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."
how to get rid of gnats in your house 🦟
If you're reading this, you probably have a plant or two inside your home. 🌱 Maybe it's a houseplant, or something you're overwintering, or even a windowsill herb or container vegetable you're growing indoors. It's not uncommon to see some pests around your plants this time of year, especially tiny little flies that seem to multiply each week. Less sun and cooler temperatures inevitably lead to wetter-than-usual soil, which creates the perfect playground for fungus gnats. They look like fruit...
are your seeds still good? let's find out
On the heels of one of my last emails, where I shared my favorite garden seed catalogs, I'm starting to sort through my existing seed collection so I can make room for new ones. I've been hoarding collecting seeds the last few months (I can't resist all those end-of-season sales, plus I've been saving them for my kids' school garden) and have around 300 seed packets, but I have a feeling that number is gonna go down as I work through my seed inventory. It's one of my favorite New Year...
why you should keep watering in winter 💦
It's the middle of winter. It's cold. And for most people, that means they can take a break from their usual watering routine until the weather starts to warm up again. Or can they? I live in a high desert climate that typically sees snow, but even so, I lost a young fruit tree and a couple of shrubs last year because of an unexpectedly dry winter. The season started out with plenty of rain and snow, but once all of that melted, we went through a dry spell for over a month with hardly any...
houseplants that don't need soil to grow 🌿
As gardeners, we're used to rooting through soil and getting a little dirt under our nails, right? (And that's a good thing... There's a growing body of research that shows beneficial bacteria in soil can actually alter our minds. Kind of like nature's Prozac! 😮) But mo' soil means mo' problems: fungus gnats, spider mites, that weird white mold, and of course underwatering and overwatering. You know what solves all those problems? Not having soil at all! And thankfully, there are quite a lot...
the seed catalogs I'm ordering from this season
If you're like me, you probably have a pile of seed catalogs on your table right now (with more coming every week—I can't help it, I sign up for all of them 😁). This is what I'm currently paging through: And this is just a few of them I love discovering new seed varieties to try. We don't have a proper greenhouse yet (that will be the next big project) so I'm constantly on the lookout for reliable short-season crops (anything that can go from seed to harvest in less than 75 days). I don't...
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."