Grow Your Own Way – FoodWatcher

How to Prune Tomato Plants Like You Know What You’re Doing

You can Grow Your Own Way. All spring and summer, we’re playing in the vegetable garden; join us for step-by-step guides, highly recommended tools, backyard tours, juicy-ripe recipes, and then some. Let’s get our hands dirty.

One of the first things…

One of the first things I learned when I started growing vegetables was that pruning your tomato plants is among the three most important tasks for a successful gardening season (the other two being watering and fertilizing). Tomatoes grow so quickly and vigorously that they can become outright overwhelming if you neglect pruning.

How the Black Community Finds Beauty in the Messiness of Gardening

When I think about gardening and farming, I think about the innate messiness that comes with agricultural work. There’s dirt and mud everywhere and, no matter how much effort you put in or how much you “play by the book”, you cannot control when, or if, your plants thrive. Perfectionism is one of the many byproducts of generations of Black people trying to survive in the Western world. My mom always used to say “you have to be twice as good to get half as much” and I know she’s just one of many Black parents to teach their children this hard truth. This creates an unreachable goal of perfectionism that many Black people feel confined by. But where can creativity grow within these societal rules for survival? Can the joyful messiness that is gardening, or just being in nature, help to ease these ancestral tensions that we hold and create space for new passions?

Everything You Need to Know About Growing Beans

The bean has always hel…

The bean has always held a special nostalgia for me. Some of my fondest childhood memories include standing at the kitchen sink helping my grandma snap beans after an afternoon of climbing the apple trees in her backyard. There’s something about that repetitive movement and the sound of snapping that still brings me comfort in my own kitchen as an adult—which is why it’s a vegetable I always have in my summer garden.

The Best Vegetables to Grow in Raised Garden Beds

Every year during the s…

Every year during the strawberry harvest, I daydream of growing strawberries in a long, narrow raised bed (tabletop height, so I don’t have to crouch, crawl, and squat to pick the berries, which is quite tedious). But a raised bed for my sizable strawberry patch would be a considerable undertaking and expense. Plus, I would need not just one but two beds to ensure a seamless harvest.

How to Grow Basil, Summer’s Favorite Herb

One of the common goals…

One of the common goals of new and experienced gardeners alike is to grow an endless supply of herbs for cooking. Basil often finds itself high on that list because who doesn’t love the idea of plucking fragrant, beautifully cupped leaves and scattering them atop a homemade pizza or happy-hour cocktail?

14 Nifty Raised Garden Bed Ideas We’re Stealing for Our Yards

I have big plans for my…

I have big plans for my gardens this summer. I’m in the midst of what you might call a “cut flower obsession,” and I’m planning to grow several types of dahlias, giant asters, and lots of zinnias this year. Not to mention my favorite veggies, including tomatoes, cucumbers, jalapeños, and pumpkins. The problem with this plan, however, is that I’m quickly running out of garden space. So, I did what any gardener would do—I installed some raised beds!