I first heard about the technique of winter sowing for starting seeds while I was listening to a podcast over a year ago. The hosts were homesteaders from Texas. They had extensive gardens and also sold plants. They propagated most of their seedlings using this method

Picture this: You are sitting by the fireplace in January and the stack of seed catalogs is next to you. You have a hot cup of cocoa and you are looking forward to digging into the catalogs. You have your Post-It Notes right there, too, because you are going to mark everything that you want to order and plant for the vegetable garden. You place all of your orders, and then all of sudden it's planting time and you can't quite figure out how you are going to fit all of those seeds (let alone the plants that you just picked up at the garden center) in your garden. Expanding the garden is not an option (at least that's what my husband keeps telling me every year but somehow it just gets bigger and bigger!).

Does this sound familiar? I used to be really bad at over purchasing seeds and plants. I figured that since I have room, it would be OK to just let the garden size creep another foot or two. Until this got out of control and I had an epiphany one summer a few years ago: A lot of the produce that I was planting was just going to waste. So I started planning my vegetable garden according to what we would consume ...

Spring is just around the corner and even though I caution folks about planting and seeding too early in the season, truthfully… it’s safe to go ahead and start a few things indoors.

Microgreens are a fun way to add variety to your daily meals. They are nutrient dense, colorful and have fresh flavors along with tender crunch. I have been growing microgreens about five years and they are easy for the home gardener to grow.

I don't wait for January to make resolutions for the New Year. While the memory of the successes and failures of the recent season is still fresh in my mind, I like to make a list of resolutions as soon as I’ve put my garden to bed for the winter.

Here are just a few of those resolutions I’ve made over the years that have resulted in more fun, less work and a better harvest.

If you've ever tried to grow seedlings in a south-facing window, you know why supplemental light is necessary. Tall, spindly seedlings with floppy stems and pale green leaves are a good indicator that your plants are not getting enough light. Although some gardening books and online sources say that seedlings can be grown in your windowsill, I've never had this work successfully.

Today I'm going to show you how to get your seeds started for your fall vegetables. You can start vegetable seeds in just about any container you have available. Whether it's an egg carton or the containers from your grocery store delicatessen even to the flats and six packs you save from your spring and summer flowers that you buy at your garden centers.

The only requirement is the bottom of the container allow adequate drainage so we don't have seeds sitting in saturated soil . That'll lead to fungal issues and a condition called damping off as the seeds germinate. What I've done with this flat is line it with paper towels so it'll hold soil and allow adequate drainage at the same time. So, all we have to do is fill this flat with our soil until it's level and then pre-moisten the soil. And, again with compost and a mixture of vermiculite and promix, moistening the soil ahead of time won't be a problem.

Well, today I'm going to show you how to save seeds from everybody's favorite crop. Our homegrown tomato. So, lets go back to the kitchen, and I'll show you how to save tomato seeds.

So, we're going to start by simply slicing a tomato open. And you can see how the seeds are kind of embedded in this juice on the inside. Tomatoes are actually berries. They're fleshy, mini-seeded fruits, and we're going to have to get the seeds out by simply squeezing the contents into this bowl.

My grandfather’s shed was a mysterious place. Tools I didn’t recognize lined the walls over shelves of coffee cans filled with rusty hardware. Most interesting to me were the dozens of blue glass jars tucked carefully toward the back of each shelf, with seeds of every color and shape imaginable tightly sealed inside. Seed saving seems to have gone the way of horse-drawn plows. Many gardeners opt for ...