During the warmer growing season, canning and preserving consume a significant portion of our time. Given the volume of food we process, it was essential for us to find a simpler approach to canning. Please understand, that this isn't a definitive guide on how everyone should simplify their canning ...
How to Create a New Garden Bed
Not even 100 years ago, every family had a vegetable garden. Children learned from their parents, and each home typically had an established garden. That has changed, but increasingly, people are returning to gardening and growing their own food. Gardens are both rewarding and fun. So how can you ...
Growing Food – Carrots
Beautiful, tasty, crunchy, and healthy—these are just a few words that describe the humble carrot. Whether you enjoy them raw or cooked, sweet or spicy, juiced, fermented, pickled, or baked, carrots offer endless culinary possibilities. If you're an aspiring gardener or simply someone who loves to ...
Growing Food – Cabbage
We have been growing cabbage for many years, but it seemed that we seldom got great cabbage from seed. So last year I set a goal to find varieties that do really well and grow more cabbage. Cabbage is a staple food of ours, so growing our own just makes sense. So here I am, happy as can be with this ...
Growing Grapes in a Cold Climate
Growing grapes in a cold climate presents a unique set of challenges and rewards. While grapes are incredibly rewarding to grow—both for their delicious taste and the joy they bring to gardening—the varieties that can withstand the severe cold of our local climate are distinct from the types you'd ...
All About Freezing Vegetables
In regions with a short growing season, the desire to savor the summer's produce into the winter is obvious. Given that frost graces our lands for nearly half the year, freezing as a means of preservation seems a fitting choice. Freezing vegetables is perhaps the simplest method to extend their ...
Common tomato leaf diseases
Tomatoes are one of our favorite plants to grow. We share many blog articles about growing tomatoes in a cold climate. Today we are looking into common tomato leaf diseases. In a cold climate, there is hardly a season where we do not have at least some of them. Tomatoes prefer a warm, dry ...
Making Progress on One Thing a Day
Do you ever feel like there are never enough hours in a day to keep up with the garden, harvest, homestead, and household responsibilities? If you're looking for a management tip to help you accomplish more and feel better about it, here's one: focus on making progress on one important thing each ...
How to Make Simple Compost Tea (Extract)
We're currently in the middle of summer, marking the halfway point of the gardening season. To give our plants a much-needed boost, the most efficient and simplest method is to use compost tea. This type of tea is created by using high-quality, finished compost as a liquid fertilizer for plants. ...
Hydroponic Fertilizer: The Key to Indoor Gardening
As we approach the tenth anniversary of our hydroponic journey and indoor gardening, it's an ideal time to reflect on the innovations, trials, and transformations that we have encountered in our pursuit of this home gardening method. A decade ago, we were newcomers, just beginning to dabble in the ...
