The Weekly Wire Hi friend, The first zucchini of the year made its way into the kitchen this week. Every year, that first harvest feels like the official start of summer. One day there are blossoms, and the next you're carrying in your first zucchini wondering how long it'll be before they're multiplying faster than you can keep up. At the same time, my tomatoes are growing like crazy. They've reached that point in the season where they really need regular pruning to keep them healthy and...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
The Weekly Wire Hi friend, It's been a little quiet from me lately, and for good reason. I took some time away to focus on family because my little one just turned two. I honestly don't know how that happened. It feels like I blinked and somehow traded midnight feedings for birthday cake and toddler giggles. Everyone says the years go fast, and they're right. In between celebrating and soaking up these sweet moments, summer has arrived in full force here on the homestead. The strawberries...
3 months ago • 1 min read
The Weekly Wire Hi friend, It finally feels like the garden is crossing over from spring preparation into full growing season. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks hardening off seedlings and getting plants tucked into the garden beds. At this point, almost everything is outside and settling in well. Almost. The peppers are still waiting. Daytime temperatures have been mostly beautiful lately, but our nighttime temps still aren’t consistently warm enough for me to feel good about planting them...
3 months ago • 1 min read
The Weekly Wire Hi friend, It finally feels like the garden is crossing over from spring preparation into full growing season. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks hardening off seedlings and getting plants tucked into the garden beds. At this point, almost everything is outside and settling in well. Almost. The peppers are still waiting. Daytime temperatures have been mostly beautiful lately, but our nighttime temps still aren’t consistently warm enough for me to feel good about planting them...
3 months ago • 1 min read
The Weekly Wire Hi friend, Most gardens have one big harvest moment. Then things slow down. But high-yield gardening works a little differently. Instead of planting once and calling it good, you plant in waves. When one crop finishes, something else takes its place. This is called succession planting, and it’s one of the simplest ways to increase how much food you grow in a small space. Pair that with choosing crops that naturally produce a lot, like tomatoes, zucchini, beans, and...
4 months ago • 1 min read
The Weekly Wire Hi friend, Let me tell you where a lot of extra food can come from in a small garden. Not new beds. Not expanding your yard. But the space you’re already ignoring. Patios. Decks. Walkways. Corners. Railings. Pergolas. Fences. Containers turn all of that into growing space. When I started using containers alongside my garden beds, everything changed. Suddenly I had room for extra tomatoes, herbs, and quick-growing crops without needing more ground space. And containers pair...
4 months ago • 1 min read
The Weekly Wire Hi friend, If you want to grow more food without adding more space, there’s one strategy that makes the biggest difference: Grow up. Most gardens are designed in two dimensions, rows stretching across the ground. But the moment you start using vertical space, everything changes. Tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and even some squash can all be trained upward instead of sprawling out. That means:• more plants in the same footprint• better airflow (fewer disease issues)• easier...
5 months ago • 1 min read
The Weekly Wire Hi friend, For a long time, I thought I needed more space to grow more food. A bigger garden. More beds. More room to spread everything out. But when I was gardening in a small suburban backyard, I didn’t have that option. So I had to figure something else out. That year, I grew almost 100 pounds of tomatoes…in just four small garden beds and a few GreenStalk vertical planters. Not because I had more space, but because I started using the space differently. I stopped thinking...
5 months ago • 1 min read
The Weekly Wire Hi friend, There’s a moment every spring when it feels like winter is finally behind us. A few warm days. The soil starts to soften. Your seedlings are growing well. And it’s incredibly tempting to start planting everything out at once. But this is where the last frost date quietly sneaks in. That “average last frost date” you see on charts isn’t a guarantee. It’s more like a guideline, a rough marker that tells you when the risk usually starts to fade. Some years it comes...
5 months ago • 1 min read
