Store Apples and Pears Through Winter Without a Root Cellar
You don’t need a root cellar to store apples and pears through winter. A cardboard box, some newspaper, and a cold garage will get you fresh fruit into January for almost nothing.
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Sow Fall Carrots and Beets in July (Don’t Wait)
July is the exact right time to sow fall carrots and beets, not too early, not too late. Here’s how to get seeds to germinate in the heat, which varieties hold well in the ground, and why a light frost actually makes them taste better.
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Midsummer Berry Care for PNW Gardeners
July in the PNW means your raspberries and blueberries need attention right now. Deep mulch, the right bird netting, post-harvest pruning, and a homemade spotted wing drosophila trap. Here’s what actually matters and what you can skip.
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Save Squash Seeds and Grow the Same Variety Next Year
Cross-pollination ruins a lot of saved squash seeds, but it doesn’t have to. Here’s how to figure out which squash will cross, how to prevent it, and how to scoop, ferment, dry, and store seeds so you get the same variety next year.
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Hand Pollinating Squash When Fruit Keeps Shriveling
If your zucchini or squash keeps dropping fruit before it develops, you might have a pollination problem, not a disease. Hand pollinating squash takes about two minutes each morning and completely fixes it. Here’s how to tell male from female flowers and transfer pollen the cheap and easy way.
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17 Zucchini: What to Do Before They Escape
It’s July and the zucchini are taking over. Here are three real strategies for dealing with the inevitable summer squash glut: freezing for winter, quick preservation, and the unspoken art of the porch drop. Also, please stop planting three plants.
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Direct Sow Asian Greens in Late Summer for Fall
Bok choy, tatsoi, mizuna, and komatsuna are some of the fastest vegetables you can grow, and fall is actually the best time to sow them. Direct seeding in late summer means they mature in cool conditions instead of bolting, and succession sowing every two weeks stretches the harvest deep into fall.
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Stop Sunscald on Tomatoes with Cheap Shade
Sunscald on tomatoes and peppers shows up as white papery patches and it’s almost always caused by fruit that suddenly has no shade. Learn how to prevent it with cheap materials you already own, why over-pruning makes it worse, and how to salvage fruit that’s already been hit.
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Tomato Problems in July: Cheap Fixes That Actually Work
Walking out to find your tomatoes covered in cracks, weird scarring, or brown patches mid-July is a special kind of gardening dread. Most of it traces back to one thing. Here’s how to diagnose what you’re actually seeing and fix it cheap.
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How to Blanch and Freeze Vegetables from Your Garden
July gardens don’t mess around. One week you’re picking a handful of beans, the next you’re drowning in them. Blanching and freezing is the cheapest, easiest way to save a summer surplus, and you don’t need any special equipment to do it.
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Quick Refrigerator Pickles from Your Cucumber Glut
Got more cucumbers than you know what to do with? Refrigerator pickles come together in five minutes and are ready in 24 hours. No canning equipment, no special jars, just a simple vinegar brine and whatever you’ve got on hand.
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Deep Watering: Smarter Summer Watering on a Budget
Daily shallow watering is quietly wrecking your summer garden and running up your water bill at the same time. Here’s the cheap, low-effort deep watering setup that actually works for PNW summers.
