Renee's Blog

How To Harvest And Prepare Padron Peppers

Watch as Lindsay shows how to harvest and prepare Spanish Padron tapas peppers for enjoyment straight from the garden.

Harvesting and Preparing Edamame

Learn how to harvest and prepare easy to grow Edamame beans straight from your garden.

Extend Your Growing & Harvest Season

Wherever you garden, from the northeast and high mountain elevations to the mild climate west and the balmier southern states, the spring and summer growing season often seem just too short. Use the following tips and techniques to reap the...

Harvesting Your Herbal Tea Hibiscus

Learn all about our variety of herbal hibiscus and how to harvest and dry it for tea.

Planting Vegetables In Containers

Planting vegetables in containers has never been more productive. Trial Garden Manager Lindsay Del Carlo explains how to get the best yield out of container vegetables with easy to follow techniques. 

Organic Growing: Prepping Garden Beds

Easy step by step prepping instructions for flower garden beds.

Harvesting Celeriac (a.k.a. Celery Root)

Celeriac is a European staple that's gaining popularity in U.S., Lindsay Del Carlo guides viewers on when to harvest this delicious root vegetable.

How And Why To Thin Carrots

Lindsay shares her tips for abundant carrot harvests by explaining how and why to thin twice.

Warm Up With Hearty Soups

When the weather is cold and the days are short, there are few meals that can be as satisfying and comforting to both body and spirit as a full flavored bowl of hot home made soup for lunch or dinner....

Supporting Big Tomato Vines

We grow many tomato varieties each and every summer in the trial garden and we've tried many different methods of supporting the tall, vining indeterminate* varieties that grow heavy with fruit and foliage at maturity. For example, we used traditional...

Cutting Zinnias For Bouquets

Make beautiful zinnia bouquets and regrow more flowers by following tips from Lindsay Del Carlo, Trial Garden Manager. Shop For Zinnias Now

Cutting Basil For Lasting Harvests

Lindsay shares her expert techniques for extending basil growing season.

When To Harvest Your Sweet Corn

How to tell when sweet corn is ready for harvest with Lindsay.

Season’s End Harvests For Holiday Treats

Fall is the time of year to begin preparing your favorite foods for the fall and winter months ahead. Happily, the last summer garden crops can provide a wealth of raw ingredients for scrumptious desserts and holiday sweet treats. With this...

Renee's Favorite Pumpkin Recipes

Fall means harvest time in the garden and calls for warm comfort food in the kitchen. When you grow your own pumpkins, it’s always great to have some new ideas for how to make delicious use of them. Here are...

Beth’s Guide for Growing the Cucurbit Family

We get many questions from gardeners about members of the cucurbit family, so our expert Garden Advisor, Beth Benjamin, has summarized her advice for successfully growing these mainstay garden vegetables. Planting: When you plant is important: all members of the...

When and How to Harvest Winter Squash

Lindsay shows how to harvest, store and cook winter squashes.

Harvesting and Drying Onions

Lindsay demonstrates how to harvest, dry, and store onions.

Harvesting and Storing Dried Beans

Learn how to harvest, winnow and store your Heirloom Cannellini Bush Beans.

Visit Renee's Trial Garden with P. Allen Smith

Renee and P Allen Smith discuss why they garden and visit Renee's trial garden to show a wide variety of salads and demonstrate how to grow delicious baby leaf mesclun mix from seed.

Selecting Edible Flowers

Renee discusses the many different edible flowers you can grow from seed and how to use them in everyday cooking. Moving to the kitchen, she makes delicious, colorful Herb & Flower Blossom Tea Sandwiches.

How to Start and Grow Sweet Peas

Unique types of sweet peas and how to grow them!

Incorporating a Cover Crop: Method #3

Growing Sweet Peas in the Midwest

It’s unfortunate that sweet peas have a reputation for being difficult to grow in the Midwest, because these lovely flowers offer both exquisite perfume and a wide range of colors from pastels to vivid hues. True, growing sweet peas in...

All About Sweet Peas

The graceful beauty of annual sweet peas with their ruffled blossoms, soft texture and glowing colors makes them one of the most irresistible flowers. Their scent is an exquisite perfume of orange blossoms and honey, surely one of the most...

Sowing Sweet Peas Directly Into The Garden

In mild winter climates, where the ground does not freeze, sweet pea seeds should be fall-sown directly into the garden from September through November to grow strong root systems and then bloom in spring. If you do not get your...

Bold And Beautiful Zinnias

Easy to grow and reliable, zinnias are bright butterfly magnets that have a long history as favorite flowers of American home gardeners. Indeed, we tend to take these popular flowers for granted, perhaps thinking them too ordinary, stiff or garish...

Success with Sweet Peas

I adore annual sweet peas and I think that their exquisite perfume, ruffled, winged blossoms and treasury of glowing colors make them the most irresistible and memorable garden flowers. Wonderful for cutting, a small bouquet of these fluted beauties will...

Poppies: Modern and Heirloom Varieties

Of all the old-fashioned flowers that welcome the summer season, poppies are the most brilliant—they glow like stained glass when the sun shines behind them in early morning or late afternoon. Although their silky petals look delicate nodding on their...

Growing Wedding Flowers

I get many letters from excited gardeners asking about what flowers to grow for weddings and how to plan the seed sowing and growing process. Having done this myself and had the pleasure of walking my daughter down a garden...

Flowers For Bouquets

The best way to plan your garden for bouquets is to dedicate a specific garden area to these cutting flowers. This way you can cut all that is in flower on any particular day without feeling that you might spoil...

Gardening with Children: Grow a Pizza Garden

Growing a pizza garden is a great way to get children outdoors and motivated to plant and eat vegetables. Our family loves homemade pizza, so my 4-year-old daughter and I have already started planning our pizza plot. So far, our...

Unbeatable Beets

Beets from your own garden taste terrific. Forget any old memories of rubbery, syrupy-sauced, canned beets that lurk in your tastebuds. Freshly pulled beets are truly beautiful and delicious. Their flavor is sweet, rich, hearty and earthy, and beet varieties...

Gardening With Small Children

What better place to stimulate babies’ and toddlers’ senses and cultivates their growing minds than in the garden? When my daughter, Emilia , was a baby, she'd grab the tendrils of vining snap peas, kick with excitement when I'd rub...

Gardening for a Second Season

Mid to late summer is an ideal time to plant seeds for a second gardening season that can be as productive as your major early spring plantings. For a delicious and very nutritious cornucopia of fall meals, late summer is...

What To Plant If You Don't Have Full Sun

I've found that a garden with some shade is ultimately more satisfying than one with full blasting sunlight. It offers the chance to create a cool retreat in which to sit and enjoy the garden or dine outdoors on hot...