How to Propagate Roses From Cuttings (Without Killing Them)
My grandmother had one rose bush by her kitchen door. Deep red, gone leggy at the base, with a fragrance that hit you before you reached the step.
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How to Prune Tomato Plants (Without Killing Your Harvest)
I lost half a Roma harvest my second year of gardening because I “pruned” it the same way I pruned my Cherokee Purples.
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How to Grow Squash Vertically (Summer and Winter, Done Right)
My first vertical squash attempt was a beautiful failure. Perfect trellis, wrong plant. I’d bought a bush variety by accident and spent three months watching it not climb the frame I’d built for it.
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12 Reasons Your Hydrangea Isn’t Blooming (And the Fix)
I planted my first hydrangea our first summer here. Three years later, it hadn’t given me a single flower.
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How to Build a Compost Bin From Pallets (Under $20, No Power Tools)
I built two compost bins wrong before this one. The first had no lid, so a wet January turned it into a swamp. The second had a sealed front that made turning the pile physically impossible.
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How to Grow Zucchini Vertically (Without Snapping Vines)
The first time I tried to grow zucchini vertically, I picked the wrong variety, used a tomato cage that buckled by July, and never figured out why most of my flowers dropped without setting fruit.
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How to Grow an Avocado Tree From a Pit (And What It’ll Actually Do)
I had three avocado pits balanced on toothpicks above three jam jars on my kitchen windowsill. All three rotted.
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How to Grow Carrots From Seeds in Pots (The Pot Depth Rule Nobody Mentions)
I sowed a whole packet of carrot seeds into a wide terracotta pot one March, watered it, set it on the patio, and waited.
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How to Grow Sunflowers From Seed (and Why Direct Sowing Wins)
The first time I tried to grow sunflowers, I started them on the kitchen windowsill in March. By the third week they were two feet tall, leaning sideways like drunk teenagers, and the moment I planted them outside they basically…
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How and When to Prune Basil for Bigger, Bushier Harvests
My first basil plant grew into a sad little tree. Two feet tall, four leaves at the top, a stalk like a chopstick, and a row of flower buds opening before the Fourth of July.
