Sweet Potatoes Because I’m lazy, sweet potatoes are one of my favorite crops to grow. It always amazes me how well they can perform in the worst part of the garden, with little or no attention. They always outgrow the weeds and provide a large harvest relative to the area planted. In my metro-Atlanta area, I…
Harvest Helpers Having dedicated garden harvest tools will remove a point of frustration for a lot of gardeners. Do you find that when it’s time to pick tomatoes you are raiding the recycle bin for old grocery bags? When the broccoli is ready to harvest, do you lose your favorite paring knife in the garden?…
Preserving and Canning Book Review Whenever the harvest starts rolling in, I bury myself in cookbooks. Every year I seek out new ways to cook and preserve our garden’s bounty. Sure, there are the staples like my pickled jalapenos or small batch refrigerator pickles I make every year. Nonetheless, I strive to make a few…
Yard Long Beans This year while searching for a heat tolerant successor to plant after the potatoes were harvested, I discovered a gem. Yard long beans (aka: asparagus beans, Chinese long beans, snake beans) are a subspecies of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) making them siblings of the familiar southern staple blackeyed peas. The major difference being…
The Most Used Landscaping Tool For most homeowners there are only a few landscaping tools you’ll ever need. First and foremost is a dependable shovel. Not all shovels are created equal, though. Choosing the right shovel, of good quality, can mean the difference between a good day’s work and a day of inefficient misery….