For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."
how to make your pumpkins and winter squash last for months 🎃
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Pssst... If you've been looking for plants to plant this fall, my favorite online nursery FastGrowingTrees is running a huge sale right now! They've got price drops on a nice selection of flowering trees, fruit trees, and privacy trees. Fall happens to be the perfect time to plant that tree you've been thinking about (here's my post on why and how) and any perennials you want to establish. I'm actually bummed we're not ready to do any new plantings this fall, as I see a lot of great deals I'd love to jump in on!! The kids just bought their first two baby pumpkins at the store this week. I know, right... we're not even in October yet! So even though the kids picked out pumpkins already, I'm sure we'll be going to an actual pumpkin patch or two over the next few weeks. Pumpkin patch season is relatively short in Central Oregon, since if you go too late, all you'll find is a field full of crispy vines and mushy pumpkins because of all the freezing nights we get before Halloween. We try to eat most of the pumpkins and other winter squashes we buy (if we don't carve them), but the only way we can make them last long enough to do so is by curing those pumpkins before we store them. Curing is the trick to making all winter squashes store well all winter, whether you grew them at home or picked them from a farm. It's a very simple and straightforward process that's mostly hands-off—but assures you can enjoy butternut soups, kabocha curries, and roasted blue hubbards well into winter. P.S. Learn how to cure your pumpkins and other winter squash so they'll keep all winter long. P.P.S. What do you do with your plants at the end of the season? Did you know you can leave them where they are so they can help rebuild your soil over winter? Fall is actually the best time to work on your soil, since it gives you several months to let things decompose in place and stimulate all the good microbes by the time you're ready to plant again. Get a jump start on proper soil-building this fall and learn my "lazy techniques" to create healthy, active, nutrient-rich soil by spring—with much less work than doing it all in spring! Join Lazy Gardening Academy today.​ |
Garden Betty
For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."