to do in winter when there's not much to forage in the yard. We chop it all up and dump everything into a raised bed that we built specifically for composting, and the...
did you know you should NOT start these seeds indoors?
If you're like me, you might be starting to think about what kinds of seeds you want to start indoors and how much space you'll need. I'm reworking my seed starting setup in the garage this year and sketching out a rough garden plan for spring (using my Ultimate Garden Diary) to see which plants should go where. Some seeds will be started indoors in a couple months, but many of my vegetable seeds will be planted right in the garden—and in fact, several of them should ONLY be direct-sowed...
what to do if you aren't sure those seeds are still good
I got a really good question from a reader last week who asked if I had an extra fridge just for storing seeds. Wow, I wish! (Don't give me any ideas that'll make the husband raise his eyebrows... but wait, is a dedicated seed fridge in the garage all that different from a beer fridge?? 🤔) I actually store my seed packets in several ammo cans (a system I've been using for the last decade) and keep them all in the garage, which (although it's insulated) gets pretty chilly in winter when our...
I was VERY surprised by this powerhouse vegetable
I recently came across a study that determined what the most nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables were. These so-called "powerhouse fruits and vegetables" were ranked in order of nutrient density, and the highest-ranked plant caught me by surprise! "Powerhouse" kind of sounds like one of those new-school buzzwords (like "superfood") that aren't based on any scientific standards, but I just found out it's a legitimate classification (per the CDC) for foods that have high levels of essential...
what's in your seed starting mix?
So here's a question I often get from readers: Why would you make your own seed starting mix when you can just buy it at the store? This is why: Some—not all—seed starting mixes have unnecessary additives that help with wetting the mix. But if you saturate the mix thoroughly before planting and keep up good watering practices, your mix doesn't need any wetting agents. And for seed starting mix, in particular, you don't need all those soil boosters and fertilizers either. Seeds come with...
your plants probably aren't getting enough light—here's why
Here's the funny thing about plants: they don't LOVE to be inside our homes. Sure, they accept it—and will even grow in spite of it—but they really just want to be outside where they have plentiful sunshine. Most of our homes are a lot darker than we think, even if we have nice big windows that get sun for a few hours a day. Newer windows have special coatings that block some light from coming through, and if your plants are more than 10 feet away from those windows, their sun exposure is...
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."