Where do you put all your garden stuff?

Wooden spoons are some of the most useful kitchen tools that most of us have on hand. A true staple of any kitchen, they’re great for mixing soups, sauces, or even cake batter. However, they can become dirtier than metal or plastic spoons, as the wood grain can leave room for grime to accumulate over time. So, it’s not exactly a surprise that #WoodenSpoonCleaning has 5.1 million views and counting on TikTok.

The gardens at Great Dixter.

Rainwater harvesting is one of the most self-sufficient and environment friendly methods of using water. You are collecting water from the sky as it falls, all the while trying to utilize is as much as you can, and without a price tag looming on it. To put things into perspective, if an inch of rain falls on a thousand square feet space, you can harvest about six hundred gallons from it. Six hundred gallons is a real lot!

The Homestead Act first came into effect in 1862 when President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill to promote homesteading where a homesteader would be provided with a land to build a home, farm the land for a minimum of 5 years and make some improvements. This Act provided 160 acres of land to the people willing to homestead in exchange for a small filing fee and the amendments that followed increased the allotments further promoting homesteading in the US. This is now no longer in effect and ended in 1976 with the introduction of Federal Land Policy and Management Act.  However, homesteading was allowed until 1986 only in Alaska.

You can enjoy a fragrant garden, even if you don’t have space to garden. As the majority of the fragrant plants are mainly vines or shrubs, you can easily grow them in pots. Arrange these fragrant plants on your balcony, patio or rooftop garden according to your preference and climate.

Rosa ‘Boscobel’ in a walled garden in east London

Some gardeners like to joke that the only strict gardening rule is to plant green side up. But we know that a healthy garden begins with the opposite end of that green growth, starting with the importance of soil. Many new gardeners and even those with years of experience under their belts may not spend much time thinking about their soil unless they notice a problem. For example, if the ground turns mucky from too much rain or starts cracking because of a dry spell. However, soil is critical to a garden's success, so you should pay close attention to it — especially before planting, when it's easiest to make changes.

While everyone has their own method for loading and unloading the dishwasher, there actually is a right way to do so—at least with the former. So the next time you get into a debate with your roommate, whether it’s a parent or significant other, you have the official answer in your arsenal.

It’s an age-old debate that’s almost impossible to avoid when living with another person: Does silverware go up or down in the dishwasher? And is there even a right answer? Since the popularization of the dishwasher, how to load this appliance has been a hot point of contention, particularly when it comes to silverware. Should silverware be rinsed first? Should you organize each utensil so like is grouped with like? Should you use the silverware basket or the rack, if your dishwasher is a newer model? Some people are adamant that silverware should be placed handle-up, while others insist on handle-down—but those aren’t actually the only options.

Successfully cooking a meal is rewarding, but cleaning up—not so much. Doing dishes can be the most tedious part of the whole process, especially removing stuck-on food, oil, and other residue from pans. While it’s safe to run a regular metal pan through the dishwasher, does the same rule apply to nonstick pans? They always come out sparkling clean, but it’s valid to worry that doing so could remove the nonstick coating. Here’s what an expert advises.

When we talk about native plants, we’re often referring to landscaping, but what about growing your own edible native plant garden? Native plants have adapted to where you live, after all, and unlike, say, your usual tomatoes and strawberries, native edibles have new flavors and scents to try. Meanwhile, planting edible native plants helps to forge a connection between the way we live now, and the way communities in the West have existed for thousands of years. “Just growing these plants is a way to tap into the continuum of time,” says Evan Meyer, the executive director of the Theodore Payne Foundation. “By growing edible plants, your garden can become a much more meaningful place.”   

We’ve all been there, the premature demise of our cilantro bolting into bitterness and a head full of seeds after an unexpected heat spike. But what if we started thinking about these “failures” as new flavor opportunities? One gardener’s flop is another’s feast after all. I’m talking seed-turned-spice drawer—yes, that downed cilantro is now your own hefty supply of gourmet coriander.