Blog - Grow a Good Life

jars of dried herbs on a table

How to Harvest and Dry Herbs for Storage

With just a few simple ingredients, this strawberry vinaigrette salad dressing is easy to whip up in a blender or food processor.

Fresh Strawberry Vinaigrette Salad Dressing

jar of saved bean seeds

How to Save Bean Seeds to Plant Next Year

leafy greens growing in a shady area of the garden

30+ Vegetables That Grow in Shade

Homemade Breakfast Sausage Patties: These breakfast sausage patties are made with ground pork and flavored with fresh herbs and seasonings.

Homemade Breakfast Sausage Recipe

See how simple it is to infuse vinegar with a subtle violet sweetness and a purple flush of color. Wild violet infused vinegar can be used to make delicious salad dressing for spring vegetables and as a marinade for meats or grilled vegetables.

Wild Violet Vinegar Infusion

Attracting and encouraging frogs and toads to live in your garden keeps the pest population down and reduces the need for pesticides or other natural insect deterrents. Just one frog or toad can eat up to 10,000 pests during the garden season. Here are some tips on how to attract and encourage toads and frogs to live in your garden.

How to Attract Frogs and Toads to Your Garden

A tomato trellis is a freestanding structure usually made from wood or metal that is used to support the sprawling vines and heavy fruit of the tomato plant. Providing support for your tomato plants helps keep the plants healthy, so they can produce maximum yields. The type of trellis support you will need for your tomatoes depends on the variety you are growing. Read on for some creative DIY tomato trellis ideas.

9 Creative DIY Tomato Trellis Ideas

close up of homemade egg noodles

Homemade Egg Noodles

Chitting potatoes is also called greensprouting, or pre-sprouting. Chitting it is a way of preparing potatoes for planting by encouraging them to sprout before planting in the ground. This gives the tubers a head start and encourages faster growth and heavier crops once the seed potatoes are planted.

Chitting Potatoes Gives Them a Head Start

Monarda is a popular perennial plant used in bee and butterfly gardens. It is commonly known as Bee balm and its fragrant blossoms attract bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, and other pollinating insects. Monarda also has a long history of medicinal uses by Native American tribes, American Eclectic physicians, the Shakers, and herbalist.

How to Grow, Harvest, and Preserve Bee Balm (Monarda)

To direct sow your seeds just means to plant your seeds outdoors in the garden instead of starting the seeds indoors under lights. Plants that are either difficult to transplant or don't need extra time to get a jump start can be sowed directly into the ground. Here are 13 easy vegetables to direct sow in your garden.

13 Easy Vegetables to Direct Sow