How to Store Carrots: Fridge, Sand, Cellar, Ground
Six ways to store carrots, from the crisper drawer to damp sand, a root cellar, the garden row, the freezer and the pressure canner, with the temperature, humidity and storage life for each.
Vegetables
What to Plant in November: Zone-by-Zone
Find your zone's row: what still goes in the ground in November, from garlic and bulbs in the north to tomatoes in South Florida, and what to do when it is too late.
Read the articleVegetables
The vegetable patch, start to finish — what to plant and when, how to handle a glut, and the freezing, drying and storing that keeps the harvest from going to waste.
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How to Store Potatoes: Cellar, Basement, Garage or Fridge
Where to keep potatoes through winter, place by place: the temperature, humidity and keeping time for a root cellar, basement, garage, pantry or fridge, plus how to cure them first.
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How to Plant Garlic: When, How Deep and Which Type by Zone
A garlic planting window for every USDA zone from 3 to 10, built from 19 university extension services, plus depth, spacing, mulch and why grocery store garlic is a gamble.
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Pumpkin Puree From Scratch (and the Canning Catch)
Roast, boil, steam or pressure-cook a pie pumpkin into puree, keep it in the fridge or freezer, and can pumpkin the only tested way: as cubes in a pressure canner.
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What to Plant in July: 12 Crops for a Real Fall Harvest
Wondering what to plant in July? These 12 crops sown over the holiday weekend still deliver a full fall harvest. Get the count-back math and zone timing.
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Gardening | Herbs | Vegetables
Growing Microgreens Indoors in Winter: A Practical Homestead System
A practical winter system for growing microgreens indoors: what to sow, how much light and warmth they need, and where the work usually goes wrong. This piece offers reflection grounded in real work and mistakes, not instruction. But winter is long, and a little structure helps keep the greens – and the spirits –…
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How to Start a Garden: A Frost-Date Guide With Cited Sources
Start a garden by working backward from your last spring freeze date, not a calendar month. A cited planting table for 36 crops, real NOAA freeze probabilities for 12 cities, and a companion-planting chart graded by actual evidence.
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What to Do With Too Many Tomatoes: A Homestead Glut Plan (2026)
The vines won again? A quick triage plan for what to do with too many tomatoes: freeze, can, dry, cook, or share the glut without burning out.
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Dehydrating Tomatoes: Dryer, Oven and Sun-Dried at Home (2026)
Shrink a whole basket of tomatoes into a jar: how to make dehydrated tomatoes in a dryer or oven, store them safely, and use them all winter.
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How to Freeze Tomatoes (No Blanching Needed) 2026
The fastest way to preserve a tomato harvest: freeze them whole with no blanching, then peel after thawing for soups, sauces and stews all winter.
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How to Preserve Tomatoes: 5 Proven Methods for a Full Pantry (2026)
Five reliable ways to preserve a tomato harvest — canning, freezing, drying, sauce and salsa — plus the one safety step every canned method shares.
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May 2026 Planting Calendar by USDA Zone: What to Sow This Week
What to plant this May by USDA zone — peppers, beans, squash, melons. A working-homestead planting calendar for zones 3 through 9.
