If you walked into my garden today, you might think I'd lost my mind. Healthy tomato plants. Green vines. No disease. And yet...I'm cutting them back. HARD. Some of them are coming out completely, and the rest are getting what can only be described as a drastic haircut. Let's call it the summer cut! But why? Even though my tomatoes are indeterminate and could technically keep growing until our first freeze, North Texas has entered the annual "surface of the sun" phase. With t

I live in Texas. That means I live in Texas , period. And if you know, you know, summer here feels a whole lot like gardening on the surface of the sun. Garden beds don’t just struggle… they suffer . Last year, in a moment of “well, why not?” inspiration, I had a wild idea I decided to test out. And today, I get to tell you how it went. I bought 8-foot sections of perforated French drain pipe and buried them right down the center of my garden beds. I dug a long trench, tucked

I’ve read many times over the years that saffron is the world’s most expensive spice. Because I love gardening and a good challenge, I decided to give saffron a go in my garden this year. I ordered ten corms. (Why are they called corms, anyway? Why not just call them bulbs? But I digress.) I planted my ten little corms in early August and had all but given up on them ever sprouting when, one day...poof...saffron blooms appeared! All I had to do was pluck the flowers, gently p