Grow Eggplant Cool Summer Tricks That Actually Work
Eggplant wants heat we don’t always get in the Pacific Northwest. Here’s how black pots against a south wall, the right variety, and a little cheap ingenuity can actually make it work.
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DIY Self-Watering Planter from Two 5-Gallon Buckets
Two stacked 5-gallon buckets and about an hour of drilling is all it takes to build a self-watering planter with a reservoir and wicking cup. Here’s how to do it cheap, and why your patio tomatoes will immediately stop resenting you.
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Tomato Hornworm Control That Costs Almost Nothing
Tomato hornworms can strip a plant overnight and stay invisible the whole time. Here’s how to find them using frass, stripped stems, and a UV flashlight, plus free controls that actually work.
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What to Grow in Your PNW Garden in July
July in the PNW is peak chaos: zucchini you missed behind a leaf, peas going starchy by the hour, garlic that needs to come out now. Here’s what to harvest hard, what you can still plant, and why fall starts can’t wait even though it feels like full summer.
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Cheap Bird Netting Blueberries: Skip the Kit
Birds will absolutely clean out your blueberry bushes before you get a single handful. Build a simple frame from PVC or bamboo, drape it with thrift-store sheers or tulle, weight the edges down, and skip the overpriced netting kits entirely. Also: scare tactics don’t work, and I have the crow-on-owl story to prove it.
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DIY Rain Barrel from a 55-Gallon Barrel (Almost Free)
A step-by-step guide to turning a food-grade 55-gallon barrel into a DIY rain barrel with a spigot, overflow, and mesh screen. Covers how much water you can capture off a shed roof and what it saves through a dry Pacific Northwest August.
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When to Harvest Garlic in the PNW (Timing Is Everything)
Harvesting garlic in the PNW comes down to a two-week window most people miss. Here’s how to read the plant, lift the bulb without wrecking it, and why that 24-hour shade step actually matters.
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DIY Florida Weave Trellis for Tomatoes Under $5
Wire tomato cages are bad at their only job. A DIY Florida weave trellis costs a few dollars in twine and actually keeps indeterminate tomatoes standing all season. Here’s how to set it up post to post and keep weaving as the plants grow.
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Flowers That Attract Beneficial Insects: Free Pest Control
I spent two summers hand-squishing aphids before someone pointed out I was doing a job nature already had covered for free. Planting a few cheap, easy-from-seed flowers and letting some herbs go to bloom brings in hoverflies, lacewings, and parasitic wasps that handle pest control without costing you a thing.
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Tomato Summer Care in the PNW on the Cheap
June in the PNW is prime time for tomato care. Here’s how to sucker, stake, mulch, and feed your plants without spending much, and why mulching right now is the highest-payoff move of the whole season.
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Growing Tomatillos and Ground Cherries on the Cheap
Tomatillos and ground cherries are easy to grow but there are a few things nobody tells you up front. You need two tomatillo plants or you get nothing. Here’s how to space them, support them cheap, know when they’re ripe, and let them save their own seeds.
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Pinch Basil for More Leaves (and Free New Plants)
Letting basil do whatever it wants is how you end up with bitter, flowering plants by July. A simple pinching habit every couple of weeks forces bushy growth, delays flowering, and can double or triple your leaf harvest. Plus you can root the cuttings for free new plants.
