how to ripen a tomato: tricks to try

Caladiums are not as difficult to care for as many people think, and they make a beautiful addition to any home or garden.

If you’re in talks to potentially sell your home, Zillow is here with another tip for future sellers: Go dark. By that, they mean opt for moodier colors in every room—especially dark gray.

Mustard pickles are a yummy treat. This recipe is quick and easy to make – and it’s oh, so, delicious.

Rachel Platt in the 'Chained to Tech' Tatton Garden. Image Source: Julie Skelton Photography. 

Propagating wandering jew plants is very easy and makes a cost-effective way to expand your collection.

One of the easiest and highest yielding vegetable crops to grow are runner beans. You may not need all these 5 tips to do well but here goes:

With all that in mind, I made my annual frantic call with some urgent tomato questions to today’s guest, Craig LeHoullier in North Carolina, the NC Tomato Man as he’s known on social media, author of the classic book, “Epic Tomatoes” (affiliate link). Craig knows more about these cherished fruits than almost anyone I’ve ever met. He even shares that in live sessions each week on his Instagram account where you can ask your questions and get solid answers. I asked Craig how he’s doing and what we should all be doing to bolster a bountiful harvest and also about which fruits to save next year’s seed from anyhow and other tomato questions. Read along a

Marigolds are super easy to grow and the perfect care-free bedding plant for containers, borders and mass plantings. If you need a lot of plants, you can save seed from spent flowers and grow them yourself next year to save money. Since marigolds reseed in the garden easily all by themselves, leave a few dried flowers to drop seed. Keep in mind t

Hydrangeas, with their extravagant blooms, are a quintessential part of any garden. However, coaxing the best performance from these plants requires more than just basic gardening skills. This guide will share some secret Master Gardener’s Tricks to Grow the Successful Hydrangeas!

Lily of the Nile or agapanthus (Agapanthus africanus and hybrids with this species) is a blue-flowered perennial that grows from a rhizome (fleshy root). Each rhizome sends up several shoots. Rhizomes also reproduce, so over time, a one-gallon plant of a vigorous cultivar like ‘Blue Storm’ will make a clump 2.5 feet wide. One of my large-leaved, unnamed cultivars has spread 3.5 feet in all directions.

IS YOUR TOMATO FRUIT simply a stubborn Green (self-explanatory) or is it Breakers (a break in the color from green is starting to be evident), or are you already at Turning (10 to 30 percent red showing) or Pink (30-60) or Light Red (60-90) or Red (more than 90 percent)? Are they hanging on tight, safe and sound, all the way to vine-ripened, or are hungry (devious?) animals playing havoc, or crazy weather threatening the crop? It’s a good time for a reminder on how to ripen a tomato–because there’s more than one way (none of which includes letting my local chipmunks pick them first).

THOUGH I WON’T START TOMATO SEEDS HERE UNTIL MID-APRIL, I know from looking at my WordPress dashboard—the administrative screen I use to create and run this blog—that many of you are already looking around for the tomato-growing how-to’s. To make the searching easier, a roundup of links to my best tomato-growing tips and tricks:Tips for growing a better tomato yourself from seed.