Remember my hefty harvest of lemons from the other week? Of those 60-plus lemons, I put up over half of them in less than an hour and none of it involved a jar (well, just one jar, but not in the way you think). The trick to preserving all those lemons in a flash? Freeze them! Lemons are indispensable in the kitchen, but rarely do I ever use a whole lemon at once. How many times have you wanted just a slice of lemon in your water, or found a recipe that calls for just a tablespoon of lemon juice? After a slice or a squeeze, I’m usually dismayed to find a forgotten, puckered-up lemon wedge in m ..read more

If you’re looking for a nice new houseplant to spruce up your home, chances are you’ll come across the genus Philodendron. Some of the most popular indoor plants are Philos, including some truly wild-looking species and colorful variegated cultivars.  To help you make sense of what’s on offer, I’ve compiled a list of some of the most beloved Philodendrons in the houseplant world. There’s no way we can discuss them all—I’d need to write a whole book to do that!—but you’re bound to find one you like here! What is a Philodendron? If you’re a long-time houseplant collector, you probably alrea ..read more

I don’t know how this month has flown by so fast, but Black Friday will be here next week! (I still have no idea what we’ll be doing for Thanksgiving, since we barely just moved into our new house—but not cooking sounds pretty good right now.) If you’re like me, you probably like to skip the frenzy of Black Friday/Cyber Monday and get all your holiday shopping done early. Well, I’ve got good news: Amazon is already featuring tons of early Black Friday sales online so you can take your time going down your gift-giving list, or—ahem—scouring all the good deals so you can outfit your new home wit ..read more

One of the things I really dislike about buying store-bought herbs is how half of them often end up slimy. It happens because I only need a few sprigs for a recipe (usually of something I don’t use often, like sage). Then the bundle gets stuffed into the veggie crisper in the fridge, where it starts out on top and in front to remind me to use it again, only to gradually move farther and farther back into the part of the drawer where all produce goes to die. Tell me I’m not the only one?! Needless to say, I’m a huge fan of homegrown herbs. Snip a little here, snip a little there… Growing your o ..read more

Ruby red kraut has sass. It’s like the sexier, sleeker, red lipstick-wearing sister of sauerkraut. And Ms. Ruby packs a healthful punch into one little jar. The secret is in the red cabbage: The compounds that give the vegetable its distinctive dark color, anthocyanins, also act as antioxidants and are believed to have analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties. (Pigment-rich and anthocyanin-filled vegetables and fruits like black carrots, purple beans, blueberries, and Concord grapes have these same health benefits… as in most things “green,” the darker it is, the better it is for you.) Combi ..read more

Winter can take a toll on your landscape in many ways, from sudden cold snaps to drying winds, freeze/thaw cycles to hungry wildlife. While plants that are hardy to your region should survive cold weather just fine, sometimes the damage caused by the extremes of winter isn’t evident on your trees and shrubs until they break dormancy in spring. If you’ve just planted perennials in the garden or want to help your woody plants avoid dehydration, frostbitten roots, dead branches, and chewed bark, here are six things you can do in fall to protect trees and shrubs before we head into winter. Tip #1 ..read more

If you haven’t heard, Amazon Prime Big Deal Days are happening this year on October 10 and 11, 2023. It’s a massive sale on Amazon (bigger than Black Friday) with hundreds of thousands of items offered at discounted prices. I’m a Prime member (you have to be to get these deals) and I’ve been shopping Amazon Prime Days for years, scooping up all sorts of sales for things I’ve been saving up for. Nearly half my tool shed probably came from various Prime Days! (And if you know tools, you know all those “toys” add up quickly! Wait, did I just refer to home improvement tools as toys? I’m ..read more

I’ve talked about fermentation quite a bit on this blog, from fermenting your cabbage to fermenting your chicken feed. But fermenting tomato seeds? Yes, it’s a thing, and I’ll show you the best way to save tomato seeds and increase germination rates by adding this one simple step to your seed-saving routine. First, what is fermentation? In a nutshell, fermentation is the process of good bacteria breaking down the structure of your food so they become more bioavailable. Why is this important? Because even if you have the healthiest diet in the world, you aren’t “what you eat,” per se, you’re wh ..read more

Looking for a new houseplant, but worried you’ve got a black thumb? Or maybe you just want to avoid complicating things? I’ve got just the one for you: Dracaena angolensis, more commonly known by its old scientific name, Sansevieria cylindrica.  Naturally found in arid Angola, this species has long been a favorite among houseplant collectors not just because of its good looks, but also because it’s incredibly sturdy. It can tolerate low-light conditions and less-than-ideal care. Even if you’re a beginning houseplant grower, you should be able to keep your Sansevieria alive with just a few ..read more

As summer starts to wind down, no doubt you probably have a few tomato plants still chugging along in the garden. If they’re anything like mine, they usually start to look a bit bedraggled this late in the season: the leaves get a little crispy or splotchy, maybe a mystery disease begins to crop up. But through it all, there are still green tomatoes stubbornly hanging on the vines. In climates where you still have a few weeks left before the expected first frost, you can speed up the ripening process and help your tomatoes turn red a lot sooner by putting the plants “in distress.” This signals ..read more