Picture this. You’re in your shed organizing your garden tools and you come across a few rogue seed packets. Were those from this year? Maybe the year before. Are these the ones that your cousin’s neighbor’s brother passed along during a seed swap? Or the ones you bought from a big box store? If only there was a way to test seed viability. Lucky for us all, there are several ways to test if seeds are still good.
If you ever wanted to play Russian Roulette with peppers, Shishito can be a bit of fun, my fellow daredevil. One in 10 Shishito peppers are hot while the others are barely hotter than bell peppers. They range from 50 – 200 Scoville Heat Units on the Scoville Scale, with 200 being more like pepperoncini, so still not Jalapeno level. They say the peppers that get the most sun are the ones that get the hottest.
There’s nothing better than fresh parsley from the garden. Not only does it taste exquisite, but it also saves you a pretty penny instead of buying it fresh from the grocery store. Garden fresh herbs will always be my preference when cooking, but what happens if you grow them faster than you can use them? There are different ways of preserving parsley and other herbs that allow you to enjoy homegrown herbs days, weeks, and even months after leaving your garden.
Tis the season to celebrate summer squash! I know if you’re growing this abundant crop, you’ll soon be searching for recipes on how to use them up, and maybe a few ideas on how to get your neighbors to take them off your hands if you don’t want to preserve them, too.
I’ll do just about anything to keep pests out of my vegetable garden. I’d even use Home Alone-style booby traps if I thought they’d keep insects and other pests from devouring my veggies. But alas, swinging paint cans and hot irons are not the solutions. Trap crops, on the other hand, are more subtle than Kevin McAllister’s burglary deterrents.
Root vegetables are notoriously shamed for their high starch and sugar content, but coming up with balanced meal ideas is easier than you think! Below are three really easy recipes you can make on the fly with just a few added ingredients.
Butternut squash noodles aren’t the typical type of voodle (vegetable noodle) that comes to mind when you think of gluten-free noodle alternatives. And if we were talking about covering it in tomato sauce, we’d be on the same page. However, a gluten-full recipe I’ve always loved is butternut squash raviolis in a maple cream sauce, so I thought to myself: why not just use butternut squash noodles?
Have you ever gotten so overwhelmed with a cherry tomato plant that you let it go, and then the next spring you had a million little cherry tomato plants trying to sprout? People will tell you that tomato plants don’t grow that way, but I had a field of tomato seedlings in late June one year that says otherwise. I mean, I wouldn’t put it on a list of self-seeding vegetables because you probably can’t depend on it to work, but it can happen!
Have you ever made pesto before? How about a pesto that isn’t just basil, garlic, and pine nuts? If you want to try using up excess broccoli from your garden or refrigerator, this broccoli pesto pasta is just the ticket!
If you didn’t think you could have your cake and eat it too, then you clearly haven’t had what I consider the ultimate New England lobster roll recipe. See, in these parts, some people look at lobster rolls in black and white. Either you get it with mayonnaise (Maine style) or you get it with butter (Connecticut style). As someone from Massachusetts who is squashed between the two states, I’ve always been a “how about both?” kind of gal.
