Gardening Ideas

My neighbor called me in a panic one July afternoon. Her backyard was the size of a parking spot, she’d just bought six strawberry starts, and she had nowhere to put them. “Can I just shove them in a pot?” she asked. I laughed, because I remembered asking myself the exact same question the spring … Read more

Your water bill showed up last month and you winced. Your trash bin is overflowing with vegetable peelings and cardboard. Your neighbor’s garden looks like a Pinterest board and yours looks like a crime scene. I’ve been there — trust me, the summer my zucchini took over the entire ZIP code taught me more about … Read more

Every July, my garden turns into a battlefield. The lettuce bolts overnight. The spinach looks at me with what I can only describe as betrayal. The cilantro goes to seed before I’ve even made one batch of salsa. Sound familiar? After more than a decade of gardening through scorching Midwest summers — including one legendary … Read more

You are settled into your favorite patio chair, a cold drink in hand, ready to enjoy a gorgeous summer evening, when it happens. Buzz. A massive, airborne housefly lands directly on the rim of your glass. Then another locks onto your plate. Within five minutes, your peaceful backyard escape turns into a swatting match that … Read more

If you are tired of spending every weekend dragging heavy plastic bags of dyed wood chips across your yard, only to watch them fade to a dull, depressing gray by July, you are not alone. I used to do the exact same thing. I would dump tons of that pitch-black corporate mulch around my tomatoes … Read more

There is nothing quite like the stomach-drop moment when you roll over a pristine pepper leaf and find a squirming, crowded colony of aphids sucking the life out of your hard work. It makes you want to grab the heaviest chemical spray on the shelf and go to war. But if you care about the … Read more

Your backyard is completely forgettable after dark. That’s the honest truth. Most gardens look like a black void once the sun goes down — all that effort, all those hours of weeding and watering, and you can’t even enjoy it after 7 p.m. I’ve been there. My garden used to roll up like a shop … Read more

Your soil is cracked. Your water bill is terrifying. And your tomatoes look like sad little raisins by mid-July. If you garden in the desert, you already know that the rules everyone else follows don’t apply to you. What works in a Pacific Northwest raised bed will absolutely destroy your Tucson garden — and nothing … Read more

By late July, my garden used to look like it had given up. The spring tulips were long gone, the peonies were a memory, and everything left standing was either sun-bleached or just plain boring. I’d stand at the kitchen window with my coffee, staring out at a sea of faded greens and washed-out pinks, … Read more

My dog Biscuit once ate an entire pot of peace lilies I’d put on the patio. She was fine — but I was not, after three hours of panic-Googling and a vet call that cost me $120 just to hear “watch and wait.” That was the summer I got serious about turning my backyard into … Read more