Linda Ly's Blog, page 3

11 Vegetables You Grow That You Didn’t Know You Could Eat

It’s a common problem among gardeners, farmers’ market customers, and even the most well-meaning shoppers at Whole Foods: In our goal to waste less food and be more sustainable, we sometimes compost more than we eat.

And we end up making some rather expensive compost. It’s not because we’re especially picky or wasteful; we just don’t realize that most of the plants we grow or buy, from top to tail, are actually edible.

We don’t often see them in grocery stores, we almost never come across...

8 Easy Ways to Support Your Favorite Author

Perhaps the sweetest moment of an author’s life (aside from the second we hit “send” upon completion of our manuscript) is the day the very first copy of our book arrives. And that day, my friends, has come.

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Though The No-Waste Vegetable Cookbook officially releases on April 7, 2020, we (the publisher and I) have received our initial...

The Best Garden Seed Catalogs for 2020 (My Favorite Sources!)

Is the print medium dead?

That’s always a question I hear when it comes to catalogs, but honestly, staring at a screen just don’t satisfy in the way that thumbing through paper catalogs, circling things with a pen, and dog-earing pages does.

I’m especially a sucker for a printed seed catalog. I devour it like a good book, curled up on the couch on a rainy day.

Page after page, the pictures and descriptions spring to life in my mind… Seedlings yawning and stretching in the morning sun, ruby...

More Than Just the Kissing Plant: The Curious History of Mistletoe

Mention “mistletoe” this time of year and most people think fondly of traditions like kissing under a bundle of white-berried boughs or bringing home a freshly cut Christmas tree.

But beneath all the holiday cheer lurks an opportunistic plant with both a “naughty or nice” side: Consumption of the berries of certain species can lead to illness or even death (in severe cases), yet other types of mistletoe have historically been used to treat a host of ailments, including leprosy, infertility,...

7 Sure-Fire Tips and Tricks for Keeping Your Chickens Healthy Through Winter

It’s the middle of winter. You’re getting very few eggs from your flock, if any at all. They’re still in the stages of seasonal feather loss and feather growth, or they’re just finishing up their last molt.

With their reproductive systems taking a rest and your chickens shedding their coats, winter is an important time for them to rebuild their nutrient reserves and renew their feathers for the year.

Many chickens cease laying during molting as they need to channel all that energy — and all...

2019 Gift Guide: 14 Awesome Adventure Gifts for the Outdoor Lover

Sometimes, shopping for the outdoor enthusiast in your life can be tricky. You know they already own most of what they need, so the key is finding something they want or didn’t know they needed.

The best gifts for outdoor lovers (from weekend warriors to vanlifers, casual hikers to peak baggers) should always do three things: fuel adventure, maximize the stoke, and keep them outside longer.

Whether it’s hiking, biking, camping, climbing, skiing, surfing, or simply just exploring, I’ve...

Boost Your Brain Power: Sniffing Rosemary Can Make You Smarter

Rosemary, derived from the Latin word rosmarinus meaning “dew of the sea,” was once known as Rosmarinus officinalis.

But in 2017, it suddenly joined the Salvia genus after botanists recommended in a study that rosemary should actually be classified as a sage and therefore be renamed Salvia rosmarinus. (Say what?!)

They had sent DNA samples to the botanical world’s equivalent of AncestryDNA, and it was discovered that the plants were closely related.

This finding shook up gardeners and plant...

Natural Bourbon-Chamomile Cough Syrup

We’re heading into cold season right now, and with a child in preschool, I’m hearing grumblings of a mystery bug that’s “been going around.”

Apparently this bug gets around quite a bit, as it’s all over Central Oregon, Northern California, Southern California, and everywhere else we have friends who are under the weather.

Thankfully this bug and I have yet to meet, and I’ve been fortunate to not catch anything even remotely resembling a cold for the last several years (knock on wood).

But I...

Keep It Fresh! 7 Tips to Help Make a Christmas Tree Last Longer

If you’re as enthusiastic about the holiday season as I am, you probably like to decorate your Christmas tree early, and that means bringing home a live tree soon after Thanksgiving and hoping it lasts for several weeks.

If you’re not diligent at the start of the season, however, you could end up with more fallen pine needles than presents under the tree by Christmas Day.

There are a number of tricks to make a Christmas tree last longer, and this goes for a tree picked up at the local tree...

Homemade “Tin Can” Molded Cranberry Jelly

Growing up, I always ate Thanksgiving dinner with my friends’ families since my own family never celebrated it — not because they weren’t thankful on that day, but because it was never a part of their culture.

So when that fourth Thursday rolled around every November, I couldn’t wait to partake in the classic American holiday.

I loved watching the grand entrance of the turkey, steaming hot from the oven and being carved up at the table, I loved the green bean casseroles with French fried...