This delicious sour cherry jam recipe without pectin comes from my long-time best friend. We both grew up on the same narrow street in a small town. Even though we have moved to different towns, countries, and continents, our friendship has never been lost. Friendship like ours is seldom, and it is ...
5 Ways to Preserve Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs
Food preservation is essential when living in a cold climate with a short growing season. To eat homegrown food all year round, we must store it away. Here are five ways to preserve vegetables, fruits, and herbs that we use on our homestead to enjoy homegrown food throughout the year, both in season ...
Exploring the Best Garden Bed Design
There are numerous ways to design a garden bed, and over the years, we have experimented with quite a few different models. In this blog article, we will review garden bed design techniques and share our top recommendation based on our experience, explaining why it stands out. The garden ...
Steam Juicer, a Simple Way to Preserve Fruit and Berries
A steam juicer is a simple and effective way to preserve fruit and berries. If your garden yields more produce than you can use or preserve through other methods, a steam juicer can be a great solution. Enjoying a glass of homemade juice is not only refreshing but also a delightful way to ...
How to Deal with Garden Weeds
Weeds are plants that grow where we do not want them to grow. Any plant can be a weed; our garden has chive weeds, delphinium weeds, and dandelion weeds. "It grows like a weed" is a saying that describes what is thriving. Weeds always seem to be there. How to deal with garden weeds so as not to lose ...
Rainwater Harvesting for Use in the Garden
It rained last night! Rainwater is very precious in a dry climate, and we want to preserve it as much as we can. Harvesting rainwater for use in the garden helps us use water that would otherwise go to waste. Plants prefer to be watered with stagnant water that has had the chance to ...
To Prune or Not to Prune Tomato Plants
To prune or not to prune tomato plants is an option tomato growers have. Not all tomatoes need pruning, in fact, some should not be pruned except for the bottom leaves and possibly at the end of the growing season. Some growers decide not to prune at all, and some go over the top with pruning. ...
Growing a Hydroponic Tower Garden in a Cold Climate
We are Hydroponic Tower Garden growers in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada—elevation 1,037 m (3,402 ft). It’s cold here! The short growing season and cool, short summers were the main reasons we got into Hydroponic Tower Garden gardening and, through the Tower Garden, into ...
How to Support Tomato Plants
Once the tomato plants are in the ground and growing, they will require support. There are various ways to support tomato plants, and once you understand their needs, the possibilities are nearly endless. However, we have two favorite methods that have proven effective for us over the ...
Transplanting Tomato Plants into the Ground
It is always a very exciting day when my tomato plants can finally go into the ground! I start all the seeds indoors. We grow mainly heirloom tomato varieties. Here, we share how we transplant tomato plants into the ground. When to plant tomatoes in the ground Tomatoes are a warm-weather ...
