Paw Paws are a delicious native fruit that’s prized by foragers! In this article, you’ll learn how to ID paw paw (Asimina triloba) trees throughout the year, plus when to look for the fruit, and how to best harvest and store it. How to ID a Paw Paw Tree Paw paws are small, perennial understory…
Learn how to harvest sunflower seeds from your garden, plus how to save them for snacking, birdseed, or replanting in next year’s garden! When to Harvest Unlike many flowers, you don’t want your sunflower blooms to dry all the way up before collecting your seeds. Brown, dead, dry sunflowers have likely either dropped all their…
It’s easy to save seeds from calendula flowers. Find out how to know when they’re ready & the best way to store your homegrown calendula seeds! Calendula is a wonderfully easy flower to save seeds from. If you’ve ever saved marigold seeds, it’s not any more difficult than that! However, note that calendula (Calendula officinalis)…
Learn how to collect and store seeds from marigold flowers! (Never buy marigold seeds again!) In this article, you’ll learn how to collect and store seeds from marigolds (Tagetes spp.) that may be growing in your garden. Be sure not to confuse marigolds with calendula (which is sometimes called pot marigold) – here’s an article…
This homemade peach ice cream recipe has been in our family for three generations. When my mom was a kid, her mom (my grandma) would always make it for church ice cream socials, where everyone would scrape the container clean! Besides using peaches to flavor the ice cream, you could instead use a bag of…
Got a bumper crop of sweet or bell peppers, and can’t possibly eat them all fresh before they start to go bad? Do you wish you could eat your lovely homegrown peppers all year ’round, not just when they’re in season? Do you have spare room in your freezer? If so, you might want to…
Learn how to turn the beautiful roses in your garden into a tasty and gorgeous rose petal jelly! It’s made with reduced sugar pectin, fresh rose petals, sugar, lemon juice, and water. That’s all you need to make this pretty floral treat. Rose petal jelly tastes very good too – somewhat like a mild grape-like…
You’ve got a glut of gorgeous broccoli heads, or the prettiest harvest of cauliflower: but the problem is, you can’t eat this many brassicas before they go bad! Luckily, it’s easy to freeze broccoli and cauliflower right at home. All you need is a few pots, a strainer, a cookie sheet, and a freezer, then…
Elderberry propagation might sound tricky and intimidating, but it’s simpler than you’d think! In fact, between creating clones via cuttings or starting new plants from seed, growing elderberry from cuttings is actually the easier way to get your hands on new plants! With just a sharp pair of pruning shears, a pot of soil, and…
Learn how to identify, harvest, and preserve wild American persimmons, a tasty late-fall foraged food! Look for American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) trees growing along field edges. They can sometimes have a shrubby appearance, especially when young, but can eventually grow quite tall – 20 to 60 feet. Unfortunately, many invasive shrubs, such as Autumn Olive…
Learn how to turn ripe cayenne peppers from your garden into cayenne powder and red pepper flakes. It’s super easy to make your own healthy and wholesome kitchen spices! Related articles: Grow & Make Your Own Paprika Powder and How to Make Celery Salt When to harvest your cayenne peppers: Harvest cayenne peppers when they’re…
Learn how to freeze fresh berries, their expected shelf life, and what to expect when using them from the freezer. We’ll cover: alpine strawberries, blackberries, boysenberries, blueberries, elderberries, raspberries, and strawberries! 7 Berries to Freeze Berry season has arrived, and so the harvests begin! There are few things better than a bright bowl of your…