skins-on easy tomato sauce to freeze

Would you like to find out how to grow garlic?  It’s such an easy crop to grow!

I am often asked to recommend plants for problematic garden areas during my call-in radio program or after public-speaking engagements. As a result, over the years I have developed a list of my top picks for sunny and shady gardens depending on whether the soil is dense, heavy, and clay-based, or lean, sandy, and quick-draining. Fortunately, I have experience gardening with both soil types, and so I know that each presents its own challenges and opportunities. Here are a few options for perennials, trees, and shrubs that can survive and even thrive in the trickiest soil conditions.

With so many of us stuck at home and not being able to get to the craft stores, I thought I'd share a quick tutorial for making a ladybug mosaic using a sponge ball and left over mosaics. If you don't have a sponge ball,a roundish rock or polystyrene ball will work to.

1. Sunflowers. One of the most rewarding plants to grow from seed is the sunflower. You can sow seed in March – May. April is a great time. For best results. Try sowing seed in 3 inch pots. Protect from slugs and keep well watered. After a few weeks the seedlings can be planted out. Sunflowers will need staking. But part of the fun is seeing them grow so rapidly. – Growing Sunflowers

Cyclamen are easy and rewarding houseplants to look after as long as you control the watering.

Some orchids are temperamental but this Phalaelenopsis has give unstinting blooms for eight months on the trot without any trouble. Growing on one stem which branched into three side shoots there were upto 20 flowers on the Orchid at anyone time. The variety must be resilient as we gave it no special treatment but these Phalaelenopsis or Moth Orchids are one of the easier Orchids to grow.

Need an easy update for your backyard? Painting concrete pavers will add some pizzaz to your outdoor space! A few supplies are all that’s needed to create this fun project.

Memories made at summer soirees should last forever, but the cleanup obviously shouldn't. Event planners Celia Duncan and Stevie Rozean with Wildly Collective are masters at the art of outdoor entertaining, and here they graciously share some of their trade secrets with us for making the teardown and tidying a breeze.

Isn’t it funny how even people who don’t like gardening grow tomatoes? What is it about them? Maybe tomato growing is one of those practices passed down from grandparents that just sticks, evoking childhood memories. Growing tomatoes is also one of those rites of passage to becoming a keen gardener. Ask the keenest gardener that you know and there’s a good chance that one of the plants they started out with was the good old tomato.

Are you keen on the idea of growing your own vegetables, but not really sure where to start? This list of ten easy to grow vegetables is a great first step on your grow your own journey.

SO MANY GREEN BEANS, so little time. That’s how I always feel around now: how to keep up with the glut of one of my favorite vegetables. I don’t like them canned (all olive green and overcooked!) and they can lose crunch or get ice-encrusted when blanched and frozen plain, so I put mine up in canning jars in the freezer, doused in homemade tomato sauce. Read how I freeze green beans and many more garden-fresh goodies.

I AM CULTIVATING PATIENCE, THANKS TO MY TROUBLED TOMATOES, learning to wait between sadly small outbursts of red fruit. Even my quick red sauce—normally made in hasty batches that overflow two spaghetti pots at a time—is an exercise in restraint, more meditation than mass production.