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."
this is why your plants probably aren't getting enough light
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...
a homemade cough syrup that tastes great and really works 🥃
A lot of people I know have been coming down with something this past week... sniffles, sore throats, fatigue. I'm sure it doesn't help that kids have been home on winter break and everyone tends to spend more time indoors in winter. While some people are inclined to reach for an over-the-counter cough and cold syrup—you know, the "nighttime sniffling sneezing coughing aching stuffy head fever so you can rest medicine"—I'm reminded of a homemade remedy my parents used to make when I was a...
plants that can grow in low light 🌥️
Happy New Year! I hope 2026 is off to a good start for you so far. We had a small house party on New Year's Eve and to everyone's surprise, all of us (including the kids 😳) stayed up till nearly 2am! (Got a second wind after the ball drop. 🥳) The new year started with a hearty brunch at home with all our friends who'd slept over, and then we were off to another friend's house for grilled oysters and black eyed pea soup (both of which are traditional symbols of good luck and prosperity, so...
how to make beautiful hand-cut pasta 🍝 without a pasta maker
My kids have recently gotten into making pasta at home with me. They love it. While I prefer long strands of noodles, they're super into shapes. We've made farfalle, gemelli, orecchiette, casarecce, and some other shapes they've created or made by mistake. 😆 We usually end up making a LOT of pasta dough, sometimes a triple batch in one day, so for Christmas my husband bought me this pasta roller attachment for the stand mixer. 🙌 Very exciting as now I can pump out more pasta for the kids to...
this gourmet spice grows on a landscaping tree (and most people don't realize it)
Can I be honest here? A lot of people ask what I miss most about living in Southern California. They think I'll say I miss my old garden, and sure, there's a lot to love about it: the year-round growing season, all the citrus trees we had, there was even a little ocean view since our home was on top of a hill. But I actually love the challenges of growing in Central Oregon. Is that weird? I'm a constant tinkerer and learner, and being in this crazy climate (that claims to be zone 6b but...
how I reuse my cut Christmas tree 🎄 in the garden
Are you the type of person who takes down your Christmas tree right away, or let it linger till after the New Year? 🙋🏻♀️ If you followed some of my tips on how to make your Christmas tree last longer, chances are it's still green. We took a chance this year and brought home a hemlock, which according to my research, is one of the shortest-lasting Christmas trees but this one from the forest surprised us. It's dropping more needles but isn't entirely dry yet! We'll likely take it down this...
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."