My summer garden is starting to wind down. We had a couple nights this past week where the lows dipped dangerously close to freezing, but I covered my plants on those evenings and all the tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini were spared!

The rest of the garden was left to fend for itself, but I'm not too sad about it—it's time for those plants to come out and for new ones to go in. I have a healthy fall garden already planted (that will overwinter nicely, thanks to my timing based on Persephone days—it's not too late if you want to get a winter garden going too), but several soon-to-be-empty beds won't stay empty for long.

I'm sowing what I sow every year: hundreds of Austrian winter pea seeds.

👉 I buy them from here.​

Austrian winter peas are edible, but the pods are slightly less sweet than other snap pea varieties like Sugar Ann. (The leaves, however, taste the same and are a favorite salad green in our house—my kids ADORE pea shoots.)

What I especially love about Austrian winter peas is that they're hardier than all those other peas, and can survive my zone 5 microclimate with minimal protection. (I just add a midweight frost cloth in the middle of winter for the few nights it might dip into the single digits.)

They're usually the first harvests in the garden in late winter to early spring, and as a cover crop, their roots release nitrogen into the soil when I cut them all down.

This is one of the best ways to build up your soil naturally and the roots nourish the soil for years, reducing the amount of fertilizer you need to use.

Rather than leaving your garden beds fallow over winter, pull out any dwindling (or struggling) summer crops now and plant a low-maintenance cover crop in their place.

Also, if you live in a milder climate, you can even grow fava beans over winter as a cover crop!

Seasonal tips

Why It's Better to Plant Trees in Fall (Here's How) Read more

13 Vegetables For Your Winter Garden That Are More Cold-Hardy Than Kale Read more

Don't Make This Mistake When You Plant Milkweed (A How-To Guide) Read more

Super Early-Blooming Bulbs That Flower in Winter Read more

Solving the Bitter Cucumber Problem Read more

My Favorite Asian Quick Pickled Cucumbers Read more

Minimizing

I remember back in the "old days" when the only subscriptions I had to deal with were magazines and newspapers (of the paper kind) and my Columbia House cassettes and CDs. (OMG remember that relic from the past?!)

Now there's a subscription for nearly everything: music, movies, apps and software, and a bunch of other services that, to be honest, I probably don't use enough to justify the expense.

Which is why I've started minimizing the subscriptions I pay for and taking a hard look at all the other services I use. If you also like to save money where you can, these are 2 of my big wins in recent months:

Cell phone plans

I was a Verizon customer for over 15 years despite how expensive they are. I've resisted switching to other carriers because Verizon has always had the best coverage (particularly in our semi-rural area) but we were paying almost $200/month for 2 lines. Crazy, right?

I started hearing about Visible, which is owned by Verizon and uses the same Verizon towers. They operate on a different business model where there's no human customer service, so I'm guessing that's why their plans are SO MUCH CHEAPER. I couldn't remember the last time I needed to talk to an actual Verizon rep, so I decided to make the leap.

We are now paying just $58/month (!!!) for 2 lines for the EXACT same service (unlimited everything, ultra wideband 5G, mobile hotspot on the Visible+ plan). I'm gobsmacked. I don't want to sound too much like an ad, but if you've been thinking of switching carriers, it's worth a look.

Next up: notetaking

I was an Evernote user for a long time... probably also 15+ years. (What can I say, I stay loyal to things that just work.) But Evernote recently revamped their plans and the one I'd been grandfathered into for years was going to renew at $250/year. WHAT. No thank you.

So a few months ago I started looking around for a new notetaking app that was just as robust as Evernote but without the outrageous subscription.

I landed on Upnote and I'm SO happy I made the switch! There's no affiliate link here, just a genuine recommendation for a product that delivers. I write all my blog posts in Upnote and absolutely love their notebooks feature, the way their tags work, the clean user interface... it's pretty similar to Evernote, but without all the AI features.

My husband and I both moved over to Upnote (saving $500/year) and the best part is... Upnote is a $40 lifetime fee. It's rare to find anything that allows you to pay only once, let alone for such a low fee. (You can also pay $2/month to try it out.)

Between Visible and Upnote, our family has saved over $2,000/year just by switching to these 2 services. That's like a family vacation! Or a couple months of groceries, a couple dozen fill-ups at the gas station, a year of ballet classes for our daughter... so many other things we'd rather spend money on.

I'm kind of on a roll now and looking for other ways to minimize in the era of endless subscriptions. 😜

P.S. Learn how to grow your own fertilizer (and eat it too) with my guide to winter pea cover crops—the easy way.