home gardens

Year of the Tomato: New Blight‑Resistant Varieties Offer High Yields in Cool, Wet Climates

July 7, 2026 by Brandon Marcus Leave a Comment

Some gardening seasons feel like a friendly handshake. Others feel like a wrestling match with the weather. Cool temperatures, endless rain, and soggy soil often leave tomato lovers staring at yellow leaves instead of baskets full of ripe fruit. This year, however, brings welcome news for gardeners who refuse to let gloomy skies ruin tomato…

Experts Say Aphid Populations Are Surging Faster Than Expected in the Southeast

February 21, 2026 by Brandon Marcus Leave a Comment

A tiny insect with a soft body and a needle-like mouthpart now commands serious attention across the Southeast. Agricultural specialists and extension agents have started tracking unusually fast‑growing aphid populations moving aggressively through fields and gardens, leaving stressed plants and worried growers behind. While aphids rarely grab headlines, this surge carries real consequences for soybeans,…

NC Agriculture Officials Warn: This Invasive Pest Is Now in Residential Gardens

February 10, 2026 by Brandon Marcus Leave a Comment

North Carolina gardeners are used to dealing with the usual suspects—aphids, beetles, maybe the occasional slug with a personal vendetta—but this year brings a new and far more unwelcome guest. Agriculture officials have confirmed that a destructive invasive pest has made its way out of commercial areas and into residential gardens, and it’s causing quite…

How To Get Free Seeds From The Government by Amanda Blankenship Seeds might seem like a small expense, but any seasoned…
Should I Use Enviro Ice On My Plants? by Kathryn Vercillo Every week, I receive food from Hungryroot. It's a great…
From Trash to Treasure: Transform Shredded Paper Into Garden Gold by Amanda Blankenship Should you use shredded paper as garden mulch? It might…
What Happens to Plants If You Use Enviro Ice on Them? by Amanda Blankenship About a year ago, I wrote our first article about…

You’re Still Watering Like It’s July — Your Fall Garden Doesn’t Need It

That automatic watering schedule that kept your tomatoes alive through July may be doing too much work by late September. Cooler days, longer nights, weaker sunlight, and seasonal rain can all change how quickly moisture disappears from garden soil, yet it’s easy to keep watering simply because that’s what you’ve done all summer. Too much…

We Planted an Old Sweet Potato Instead of Throwing It Away — Here’s What Grew

That wrinkled sweet potato sitting in the back of the pantry may look like compost-bin material, especially once little shoots start poking through the skin. But those sprouts are also evidence that the sweet potato is still capable of producing a living plant, so we decided to see what would happen if we planted one…

Can You Regrow Green Onions Forever? We Put the Viral Hack to the Test

Buy a bunch of green onions once, stick the white ends in a glass of water, and supposedly you’ll never have to buy green onions again. It’s one of those viral gardening hacks that sounds almost too perfect for anyone trying to trim a few dollars from the grocery bill. Unlike plenty of internet tricks,…

Those Dead Flower Stems Look Ugly — Here’s Why Gardeners Are Leaving Them Until Spring

Once frost turns your flower garden brown, the instinct is understandable: grab the pruners, cut everything to the ground, bag the debris, and make the yard look tidy again. But what looks like a collection of dead stems to you may look very different to a bee, butterfly, bird, or other creature preparing for winter….