When everything in nature aligns as it should, plants form flowers, then bees and other pollinators drop in to grab the pollen from those flowers, and as they flit from one blossom to the next, they redistribute that pollen. Some of that pollen will likely have come from a male flower and will end up on a female flower, and boom: pollination. That pollinated flower should now produce a fruit.
But sometimes, conditions aren’t ideal. Whether because of a lack of pollinators or a lack of flowers, sometimes the conditions work against the natural order of things. If you’re nursing an indoor plant where there aren’t pollinators at all, or you’re just anxious and want to control the pollination process, you can do so via hand pollination. Here are four ways to make the magic happen.
Direct flower pollination
Some plants have such big flowers with pronounced stamen (male) and stigma (female) that the easiest way to hand pollinate is to just grab one of the male flowers, tear off the petals and use the stamen like a paintbrush. Lightly brush the stamen against the stigma of any female flower you want to pollinate. This has a really high success rate, because it’s so hard to mess up.
This method works wonderfully on pumpkins, all squash including zucchini, summer and winter squash, and melons. Once you’ve pollinated, just sit back and wait a few days to see the fruit start to develop.
Paintbrush pollination
Though the previous technique includes a paintbrush-like motion, this technique involves a literal paintbrush. Although almost every article you'll read about hand pollination mentions the paintbrush method, I personally find it to not have a high success rate. As such, I only use it when it’s the only method that’ll really work. A great example is citrus, which I hand pollinate in wintertime, inside. The flowers are small, but not as tiny as cucumber or tomato, for example. Every citrus blossom has both male and female parts, so every single blossom can become a fruit.
Using a very clean, dry paintbrush, you softly paint the male portions (which are around the center), then swab it lightly across the female portion, right in the center of the flower. Then do this for every other open blossom. While I have limited success with this method, if you don’t have bees, it may be your only option.
Shaking pollination
Corn grows tassels, which have pollen on them. The wind carries that pollen to receptive corn silks. In big planting blocks, this is a reliable method, but home gardeners don’t plant enough corn to have 100% success. So shaking the tassels by hand, which will cause the pollen to fall directly onto the waiting plant below, is a good way to ensure success. Your corn will have ready tassels for about a week, and I just give them a good, hearty shake whenever I walk by them, at least once a day.
Vibrating pollination
My favorite method, because it is the most successful, fastest and most efficient, is vibrating plants to loosen the pollen and send it airborne so it will land on waiting female flowers. When you have plants with very small flowers like tomatoes, trying to identify female and male flowers and dissect them to get to the pollen is absurd. If you have open blossoms, you can hold anything that vibrates (toothbrush, massage gun, sex toy) against the plant and you will see the air fill with yellow pollen. Do this for ten seconds once a day and you’ll be find high rates of pollination. This method works fantastically on indoor hydroponic gardens that need pollination, but you can also use it outside on peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, tomatillos, and peas.
Once you feel comfortable caring for domestic pets like cats and dogs, taking the leap to farm animals usually starts with poultry. And for good reason: they’re relatively easy to keep in suburban areas, and with a little flexibility, they can thrive in urban areas, too.
The most obvious benefit to caring for poultry comes in the form of those tasty eggs, but poultry can also can become an integral part of your garden as both a way to recycle yard and kitchen waste (food for the poultry) and fertilizer (composted bird poop). While most people immediately think of chickens as their first choice, ducks (not to mention turkey, geese, quail, and pigeons) are also a great choice.
While you could, of course, have both, people generally start with one or the other. I spoke with Jordan Barnes, founder of the The Smart Coop, which sells coops with smart features for both chickens and ducks, about how to choose between the two.
Startup costs (for both) may surprise you
You might think that chickens and ducks are cheap to own (with chicks costing $3 to $5 and ducklings at $5 to $10) but there are ongoing costs, especially when they're babies, that can rack up quickly.
For the first six weeks of their lives, you’ll need to shell out money for a brooder, which is like a mini coop with a more controlled temperature setup. I was sure a simple plastic tote or box would do the trick, but the birds grow fantastically fast, and within a week or two, my flock of four needed bigger digs. You can get fancy brooders for about $100, but you can also source a scrappier one for under $40. The brooder will also need bedding (most people use pine shavings) which will cost about $20 for approximately four cubic feet. For my four chickens, this amount only lasted a few weeks.
Your baby birds will also need a heat source. While many people use heat lamps, a more modern method is a heat plate that the birds can nest under, and that will cost another $30 or so. You will also need a device so the birds can access water ($20) and food ($10). Then, add on the actual food and grit, both of which ducklings and chicks need.
With both chickens and ducks, you’ll spend a lot of time trying to minimize the mess the birds make with their water, but it’s easier with chickens. Ducks actually need to be able to submerge their beaks in the water, which requires a different kind of water device that makes it easier to splash around. Otherwise, there isn’t much cost difference between having ducks or chickens at this stage; both require (sometimes surprisingly) expensive stuff for the first six weeks of their lives that they won't really need moving forward.
When it comes to food and housing, ducks cost more
Between six and eight weeks, your baby birds will be ready to move to their coop. Pinterest loves a fancy coop, but your birds won’t care how the coop looks, which can help you save some money. You can buy commercially made coops for anywhere from $150 to thousands of dollars, or build one yourself for a few hundred dollars. You might make some extra considerations for ducks, in that they like to have access to water; there are fanciful plans for duck coops with moats or ponds and sunpads, for example.
“Chickens need secure housing with roosting bars and nesting boxes," Barnes said, describing each animal's needs. "Ducks, being ground dwellers, need secure, ground-level housing and access to water for swimming and drinking.”
In either case, you’ll still need to account for bedding and feed. “On average, a laying hen eats about a quarter pound of feed per day or 1.5 pounds of feed per week," Barnes said. Ducks at this age require twice as much food, about a half pound per day, and benefit from food that includes Niacin, which chickens don’t require. Niacin (vitamin B3) ensures ducks get the bone growth they need to support their body—but since this water soluble vitamin is eliminated daily and not stored in the body, it needs to be replenished.
In short, chickens may run $30 to $50 per month for food and bedding, but for ducks it will be closer to $70 to $100.
Ducks are a longer commitment, but lay larger eggs
Chickens generally live five to 10 years, but they lay consistently until they're about five years old. Domesticated ducks can live to their twenties. They, too, will lay eggs consistently for about five years, but all egg production will taper off by the time they turn nine.
The eggs that chickens and ducks produce are markedly different in volume and substance, Barnes noted. “Chickens are prolific layers, with high-production breeds giving you around 250 to 300 eggs per year," he said. While some duck breeds, like khaki runners, can produce as many as 300 eggs a year, most duck breeds produce slightly less. Ducks, while laying fewer eggs, offer larger eggs. And while taste is subjective, duck eggs are often considered more luxurious, with a richer taste.
Both are social animals, but ducks are "social butterflies"
Though I was determined not to attach myself to my own small flock, it’s hard to ignore how charming backyard birds are. My chickens have distinct personalities that are easily observed, and though cautious and easily startled, they're are also curious and friendly. They also have a pecking order, Barnes pointed out. My small flock is being managed by a Machiavellian silkie named Cacciatore.
“Ducks are the social butterflies of the backyard," Barnes said. "They’re more sentient and form stronger bonds, especially if you hand-raise them. Ducks are known for their quirky, playful personalities and are often less skittish than chickens. They enjoy being in flocks and can be quite affectionate with their human caregivers.”
How your birds will interact with your yard
Backyard birds are a double-edged sword when it comes to the impact they'll have on your yard. On the one hand, they can provide fertilizer, bug control, and an ideal composting system for your kitchen scraps. On the other, both birds can be rough on landscaping. Chickens scratch up the ground to uncover edible bugs and create dirt baths, and ducks just consume whatever they can reach. However, these problems only exist if you free range your birds.
The benefits to free ranging extends beyond the happiness of the birds themselves, though, so I think it's likely worth it. Free ranging your birds has an immense benefit to the birds, obviously, as they can forage and explore their surroundings, but it also means free pest control. Chickens eat bugs, and ducks love snails and slugs. You just have to balance that with the possible damage to the landscaping they can cause. You also have to remember that wherever birds go, they poop, which is a lot of cleanup.
The good news is that this abundance of poop is fantastic for your garden. A notable difference is that chicken poop needs to go through a composting period before it can be applied to your garden so it won't burn your plants, but duck poop does not. It’s considered “cold” compost and can be applied directly. Since your ducks are going to produce a lot of wet waste if you have a pool for them, a plan for how you’ll use that water in your garden is necessary.
Late June means “summer” everywhere across America, and for most of us, summer gardens are in full swing already. In fact, most farmers have moved onto starting seed for fall and winter gardens. But if you’ve yet to get everything into the ground for whatever reason (and I’m frequently besieged by such reasons) it’s not too late. There are still lots of crops you can plant right now to yield a decent summer harvest. As a general rule, you’ll be skipping spring crops like peas, strawberries, bok choy, and spinach—it’s too hot for them. Instead, focus on buying really good-sized, established starts and succession planting.
Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants
Luckily, it’s not too late to get these crown jewels into the ground, but that time is fast approaching. Peppers, in particular, need a long time to fruit, so only purchase well-established, good-sized plants, such as those in gallon-sized pots. While tomatoes don’t need as much time, I’d still focus on gallon-sized starts, and make sure plant them deep on a cloudy day or at sunset, so they have a little time to recover before being blasted by the full sun. If you can protect them from the sun with some shade for the first day, that’s even better. Eggplants, which tend to fruit later in summer, are fine to purchase in four-inch pots.
Lettuce, radishes, scallions, beets, and kohlrabi
These are succession crops and as such, they are fine to plant all summer long, as they are harvestable quickly (in under sixty days). When planting lettuce, look for packages that say “bolt resistant” or “heat resistant.” Also consider shadier spots for your lettuce.
Carrots
It’s not too late to plant carrots, but they’ll be hard to germinate, since they require constant moisture to do so. It may be worth getting starts at the garden center so you’ll have some to harvest come fall. If you do pick up starts, remember to separate them by hand before planting them a few inches apart.
Beans, pumpkins, squash, melon and cucumbers
Do not be deceived, this is actually the perfect, peak time to plant all of these vegetables. Beans can still be direct sowed (seeded directly in your garden), but pumpkins, squash, melon, and cucumbers should be purchased as starts.
Corn
It’s last call for corn, and if you’re going to plant it, buy starts. Even though corn is easy to germinate (and it grows quickly), you’re running out of roadway. The long-held saying, “knee high by Fourth of July” remains because if the corn hasn’t grown that much by early July, it simply won’t grow tall and husky enough by the time it needs to form ears, resulting in tiny, underdeveloped corn ears.
Flowers
It’s a great idea to think about late-season flowers. You can still direct seed zinnias, sunflowers, and other sturdy, tall flowers. There's still time to plant cosmos and salvia starts for this summer. It’s a great time to get perennials at the garden center and plant them.
Focus on fall
It’s a hard transition to make, but soon, you’ll be planting fall succession crops like broccoli and cauliflower again, and perhaps a fall succession of peas. So even if you’ve missed out on summer, look ahead instead and get seeds started in trays outside for planting out come late summer.
Most of us don’t live on farms with acres to spread out crops, but instead have a few boxes, planters, or a small plot to grow our gardens. As a result, we tend to cram as much as we can into the space. It's called “crowdscaping,” and not only does it stop plants from growing to their full potential, but it also risks an even bigger problem: cross pollination.
Bees and other pollinators are indiscriminate little flirts. It’d be nice if they took pumpkin pollen and made sure to visit other pumpkins first, but they move onto the next flower whether that's a tomato or dill. Usually, it isn’t an issue—pea pollen has no effect on tomatoes, for instance—but that isn’t always true. Some crops can cross pollinate, and the result is a plant with DNA characteristics of both parent plants. In other words: frankencrops.
Let's take corn, for example. Unlike most plants that rely on pollinators like insects, corn is pollinated by the wind. Corn plants grow tassels, which have pollen on them, and the wind blows the tassels and sends the pollen to fall on corn plants of the same variety. That same wind can carry corn pollen as far as a half mile (but generally, 20-50 feet is considered the usual distance, to be safe). In a home garden, you need to have enough corn in a block to have it pollinate itself (a six foot by six foot block is advisable), but you shouldn't plant multiple varieties of corn in your garden because the resulting ears can take on traits from both varieties, and it won't necessarily be the best traits of each. You can also control cross pollination by choosing two varieties that have wildly different periods of pollination, but that's tricky math to master, as pollination phasse are a result of many factors, most of which are beyond our control.
How to prevent frankencrops
Unlike corn, cross pollinating squash will affect next year’s crop instead of the current one. The vegetables formed by cross pollination won’t be altered, but the seeds will be. If you save seeds and plant them, next year’s crop will have traits of both parent squashes. I’ve seen it in practice, and it can be both interesting and frustrating: Friends grew mammoth squash one year, each weighing in over 100 pounds, but they were utterly tasteless and watery.
The good news is that this only happens within one species; cucumbers and squash don’t cross pollinate even though they're both cucurbits, for example. The following groups will cross pollinate each other and should be separated by as much as a half mile. Since that's impractical in most home gardens, it’s wiser to simply not seed save these crops:
Butternut, Buttercup, Banana, Hubbard and Turban squashes
Muskmelon, Cantaloupe, Charentais; Honeydew; Casaba; Armenian Cucumber; Snake melon (gourd)
Be careful with companion planting
In addition to cross pollination, you also want to consider which plants do and don't benefit from companion or co-planting (planting near each other). Some pairings can have a dramatic effect on how well each plant flourishes. The term for these plants is "allelopathic," which just means they produce chemicals that are problematic for other types of plants. Planting members of the nightshade family (eggplant, tomato, pepper) near cruciferous plants (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale) risks both plants. However, some plants, like beans, benefit almost every other crop by being nearby.
As you plan your garden, be aware of how you space your plants and what seeds you save. For some crops, like squash, you want to ensure you are getting every single fruit, no matter how small, into the compost pile so it doesn’t have the ability to sprout. Even if you don’t intend to save seeds, paying attention will prevent you from mangling a crop through cross pollination or bad companion planting.
Plants come in two varieties: annuals, which will survive for a season, and perennials, which should come back year after year. Many of the plants in your vegetable garden, from carrots to tomatoes, are annuals, but you can grow quite a lot of perennial crops too.
In my book, growing your own perennial food forest—an enduring source of nourishment— of perennials is a sign of a true gardener. Here are all the edible perennial plants I recommend adding to your yard. (Note: Plants are all susceptible to weather, so which plants will "perennialize" is dependent on the USDA planting zone you live in. In some places with harsh winters, artichokes are treated as annuals, for instance. Talk to someone at your local garden center to learn what perennial plants will thrive in your zone.)
Berries
Most berry plants are perennials, including strawberries (in most ones). Planting a diversity of both June bearing (that is, plants that fruit in June) and ever bearing (plants that fruit all summer) strawberries mean you should have a full summer of berries. But strawberries aren’t the only game in town: Blueberries are outstanding shrubs that thrive in full sun or partial shade, and don’t require too much water. There are hundreds of varieties, and if you plant a mix of early, mid, and late varieties, you’ll have blueberries from June to August.
Other berries grow on bushes as well, from currants, goji berries, thimbleberries, gooseberry, honeyberry, salmonberry, huckleberry, and more. Elderberries grow on shrubs that can reach 30 feet tall within a few years. Then there are all the cane-based berries, like raspberry, blackberry, boysenberry, marionberry, loganberry and tayberries; these plants need support, like a trellis, but will grow prolifically and spread easily (with a little care, you can keep them in check).
Fruit and nut trees
Well cared-for Apple and pear trees will last for generations, providing harvests year after year. The same is true of stone fruits like apricot, peach, cherry, and nectarine. I’d can't imagine my garden without a fig tree in it—although like elderberry, they can grow to immense heights if you don't keep them under control.
Within each type of fruit are many varieties that provide variance in terms of taste and timing of harvest. The same is true for nut trees—including almonds, walnuts, pecans, filberts, and other nuts. These trees can also provide a canopy over other parts of your garden, benefitting plants that thrive in the shade.
Asparagus
An absolutely fascinating vegetable, asparagus is generally planted as a root in a ditch; each spring, it will send up the shoots we recognize as asparagus. (While you can grow asparagus from seed, it takes a few years for the spears to be ready to be plucked, so most people purchase crowns instead.) Watching my asparagus bed reappear each April is a delight; the crowns keep coming back, and an asparagus plant can live for 15-20 years.
Rhubarb
A funny looking plant prized for its stalks, rather than its leaves or fruit, rhubarb grows from a rhizome. The stalks will have a green-red color, but you can blanche them stalks early in the growing process to get those prized cherry red stalks. Rhubarb is harvestable from spring through early fall, and is slow to spread. It’s an ideal plant to put under trees (in the understory), as the less sunlight, the brighter red it will be.
Horseradish
Unlike rhubarb, horseradish is a taproot, and spreads quickly via a network of underground roots. Every spring it will shoot up tall green leaves which can also be eaten. At any time, you can dig up one of the roots to harvest it. As horseradish loses its spice the moment you cut into it, having fresh horseradish at your disposal is a real delight. You can even replant part of a root; it should take hold and produce more plants. Like rhubarb, horseradish is a great plant for an understory.
Artichokes
I dreamed of a garden full of artichokes my whole life, and now that I have one, it is as wonderful as I imagined. Artichokes slumber all winter, but come early spring, they come to life, growing as tall as seven feet, with sprawling silver-grey leaves. Shoots then appear, and at the end of each shoot, an artichoke. Each plant will produce a large artichoke, and then each successive one will be a bit smaller. Artichokes you don’t pick will open and flower into magnificent purple bee havens. They make a spectacular border plant when clustered together.
Fennel
You can’t kill fennel. I’ve tried. And it can’t be grown with anything else, as it will keep other plants from flourishing. Even worse, it grows via a taproot and spreads easily. So why do you grow it? Because fresh fennel is lovely, and when fennel is allowed to go to seed, it produces bright yellow pollen you can harvest to use in cooking (and to save your own fennel seeds). Bees also adore fennel.
Egyptian walking onions
The most fantastical vegetable there ever was, walking onions throw up a singular green stalk from the onion bulb in the soil. At the end of the stalk, three tiny onions will grow, flopping around in the air, until they are heavy enough to lean the plant over, where they will implant themselves in the soil and start over—hence the “walking” name. You can harvest either the bulb in the soil or the ones at the top of the plant. (I give my walking onions more space than I should because when I’m waiting for other things to sprout or fruit in late May-early June , the architecture of the walking onions keeps me amused.)
Saffron
The red stamens used to delicately flavor and color rice are actually from crocuses. You can buy them as bulbs and watch them flower, and then harvest the red stamens for your own saffron bounty. It’s important to put these bulbs where you can watch and access them so you don't miss your shot at a harvest, so planting boxes are a perfect choice.
Herbs
Perennial herbs are the ultimate edible perennial staple. Bay leaves, rosemary, lavender, sage, mint, thyme and plenty more can be grown year round as hardy shrubs. In some cases, you can successfully perennialize herbs like parsley and dill, which means that they continually seed themselves and come back on their own, though this requires continually seeding in the same place for a few years until they take hold, and a bit of luck.
Ramps
A relatively recent development, you can now purchase ethically farmed ramp bulbs specifically to grow in your own garden (I usually find them on Etsy). This means you'll have your very own ramp patch that will grow every year (if you're careful about harvesting them). Ramps need dappled light and a lot of moisture, so grow them alongside mushrooms.
Mushrooms
There are a multitude of ways to grow mushrooms, whether in buckets, on logs, or just by throwing spawn down on your wood chipped pathways. Having access to mushrooms, which flush in waves, is economical, if nothing else, and there’s something magical about going outside and find new shiitakes or wine cap mushrooms in my yard. Mushrooms require dappled light, which means you have to make them an understory plant.
Other plants that may perennialize
Other edible plants can become perennials if you can get them into a cycle of reseeding themselves, including potatoes and sweet potatoes—if you leave some small potatoes behind when harvesting, you’ll find the bed will regenerate come spring. Radicchio will often find a way to come back year to year, and onions may perennialize if you allow them to go seed, as might celery. I've had less luck with broccoli species that are claimed to return each year.
One of the best ways to define a garden space is with a path. Before considering hardscape options like concrete or stones, consider some cheaper options. Softer options like wood chips, clover or recycled pavers are all going to be better for the garden, easy to upkeep, and richer visually.
Wood chips are an ideal ground cover for walkways
There’s just no end to the benefits of wood chips in your garden. They’re easy to get for free, they have superb drainage so they’re easy to walk on even in wet weather, and as they compost, they feed your soil. Use enough of them and they’re a weed suppressant, and mulch the ground so it retains moisture and soil. The contrast of color they have to grass, clover or other ground cover help to define a pathway. Upkeep is as simple as raking them out so they're flat, and occasionally topping up the pathway with new wood chips (I’ve found once a year is sufficient).
Start by defining where the walkway will be, using something long and flexible, like a garden hose. Remove grass or other groundcover in the space, and then use flattened cardboard as a base to smother any remaining seeds in the ground. Cover with four to six inches of wood chips, and rake them to be nice and flat. You can simply walk back and forth over them to settle them in. Large chips stay in place really well, but you can use garden edging to maintain lines if you prefer.
Clover makes a luxurious pathway to walk on
Everyone always thinks of grass for soft, green garden paths, but grass is expensive to upkeep, a lot of work to maintain and terrible for the soil. Worse, it’s miserable to walk on when it’s wet. One winter can kill the grass and make the path a muddy mess. Instead, use clover. It requires no mowing, very little water, and if you use a perennial variety like white clover, creates an incredibly thick mat that will stand up to the rain and snow. You can mow it, like lawn, if you’re a masochist who loves their mower. Otherwise, just let it grow and feed the bees and other pollinators. Clover will spread, so keeping it in line using curbing makes sense.
You can always get recycled pavers for free
Someone in your neighborhood is trying to get rid of pavers, right now. Check NextDoor, Craigslist or Facebook: I guarantee you someone is currently dismantling a wall or chimney or just has a random pile of bricks that’s been in their backyard, and it can be yours, for free. For straight pathways, bricks and the grid they create can be a powerful architectural detail in your yard. For curved spaces, you can place the bricks straight on and then easily cut the curves out of the finished pathway, or align the bricks to the curves using a formula. In either case, you’ll want to dig out any grass or other groundcover, and start with a base of compacted sand that is level. This is followed by the bricks, and then the bricks can be filled in with paver sand, which actually locks the pavers in place.
I’ve built raised garden beds out of railroad ties or cedar fencing, 2x4s, bricks and even a beautiful woven lattice. But when I got serious about not having to build new raised beds every few years, I developed a simple, sturdy design that anyone can follow.
It is the only way I’ve bothered making raised beds for the last 10 years, regardless of where I was building them—the Arizona desert, rainy Pacific Northwest or suburban Georgia. This design will provide you with a financially reasonable and technically easy way to get beds together quickly for any sized space. It offers a better amount of bed depth than most plans I see, and requires very few tools. The sturdiness of the beds mean they won’t move over time, lean over, and are impervious to getting dinged up by your wheelbarrow.
Use the right wood
The most common mistake I see for raised bed building is not choosing the right wood. A lot of time is often spent on considering pressure treated (PT) wood versus untreated, or what variety of wood—cedar versus redwood. But the biggest problem is that people generally get lumber that's too thin and/or small. Messing around with cedar pickets, which are thin and flimsy, or 2x4s, which don’t give you any vertical height, doesn’t serve you long-term. The answer is to go large: I use 2x12s or 2x10s. This means that you need fewer planks of wood stacked vertically. I don’t use pressure-treated wood, because even though the methods they use currently to treat the wood aren’t considered toxic, I go out of my way to not introduce unneeded chemicals into my edible garden.
While you can use variety you want, and hardwoods or cedar will certainly last longer, it’s not essential. Using pine or redwood, in planks of wood this beefy, will still last eight years or longer. When the wood breaks down, it benefits your garden because it’s essentially compost, and by keeping the beds inexpensive and easy to make, creating new ones in eight to 10 years won’t seem cumbersome.
Check out suppliers other than big box stores
Big box stores aren’t the only game in town for getting wood. Look specifically for lumber stores and get some prices, or—my favorite hack—hit up Craigslist for independent millers selling “rough cut” wood.
The benefit of independent millers (people with their own saw mill or setup) is that the wood is likely to be cheaper, and you might get a deal for all the cuts you need. Also, independent millers don’t cut everything down to the same length just for uniformity, like you get at Home Depot. As they’re slicing a tree into 2x12s, if the plank ends up being 15 feet long, and you only need 12, they don’t chop the last three feet off, because it’s just more work, and there’s no benefit to doing it. As a result, you get longer cuts for the same price, while supporting someone local. While I don’t see it as a downside, this wood is usually “rough cut"—it hasn’t gone through a sanding process to make the sides smooth. They also have not been kiln dried as they would be for a big box store, meaning they still hold a lot of moisture. For the purpose of building raised beds, neither of these issues is a problem. The raised beds will live outside under constant watering, and really doesn’t require the smooth sides. I actually prefer the rough cuts; I think it makes the beds less inviting to pests.
Determining the size of your beds
A raised bed is a rectangle. That rectangle can be any length you want; you are limited only by the length of wood planks you can obtain (12 or 16 feet is common). However, in terms of the width of the bed, you want to think really hard about making it any wider than four feet (but anything in the two to four foot range is fine). There’s a simple reason: You have to be able to reach everything in the middle of the bed, and anything wider than four feet makes that quite difficult. The height of the bed will always be 22 1/2” tall, because we’ll use two 2x12s stacked vertically (and 2x12s are actually only 11 ½” once dried). Consider, as you are designing the beds, if the space you are putting them in slopes dramatically, as this might mean breaking a long bed into two, so you can terrace the ground for each bed. Make sure you allow at least three feet between beds, but four feet is better. This will allow you to maneuver a wheelbarrow through the aisles, which you’ll find really helpful. Don’t be afraid to grab some landscaping flags to lay out where the beds will go and just walk around, making sure you can reach everything and it’s comfortable to walk around.
Sketch out the entire space, laying out the final dimensions of the beds. This is going to help you visualize the wood you need. For each bed, you’ll need one 2x12x16 for the shorter sides, and then two 2x12s for each of the longer sides, at whatever length you design the beds to be. Ideally, you get planks a little longer than the beds, so you can square off the ends of the planks.
Credit: Amanda Blum
Determine how much wood you'll need
The planks you lay horizontally will need vertical supports to keep the bed together. You’ll place these in every corner, and then every four feet of length along the long side. For an eight-foot-long bed, you need one additional vertical support in the middle. For a twelve-foot bed, you need two additional supports. This support is just a 2x4 that is 20” tall (roughly the same height as the beds). Add up the lengths to determine how much vertical plank you need. For instance, on an eight-foot bed, you need six vertical supports, which is 144” or a 2x4x12’ plank. For beds that are longer than 12 feet, I like to put in some additional bracing in the middle of the bed, all the way across the width. This helps stop the bed from bowing in the middle over time. The brace is just additional 2x12s, stacked vertically, the entire width of the bed.
Credit: Amanda Blum
The tools you’ll need
The beauty of this design is that you need very few tools. You’ll benefit from a chop saw, but a circular saw will do in a pinch. Also: a power drill, wood glue, 2 ½” construction screws and a power sander, and the sander is optional. While you can get your cuts done at a big box store, you’ll save a lot of money doing it yourself, and it’s very likely you’ll make at least one mistake on the cuts you need, so having the ability to make cuts where you’re building is very helpful. The sander is used on corners to round sharp edges. This helps reduce clothing getting caught or getting scratches as you walk around the corners of the beds, but isn’t essential. Since you’ll be using construction screws, you won’t be pre-drilling anything (and construction screws come with the right drill bit in the package), but a decent power drill, even a hammer drill, is absolutely essential. While not essential, I benefited a lot from buying corner clamps so that I could get a real 90-degree corner on my beds.
The build
This is obvious, but lumber is dimensional: You’re not joining up two sheets of paper. Where two pieces of wood meet in a corner (where they join), you have to be deliberate about which piece of wood is on the “outside,” through which you’ll screw into the other piece of wood. The shorter pieces should always live on the outside, and you screw through the short side, into the longer piece of wood. Because of this, when accounting for the real length of the wood you need for those long sides, you deduct the three inches (1 ½ inches from either end) because the width of the short end of the wood makes up the difference. In an eight-foot bed, rather than the long pieces of wood being 96”, you’d make them 93”. When they butt up against the short sides of the bed, they end up being 96” total length.
Start on a flat surface, and build the first level of the bed. Join one corner, using the clamps if you have them, making sure the short length of wood is on the outside. Take the time and care to make sure the cuts are all 90 degrees, and the wood is lined up precisely. Use wood glue between the two pieces of wood. Using your drill, screw through the shorter piece of wood into the longer piece of wood. Use two screws for this, one four inches off the ground and a second about eight inches off the ground. Be sure to place the screws an inch away from the edge of the wood, and ensure you are screwing perpendicular to the wood, so it goes in straight. Continue going around the bed screwing the corners together until you have a complete rectangle. Do this a second time, so now you have two rectangles. You can usually just put the second one together on top of the first, as they should be replicas of each other.
Where to screw through woodCredit: Amanda Blum
Next, put in your vertical supports. Place a 2x4 cut to 20” in each corner vertically. Put the longer side of the 2x4 along the longer side of the bed. Now, screw through the bed from the outside, into the vertical support, placing four screws on each side of the corner. Go around and do this in all four corners, and then every four feet along the length. The vertical support won’t be as tall as the bed—it should be a little bit shorter. This will hide the supports once you have soil in the bed, for a cleaner look.
Where to put screwsCredit: Amanda Blum
If the bed requires bracing in the middle, take another measurement of the distance between the width of the bed, and then cut two 2x12” inch pieces to that length. Put them in place with wood glue, and then screw from the outside of the bed into the ends of the 2x12s.
Now, move the bed into place. What I like about this process is that once you put the bed down, you’ll see precisely where you might need to level the ground a bit and can just do so with a shovel, with the bed in place. Lift the bed, dig it out a bit, and put it back down. You don’t need to be precise about pre-leveling the space. Fill the beds with good soil, and you’re ready to go. These beds are sturdy enough that you can tip a wheelbarrow into them and not damage the bed.
You can take a sander to the corners to smooth them out a little—a power sander makes very quick work of this. I don’t stain or seal my raised beds, because I don’t want to introduce anything that can leach into the soil. However, there are whey-based stains that are okay to use in this instance.
Tomato plants are a popular addition to vegetable gardens, but they can be a real challenge. From the moment tomato seeds sprout to the day you compost the plant at the end of the season, tomato plants are surprisingly susceptible to problems. Now that most of you should have your tomato plants in the ground, here’s how to identify problems on your plants, as well as prevent and treat them.
Stimulate more flower production
In order to produce tomatoes, you need flowers on your tomato plants, since the pollination of those flowers is what creates tomatoes. While they’ll usually do this on their own, if you notice there aren’t a lot of flowers or you just want to encourage more, you can try using products designed to stimulate flower growth. Sea Magic Organic Growth Activator, made from seaweed, should be used in addition to your regular fertilizer program because it will stimulate flower growth in tomato plants. Sea Magic is easy to use and safe for the home garden. This Tomato & Vegetable Blossom Spray Set contains the plant hormone cytokinin and promotes cell division in plants, which leads to blossom set (flowers developing on the plants), fruit development, and increased yields. This means more potential for fruit set (fruit developing on the plants), even in less desirable weather, as the more flowers, the more fruit.
Prevent and treat blossom end rot (BER)
The most common tomato growing problem in the world is blossom end rot, which manifests as the bottom of your tomatoes being black, sunken or shriveled.
Blossom end rotCredit: Dan Gabriel Atanasie/Shutterstock
BER is hard to treat—the problem happens long before you see it in the fruit and is usually a result of a plant’s lack of ability to absorb calcium. This can be because there isn’t enough calcium in the soil, or the plant suffers from another nutrient deficiency (too much nitrogen, not enough phosphorus/potassium) that causes it to not be able to access the calcium in the soil. It can also be due to drought stress, or inconsistent watering. Inconsistent can mean over- or under-watering, which is why it’s important to consistently deliver water directly at the root of your tomatoes. Soil conditions, like compacted or poorly draining soil, can also hinder calcium uptake.
According to Nancy Awot-Traut, Horticulture Expert at Burpee Gardening, a key challenge for gardeners is that the symptoms of BER, such as fruit rot, typically appear days to weeks after the initial water stress or nutrient imbalance occurs. The most critical time to avoid BER is the first two to three weeks after fruit set. Avoiding BER means getting your soil tested to make your pH is 6.2-6.8, and has enough calcium. According to Awot-Traut, it’s important to avoid over fertilization, since that can result in too much nitrogen. Mulching at the base of plants can help maintain consistent moisture, and ensuring that each tomato plant has enough space (this will depend on the variety and should appear on the seed packet or plant label, but at least 18 inches is standard).
Once you see BER, it’s too late for affected tomatoes, but you can try to treat the plant for future tomatoes by using a foliar spray like Rot Stop or Cal Mag.
Prevent virus and fungi
With all the moisture involved in growing tomatoes as well as density of the leaves, there’s a lot of opportunity for the spread of virus and funguses. One of the primary ways fungi spread is by splashing up from the soil when there’s a lot of rain or overhead watering. Mulching and watering at the base of plants prevents this problem from happening. Ensuring that each plant has enough space around it and is pruned to create air flow can help mitigate the spread. Choosing to grow varieties that have good disease resistance can help as well.
Remember, in the garden you are the most likely vector of disease spread. When you go out into the garden and touch all your plants in the morning, with the dew still present, you may just be spreading whatever is on one plant to all the others. This is also the reason it is critical you keep your pruning shears clean between plants. A spray bottle of Lysol that you use between plants is effective.
Unlike other fruit that have only a few recognizable issues, tomatoes can suffer from a litany of different fungi or viruses. Septoria leaf spot is a fungus that appears as black spots on your leaves and spreads quickly. Leaves progressively turn yellow and die.
Septoria leaf spotCredit: Rubanitor/Shutterstock
Blight, another common fungus, manifests as irregular black shapes on your tomato leaves.
Tomato blightCredit: Gondola/Shutterstock
Fusarium wilt fungus will yellow the leaves, which then turn brown, from the outside of the leaf towards the stem.
Fusarium wilt fungus on tomato leavesCredit: Olya Maximenko/Shutterstock
Anthracnose is a whole class of fungus that will cause large black or brown spots on your tomatoes.
Anthracnose fungus on tomatoesCredit: Radovan1/Shutterstock
Mosaic virus is likely the cause of shrunken, twisted and curled leaves.
Mosaic virus on tomato leaves Credit: Plant Pathology/Shutterstock
The most effective treatment for virus or fungus is being bold about removal. Rather than treat plants, the best course is usually swiftly removing the affected plants and then ensuring they go in the trash, rather than compost. If you wait, you risk the problem spreading to all the other plants around the affected one, and in a short summer season, it’s rarely worth that risk. While some fungicides may help treat the problem, you are then introducing those chemicals into your food. It’s safer to take the loss and hope your other plants do better. Remember that the fungus and viruses can remain in the soil over winter which is why crop rotation (moving your crops around in the garden every year) is essential.
Recognize tomato pests
As if the viral and fungal threats aren’t enough, you also have a lot of pests in the garden that will aim for your tomatoes. The best way to mitigate this is to ensure that you are checking your plants daily, diversifying your varieties and planting deterrents around the tomatoes like marigolds, sweet alyssum, dill, and nasturtiums, which will help drive these pests away. The upside is that many of these pest problems can be treated.
Tiny white or yellow spots can mean spider mites, which will steal chlorophyll from your plants.
Aphids, a common pest problem that you can actually solve, look like tiny white raised dots on your plants that cluster and cause tomato leaves to curl. Spray them off with water, plant nearby trap plants like nasturtiums and treat the tomato with a spray of soapy water.
Aphids on tomato plant Credit: OSINSKIH AGENCY/Shutterstock
Flea beetles Credit: Grow Land studio/Shutterstock
Hornworms are gigantic green worms on your tomato stems that look like tomato stems but will devour your plants. They can simply be removed by hand.
Hornworm on a tomato plant Credit: J Gillispie/Shutterstock
Everyone thinks of tomatoes as the first thing to grow, and there are few treats as lovely as a sun-warmed, just-ripe tomato you grew yourself. But the road to getting a healthy tomato is long and full of threats to derail your fruit production. Knowing what those threats are, and working to prevent them—and, if possible, mitigate them—will make it a more satisfying season.
Amazon has seemingly figured out that part of our obsession with security cameras is being able to share the moments we capture, whether funny, scary, or just plain weird. As a way to sweeten the deal for subscribers of the Blink Plus plan, Blink will now give you a daily summary of your events, stitched together in a single “moment” made for sharing.
Jonathan Cohn, head of product at Blink, seems to acknowledge that most of the videos on security cams aren’t dangerous or threatening, but rather another format for capturing our daily lives. Per a press release from Blink, “Whether it’s their family playing outside, packages being delivered, or pets exploring the yard, Blink Moments combines the moments that matter into one video.”
While Blink Moments is starting to roll out today, it’ll take a few weeks for all subscribers to see the feature. Blink offers two tiers of plans: Blink Basic ($3/month) for one camera, or Plus ($10/month) for more than one. Moments is only available on the higher tier, but according to Amazon, most customers have at least three Blink cameras anyways. The Plus plan already offers person detection, live view recording, up to 60 days of video cloud storage, and motion-detection video recording.
Sharing aside, if your camera grabs a lot of footage, it can be painful to scroll through all the saved clips. I suspect most people, like me, simply don’t. A similar feature is available to me via my Eufy Pet Camera, which gives me an end-of-day collection of my dog’s hilarity all ready to share, and I admit has made me more likely to actually see what the camera is recording (and share it).
Blink, which is owned by Amazon, offers a range of indoor and outdoor cameras. I’ve reviewed a number of them and found them generally to be affordable and easy to install cameras with a neat, easy app for viewing.
With a market flooded with vacuums and mops and models changing so rapidly, it’s almost impossible to feel confident about what you’re buying in the moment. For the last month, I have been testing the Ecovacs Deebot T30S Combo ($1199.99)—a robot vacuum and mop, in a self-emptying tower, combined with a stick vacuum. It’s a machine trying to do a lot; I’m going to discuss the parts as they compare to other vacuums and mops already out.
The T30S comes in two variations: The first has a handheld vacuum with a few attachments, but without the extension for the vacuum, it’s merely a nice Dustbuster. (For about 30 dollars more, you can get a fully extendable stick vacuum.)
The first thing you’ll notice about the T30S is that the base is monstrous—it eclipsed in size any other robot I've tested in the last year, particularly in height. Water tanks and vacuum accessories can all be stowed in the tower itself, which is handy—but even so, its size and width makes it harder to place in your home. There’s almost no assembly except for clicking together the ramp to the tower and stowing the accessories in a drawer designed for them. Pairing the robot to the Ecovacs app was also fast and streamlined.
Advanced features in app, but lots of advertising
Open the Ecovacs app, and without fail you’ll be hit with offers and banners. They’re easy to click off, but still, it’s an annoying distraction. Otherwise, the interface for the vacuum works very similarly to other advanced robots out there including Roborock, Switchbot, and Dreame. Like Roborock, it has a voice assistant named Yiko and it works about as well as Roborock’s (which isn’t very well, but shows promise). Unlike other robots in this price range, the T30S lacks onboard video. The T30S is missing two of my must-have features on robot vacuums these days: remote control and pin and go, which you now see in almost all high-end models, including those mentioned above. Remote control allows you to control the robot using your phone, meaning you never have to go fishing for a bot under the couch again. You can simply drive it over to you. "Pin and go" allows you to mark a spot on the map and have the robot proceed to that pin and clean in that specific area. It’s a great way to quickly deal with a spill.
In its favor, the T30S had a feature I’m beginning to see more of: the ability to designate room cleaning priorities. In other words, if it's cleaning my bathroom and any other space, I can have it always clean the bathroom last. If it's cleaning the kitchen and any other space, I can direct it to always get the kitchen first. Another newer feature I like is the maintenance log for all the working parts, which gives you a status report of every single replaceable part. Other standard features like child lock, schedules, and intensity settings for your mop and vacuum are present on the T30S.
A better mop than vacuum
Every household produces different kinds of detritus. A floor that only has some dust could use almost any robot vacuum with success, and might want to focus on models like Dyson, which are specifically designed to capture microparticles. Some vacuums are specially designed to grab pet hair. I, on the other hand, have "macroparticles": large stuff that is tracked in by the dog, or dropped during various crafting or cooking activities. If you have kids who drop Cheerios, for instance, you have a macroparticle problem, and it’s one that robot vacuums struggle with. The T30S struggled with macroparticles, getting stuck on almost anything larger than a popcorn kernel, which meant I had to come clear out the roller brush. But it didn’t really capture smaller debris that well, either. This could be due to a singular roller design, but I think it’s also due to the small size of the debris container. The T30S did not seem to return to the base once full to empty itself, instead stubbornly continuing its run, unable to pick up anything else. If you, like me, suffer from larger detritus, then this is not the vacuum for you. But I believe this could be capable of picking up pet hair and dust, etc. without a problem.
More successful was the mop, which is handled by two spinning mop pads, much like the Roborock Qrevo line. While I still believe that mop pads, like the Roborock S8 are better for mopping than spinning pads, I thought the T30s did an admirable job, better than the Dreame L10 I recently reviewed, and on par with the Qrevo. Because the pads extend out from the robot, they’re able to get into corners and room edges admirably. I generally found that this was all more successful when I ran a complete vacuum run and then a separate mop run.
The T30S did something that surprised me: It moved through a curtained-off area. When robots used bump-and-go technology to map an area, they would go anywhere a little battery-powered motor could take them. New robots including the T30S use LiDAR (lasers that use light and distance to determine where to go), which means most robots these days don’t bump into things at all, and actively avoid them—they perceive obstacles they could get through or under as walls. So I was shocked to watch the T30S slip under a floor-length velvet curtain between my hallway and living room as if the curtain didn’t exist. While this is probably a bug (Ecovacs is still looking into it), I think it's a bug that could work in your favor if you have a space that previous LiDAR robots haven't "seen," whether that's a space blocked by a pet gate a robot could still slip under, someplace you're using a room divider, or a curtain, like me. While a bug could always get corrected, I think it's unlikely to happen, given that most companies just make a new robot altogether. In fact, this "bug" didn't exist on the Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni, which I tried (and liked) just a few months ago.
On the downside, the T30S also stranded itself more than a few times once the job was completed. It struggled to return to the base, abandoning itself in hallways and other random spots, and although this only represents 15% of all the times I used it, it's still a consideration.
A near-miss on what could have been a killer feature
The hand vac included in the T30S makes you question how badly you want to use it. On one hand, it’s such a good idea to have a self-emptying hand vac; you never have to deal with a messy canister over a trash can. This one feature is what makes me prefer the Samsung Bespoke Jet AI vacuum over any Dyson I’ve tried, because you simply grab the vacuum all ready to go, clean, and then place it back on the dock, where it empties itself. Unlike Samsung, though, there are extra steps to use the T30S. You have to assemble it each time you want to use it, and then disassemble it to put it back in the dock, where it self empties. All the time and energy saved by the self-emptying feature is canceled out by the work to put the vacuum together and take it apart each time you want to use it.
At least when you get the T30S with the extended stick vacuum, you just remove the handheld portion to place it in the tower, and the stick and whatever accessory you’re using get docked on the exterior of the tower, so it's not as labor-intensive. However, this also means the tower now takes up even more space vertically and horizontally.
Not a bad buy, but not the best buy
Despite all that, the truth is that if you were to buy a mid-range stick vac and robot vacuum, you’d still end up spending more than the list price for this combo tower. While I think if you want a better robot vacuum/mop you’d buy a Roborock or Switchbot, and if you wanted a better stick vacuum you’d get the Samsung Bespoke Jet AI, the Deebot T30S is going to work well for someone without major floor detritus who just wants a reliable bot to keep up with the daily dust, and wants a handheld vac nearby for things above ground level.
While people don’t eat houseplants and rarely munch on shrubs or ground cover, your pets probably do. That's why you need to be really, really sure your pet won’t try to snack on your plants before installing a plant that might be toxic—and it turns out that a lot of plants are.
Use apps to identify plants
Most people don’t know the name of every plant in their yard, but a plant ID app will help you close the loop. Snap a pic, and have the app identify it. Some of these apps will also tell you if plants are toxic to pets. If they don’t, you need to use a database to do a little digging. Rover has a new searchable database that will tell you if plants are toxic, and what symptoms to look for in a pet if ingested. Dogs and cats have different sensitivities, so what is toxic to dogs might be fine for cats and vice versa.
Toxic vs. poisonous
Not all plants are toxic to pets; some are merely poisonous—and yes, there's a difference. Toxic plants can do harm in all kinds of ways—through surface contact or inhalation. Just being around them can be bad for your pet, even if they’re not likely to chew. Poisonous plants, on the other hand, have to be ingested to be dangerous, so they are mildly less problematic. That said, some plants are poisonous enough that they only need to be consumed once to have dire consequences, so you’d need to really trust that your pet is isolated from the plant or would never look at, for example, a hydrangea branch as a chew toy. Dan Teich, DVM, who runs District Veterinary Hospitals in Washington, DC, notes, "The good news is most plants will not cause permanent damage to your pet. Many are irritants, can cause excessive salivation, and upset stomach, but usually these signs will pass. This is common with philodendrons, poinsettias, pothos, and many common houseplants."
Avoid these common plants
Teich notes that the most common plant-related incidents they see involve a commonly gifted flower. "True lilies are the most dangerous of all plants for cats; even the pollen can be deadly. Lilies can lead to irreversible kidney failure in a cat within days. Calla lilies and peace lilies are not true lilies and may cause intestinal upset in your pet." He warns that if you suspect lily ingestion, you should seek immediate care for your cat.
Other plants present similar risks, according to Teich. Consuming large amounts of azalea leaves can lead to cardiac collapse, and even death. Ingesting sago palms—a popular outdoor and indoor plant—can be fatal, and any consumption by a pet should be treated as an emergency.
Foxglove, an easily spread outdoor flower, is also dangerous. Like lily of the valley and oleander, it can have a grave effect on your pet's heart.
If you are uncertain if a plant is dangerous to your pet, you may contact the ASPCA 24/7 Poison Control Hotline at 888-426-4435 or the Pet Poison Helpline at 855-764-7661.
Learn to recognize symptoms
The list of symptoms that pets can exhibit as a result of toxic exposure to plants is long and varied. There are extreme, easy-to-note symptoms like vomiting, diarrhea, trouble breathing, seizures, and excessive drooling. There are also symptoms that are harder to appreciate, like lack of appetite, lethargy, muscle tremors or uncoordinated movement, unusual bruising or bleeding and yellowing skin or eyes. Cats tend to exhibit more neurological symptoms, while dogs might experience more gastrointestinal symptoms. Since many of these symptoms can look like everyday living to a pet owner (pets routinely eat grass and vomit without there being any toxicity), it’s important to pay attention when the symptoms begin and take action if they continue. Your pet throwing up once might not be cause for alarm—continued vomiting is, regardless of the underlying reason. If you're not sure or want advice, call either of the above hotlines. You'll pay a fee (which some pet insurance plans may cover), but as Teich points out, "compared to the potential consequences, it might be worth the investment."
Take action
While the cost of emergency veterinary care is daunting, you should not try to induce vomiting in your pet unless under consultation with your veterinarian—doing so can lead to esophageal problems. If you can identify the plant in question, or take a photo and/or sample of it with you to the vet, that will be helpful. Whether it should require emergency veterinary care versus waiting for your veterinarian to open is dependent on what was ingested, but the faster the care, the better.
When a pet with potential plant toxicity presents at the vet, Teich says the course of action depends on how fast the pet owner was able to act. "We first try to identify the plant to assess which treatment plan is best. If within an hour or two of ingestion, making the pet vomit up any remaining plant material is the first course of action. For certain plants, an activated charcoal slurry is then fed to the dog or cat, which absorbs remaining toxins in the stomach and intestines. Depending upon the plant and clinical signs noted, hospitalization in fluids with other supportive care may be necessary."
While not all plants are toxic enough to cause death, many can cause long-term effects, and that will carry with it costs for treatment, as well as pain for the animal. Your vet might have a community care program to help with emergency costs, and almost all animal treatment centers can help you obtain emergency credit specifically for care of your pet.
Prepare, just in case
If you want to be prepared ahead of the game, always have your vet’s information, as well as the name, location and number of your closest 24-hour veterinary emergency care location printed out somewhere easy to access, and on your phone. Having pet insurance in place can help soften the financial blow of events like this. Whether or not you have insurance, you may need to pay out of pocket before getting reimbursed, so having money set aside, or a credit card for this purpose, might be smart. When you view it all through this lens, spending a little time and money now to ensure you have pet-safe plants, or appropriate barriers to keep your pets away from toxic plants, makes a lot of financial sense.
Early summer marks the beginning of scape season, as you’ll soon see at the farmers market and likely in your own garden. As the seasons change and we hit the right temperature range, onions, garlic, and shallots will try to shoot up a flower. Unlike the sprouted leaves of the plant, which stand hollow, straight, and tall, scapes have a solid stem and tend to grow in fantastical swirls and turns, making them easier to spot.
For most alliums, scapes represent a plant that has bolted, meaning that the taste will be ruined, since all the energy will go towards the flower rather than the bulb of the plant. (For garlic and shallots, this is not true: you can harvest the scape and the plant will quit being distracted and go back to working on producing a large bulb.) The good news is that scapes tend to erupt across your yard within a small window of a week or two, so if you’re diligent enough, you’ll be able to grab them all and do something with the scape harvest.
How to harvest scapes
Begin by paying attention to your garlic, which you (theoretically) planted in fall. You should start to notice a curvy, curled “leaf” and on inspection, that will be the scape. You want to wait until the scape is as tall as the leaves and separated from the leaves, and then just snap it off at the base, or clip it with clean shears. You do not want the blossom at the top of the scape to open; it should still be tightly closed.
Your onions may also bolt and produce a scape, and you can choose whether to harvest it or leave it on the plant and let it go to seed. At this point, the onion isn’t going to be edible anyway (onions are different than garlic), and if you let the flower go to seed, it makes a really stunning visual in the garden. It will also drop seeds, producing more onions next year.
Make scape vinegar
It may sound basic, but this spicy, garlicky vinegar is one of the easiest and most visually pleasing ways to use your scapes or open onion flowers. Wash your scapes, chop them into one-inch pieces, fill a bottle or jar one quarter full with the chopped scapes or open onion blossoms, and then top with white vinegar. Let the vinegar sit for a few weeks, and then it’s ready for use. You can filter the scapes out, or leave them in. The blossoms, in particular, look really nice on the shelf.
Make scape koshō
I eagerly await scapes each year so I can make this garlic koshō from Jori Jayne Emde. It’s essentially just scapes, blended with 20% of their weight in salt, and allowed to ferment. This is one of my favorite fast ways to prep any protein or vegetable. Simply add a little olive oil to the kosho, and then rub it all over what you’re prepping, and then cook it. The koshō imparts saltiness, umami, and a soft garlic flavor.
Use scapes the same way as garlic
Scapes have a woody stem and a closed blossom, so texturally, they’re different from garlic bulbs, but they have the same spicy taste profile. A thinly sliced or diced scape contributes the same taste as garlic, with a different mouth feel, and a little more bite. The different format of scapes to bulbs allows you to use the scapes creatively, including grilling or sautéing them, which will soften both the flavor and texture.
Make scape pickles
I used pickled onions all the time, but I save pickled scapes for a special occasion. I use a simple brining solution that is 50% vinegar and 50% brine. You can use any vinegar you want, and the brine is a 3% salt solution. Split the scapes along the length as many times as you can (usually it's just once or twice) and then cut into three-inch pieces. Add the scapes to a jar, and then cover with the hot brine. Cap the jar and allow it to sit for at least two weeks. At that point you can move it to the fridge.
Blend up some scape butter
Throw eight tablespoons (one stick) of your favorite room-temperature butter into a food processor with one scape. (Don’t add more—one scape is plenty.) Add a pinch of salt and blend until the butter is a pale green and you see only small particles of the scape. Scrape the butter into a jar, and place in the fridge. The resulting butter is stupendous on biscuits or any other application that doesn’t need sweet.
Arrange a bouquet
If you hate the taste of scapes, you can still enjoy their beauty. Place them in a vase and turn them into a spectacular display on your table, either on their own, or with the snapdragons, sweet peas, or foxgloves that are blooming right now.
For most of my life, birds haven't interested me much, but sometime in the pandemic, I started adding bird feeders to my garden, and now I am completely charmed by my new visitors. The number one threat to bird feeders are squirrels—animals which, historically, I am quite fond of—but I’ve managed to create an environment where squirrels and birds can coexist on my property.
I have read every treatise on squirrel mitigation (and have tried just about everything), but here is what has worked for me.
You shouldn't try to keep away squirrels altogether
The single best mitigation strategy I have for squirrels is to simply give them their own feeder. Squirrels are trainable, like most animals, and if you give them food they like in an easily accessible manner, they’re not going to care much about your bird feeders.
This strategy doesn’t just protect your feeder; it also distracts squirrels from ransacking your garden. Squirrel feeders are also, for the record, delightful. They range from basic horizontaljar feeders to more elaborate squirrel saloon situations. I myself went for an English tea feeder.
Credit: Amanda Blum
Choose the right bird feeder
Once you have something that's enticing to the squirrels, you can move onto a better bird feeder. In my opinion, the best squirrel-proof bird feeders are those that are pressure sensitive, and will simply close the seed portholes when there is too much weight on the feeder. (Birds do not have enough weight, but squirrels do.) The best I’ve tried and keep going back to are produced by Roamwild. They have multiple kinds of squirrel proof feeders and the free-hanging versions work very well.
Window bird feeders, as much as I enjoy them, are just squirrel bait. They’re just too easy for squirrels to get to (either from your roof line or a windowsill) and unfortunately even my Roamwild window feeder ultimately failed the squirrel test. It’s not just that squirrels will grab the food, either. Their weight on the feeder, particularly as they leap to it, will be too much for the suction cups and cause the feeder to fall, eventually breaking it.
Use multiple squirrel mitigation strategies
Even with the right bird feeder, you still need a multi-faceted approach to squirrel management. This begins by choosing the right location, meaning that it's more than 10 feet from overhanging branches, roofs, or any sort of structure a squirrel could leap from, including hanging lights. This includes lower structures like patio chairs or raised beds. The pole for your bird feeder should be far enough away so that it stands a fighting chance. This isn't an option for every home, of course, but it is an important factor.
The bird feeder should also have a baffle over it, which is a clear dome that you hang the feeder from. The squirrels can’t climb over it, so it’s harder for them to access the feeder from the top. While squirrel baffles exist for under your feeder, I haven’t found them effective. What has been effective is a cheap Slinky. Attach one end to the feeder and let the other end fall to the ground, unwound. Squirrels seem to struggle with the mechanism of climbing the coils.
You can try squirrel-proof feed, too
It’s believed that squirrels can’t handle cayenne, while birds don’t care about the spiciness of the seeds, so bird food with added cayenne may help. I have had limited success with this, but as per the multi-faceted method, you should try a little bit of everything.
I think it also comes down to the fact that some people are just determined to see squirrels as the enemy. I’ve found far more success seeing them as part of the ecosystem rather than trying to exclude them from it entirely, which is a losing battle. I suspect that, like birds, once you start feeding them and paying attention to them, you’ll find the charm in them, too.
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