Balance air, moisture, carbon, and nitrogen to turn Alabama yard and kitchen waste into finished compost.

Make whole-fig preserves in thick syrup using a tested boiling-water canning recipe and elevation-adjusted processing.

Prepare clear muscadine jelly without added pectin using a tested juice, jelling, and boiling-water canning process.

What’s Eating My Basil? A Plain-Talk Field Guide Basil is a soft green snack in a hard world. We plant it for pesto and pizza, and the yard critters plant it for lunch. The tricky part is this: different pests leave different “bite marks.” If we read the leaf like a little crime scene, we can catch the culprit fast and fix it without turning the garden into a chemistry set. Let’s walk through the most common basil “eaters,” what their damage looks like, and what we can do today. Step One: Read the Damage, Not Your Feelings Before we… Read more: What’s eating my basil?

Growing Peonies in Alabama: Yes, You Can—If You Grow Them Smart There’s a long-running belief that peonies and Alabama just don’t belong together. I understand why people say it. Peonies are famous for loving a real winter, and Alabama is famous for heat, humidity, and long summers that can wear out a gardener and a flower bed in equal measure. But here’s the truth from the ground level: peonies can be grown in Alabama. You just have to quit treating them like they’re in Iowa and start growing them like they’re in Alabama. That means paying close attention to winter… Read more: Growing Peonies in Alabama: Yes, You Can—If You Grow Them Smart