Three winters ago, I had a patio full of cracked, faded plastic pots and a serious case of plant parent guilt. Every spring, I’d drag out whatever survived — usually not much — and start over. I’d been searching for…
Last spring, I decided to build a small bamboo shade structure in my backyard. I had plenty of poles from a culm harvest the previous fall, and I was tired of watching them sit in a pile. My problem was…
If you’ve ever pulled a sad, waterlogged dumpling out of a pot, you know the feeling. That was me, every single Sunday, for about three years. I’d been attempting homemade dim sum for a while, and my results were consistently…
My Garden Path Was a Safety Hazard After Dark…
My back patio had a problem I kept ignoring. After every rainstorm, the old indoor rug I’d dragged outside would stay soggy for days. It smelled. It grew mildew. Mud tracked in from the garden stuck to the fibers and…
The Pruning Saw I Use to Harvest Bamboo Poles Every Season…
After fifteen years of growing bamboo commercially, I still lose poles to cracking every single season. Not from bad harvesting. Not from poor timing. The culprit is almost always the drying phase — specifically, drying too fast or too unevenly….
Three years into growing bamboo, I cut my first real harvest — about 40 poles of Phyllostachys vivax — stacked them against my barn, and had absolutely no idea what to do next. I’d read everything I could find online…
I still remember standing in my backyard on a humid July afternoon, staring at a patch of sad, yellowing tomato plants and fighting back actual tears. I had spent nearly $300 that spring — on seeds, soil amendments, a fancy drip irrigation kit — and every single thing I planted looked like it wanted to … Read more
Last summer, I nearly lost my marriage over a hot tub. Not because of anything scandalous — but because I spent $4,200 on a spa installation without telling my husband, and then discovered our backyard had zero privacy. Our neighbors could see everything from their deck. We used the tub exactly once before the awkward … Read more