I let my cucumbers sprawl on the ground for two years and ended up with hidden yellow softballs and slug damage on a third of them. A simple DIY trellis made from stakes and twine fixed all of that for under four dollars and freed up six square feet of bed space.
Plant everything at once and you get one overwhelming harvest followed by nothing. Here’s how I stagger cucumbers and beans so we’re picking all summer instead of composting in July and buying at the farmers market in August.
Blossom end rot took out three of my four tomato plants last July. It’s not a disease and you can’t spray your way out of it. Here’s the cheap, practical fix that actually worked.
Burying tomatoes deep sounds wrong the first time you do it. Turns out it’s one of the easiest ways to get a stronger, more productive plant, and it costs nothing extra. Here’s how I do it in Redmond every May.
In zone 8b, tomatoes want soil that’s consistently 60 degrees before transplanting, and April in Redmond almost never gets you there. Here’s how to check, how to speed it up a little, and why the calendar is not your friend.
Store-bought tomato cages fold over by August and cost way too much to do it so dramatically. Here are the cheap alternatives that actually hold up, including the one made from concrete reinforcing wire that costs about $2.19 per cage and lasts forever.
Those flimsy green wire tomato cages from the hardware store cost $4 and fall over by August. Here are five cheaper alternatives that actually hold up an indeterminate tomato without embarrassing everyone involved.
April in Redmond feels like spring but the soil hasn’t gotten the memo yet. Here’s why rushing your tomato transplants costs you time instead of saving it, and the one number worth checking before you dig that hole.
srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/RosemaryCloning.png?w=1018&ssl=1 1018w, https://i0.wp.com/www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/RosemaryCloning.png?resize=300%2C245&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/RosemaryCloning.png?resize=768%2C628&ssl=1 768w” sizes=”auto, (max-width: 1018px) 100vw, 1018px” /> Hey, everyone! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your loved ones. Sage and Rosemary are two repeating ingredients in which I typically would get from my herb garden but appears I was a bit lapsed on my watering this summer and plants didn’t make it, so I was forced to buy some fresh herbs from…
After having an abundance of cooked pumpkin after over purchasing on a couple of organic pie pumpkins I decided to make some pumpkin bread, here is the recipe I have always had great results with. Ingredients 2 cups cooked pumpkin plus 1 cup or water or 16 oz can of canned pumpkin plus 1.25 cups water 3.5 cups all purpose flour 2 tsp. baking soda 3 cups sugar 4…
Each thanksgiving I always end up buying rosemary and sage for our turkey dinner always having thoughts that I should plant some next spring…winter happens then of course I forget until next thanksgiving… This year I got a bit more proactive and decided to just start the plants now using cuttings from fresh herbs I purchased from the grocery store. I have done this before with mint and actually…