Summer is right around the corner! We blinked, and now spring is halfway over. If you had plans for a spring garden, but the season got away from you, it’s not too late. Many spring veggies are cool weather crops and need those early spring temps to do well. But there are still plenty of cool-weather vegetables you can sow in late spring for a quick spring garden before the blazing temperatures of summer are here to stay. Growing a Mid to Late Spring Garden I live in an area where spring is always chaotic. It’s snowing one moment, raining the next, and 90 degrees in the shade fifteen minutes ..read more

Ah, dandelions. Whether you love seeing them in your yard or detest them, you’ve got to admire their resilience. Despite our best efforts to purge them from our landscape, these happy weed ambassadors persist. But these days, more and more folks are being won over to the sunny side. Instead of the question, “How do you get rid of dandelions?” it’s more often replaced with, “What can I do with all these dandelions?” Oh, I’m so glad you asked, friend. Lots. Lots and lots. As foraging is making a resurgence, many people are looking for an easy place to start, and what better place than in your b ..read more

Remember when we were all, “Myco…what did you say?” It was only a few years ago that most of us had never even heard of mycorrhiza. Many barely paid attention to the vast network of microbes beneath our feet. But as more scientists began to check out what was happening below the soil, a whole new world opened up to us, as well as new possibilities for healthier plants and bigger yields. The use of mycorrhizae among home gardeners has grown at a stupendous rate. I remember when I first started using mycorrhiza in my garden, I had to order it online. My local garden center had never even heard ..read more

Do you like conducting experiments? Are you intrigued by the idea that underwear has something to do with gardening? I was, too, my friend. Keep reading. I wasn’t a big fan of experiments in chemistry class, mostly because we weren’t allowed to touch anything and the fun part would invariably be followed by a blackboard full of dizzying formulas.  But when it comes to gardening, my school-days self would be astonished to find out how much I enjoy experimenting now. So much so that one of my favorite gardening “tools” is a notebook I keep full of new ideas I would like to try out.  J ..read more

I first came across the term “edimental” when I was looking up whether I could eat this mesmerizing little plant that I had bought on impulse. It’s called purple Shiso (aka Perilla frutescens var. crispa) and even though it looks ornamental, it is very much an edible plant. The leaves taste like cumin seeds with a light citrusy aftertaste.   This is the entire point of edimentals, a word that describes plants that are both ornamental and edible. The portmanteau term – popularized by gardener and writer Stephen Barstow – is becoming more and more common with home gardeners and garden ..read more

Posts like this make me uncomfortable. After all, I’m just an ordinary gardener like all of you. Who am I to suggest you should buy one hand tool over another or choose to use one brand of fertilizer rather than that one. But over the years, I’ve received quite a few emails from readers asking what tool I’m using in a certain photo or what my recommendations are for grow lights. So, maybe it’s not such a far-fetched notion to share a few of the gardening essentials that I rely on season after season. Without further ado – my favorites. 1. Black Iron Hori Hori Knife Despite a few scratches her ..read more

I bought a Lomi! You know, those cute little countertop composters that everyone is reviewing and that keep popping up in your social media ads. As I am an actual gardener with an actual garden who actually composts, I figured I’d better give this thing a look. I was pretty excited to try out the Lomi, not to mention silently kicking myself for waiting until after I had moved out of my apartment to do it. I made several attempts at composting in my apartment over the years, including the Bokashi method. All of them ended up with copious amounts of fruit flies and the neighbors making comments ..read more

With the explosion of e-commerce over the last few years, most people seem to have far too many cardboard boxes lying around. Luckily I’ve got a great way to make the most of them in your garden. It’s not composting them (yet), and it’s not creating new no-dig garden beds with them (not really). One of the best uses I’ve found for the abundance of boxes in my home is to use them as temporary raised beds for growing potatoes. You can’t compare the flavor of homegrown potatoes with the ones you buy from the grocery store. Fresh potatoes from the garden have a creamy texture with delicate skin ..read more

If you grow any vining houseplant, chances are, you wish it were fuller. Pothos, tradescantia, philodendrons, monstera adansonii – they’re all beautiful and popular houseplants. But they have a habit of looking stretched and spindly after a while. Common wisdom says to take plant cuttings and add to the existing plant to give it more volume. Or you can give them a severe haircut to force them to put out new growth. But there’s a much easier alternative that requires nothing more than a handful of hairpins and a few moments of your time.   Propagators Annonymous “But, Tracey, why don’t yo ..read more

Tomato cages are the cruelest punk on home gardeners. They’re never tall enough and always seem to fall apart as soon as the branches get unwieldy and the fruit gets heavy — you know, just when you need them most. That’s why I use the Florida Weave. Tomato cages are overpriced too. A quick survey of my local home improvement store’s website quotes me anywhere between $7 to $15 each for a support cage between 42 to 54 inches tall. So, great for little patio tomatoes, but pretty useless for any other kind. And what if you grow a lot of tomatoes? If you’re like me, you plant at least a dozen pa ..read more