How To’s

I discovered the tell-tale orange freckles one spring morning while padding across the path to my raised beds. Overnight rain had splashed rusty water from a forgotten metal watering can onto the pale concrete pavers, and the stains seemed to laugh at my frantic scrub-brush attempts. After an hour of elbow grease and exactly zero […]

“If you dig it, they will come.” That was the promise my older brother made when he showed up on a humid Saturday with two shovels, a stack of cardboard, and a cooler of iced tea. By sundown we had what looked like an over-sized mud pie in the corner of the yard; four weeks

The first time I tried growing vegetables, I attacked my backyard like an archaeologist unearthing treasure—shovels, rototiller, the whole dusty spectacle. I ended up with sore shoulders, a patchwork of clumpy soil, and a bumper crop of buried weed seeds that sprouted faster than my lettuce. The next spring a seasoned gardener neighbor leaned over

I remember the exact moment the idea took root. It was a late-July afternoon, the kind where even the tomato vines look thirsty, and I was hauling my third hose-length trip from the outdoor spigot to the raised beds. As I twisted the nozzle shut, a neighbor shouted over the fence, “Funny how we pay

When my partner and I bought our 1950s ranch, the “patio” was a hodge-podge of cracked stepping-stones set in crabgrass. We dreamed of an outdoor dining space but balked at the cost, mess, and permanence of a concrete pour. One Saturday, after tripping over yet another wobbling stone, we declared, Enough and committed to a

The first chilly evening after my partner and I moved into our fixer-upper, we tried to roast marshmallows over a wobbly charcoal grill. Gusts of wind sent sparks flying, the grate kept tipping, and the only thing thoroughly toasted was my patience. I remember staring at the blank patch of lawn and thinking, There has

I grew up in a desert suburb where the only tree on our block was a spindly ash kept alive by a battleship-gray drip emitter. When my partner and I bought our own place years later, I swore our yard would host a forest—however tiny its footprint. The first sapling I planted was a five-gallon

The first summer after we bought our fixer-upper, the patio was little more than a cracked slab and a picnic table we’d inherited from the previous owners. By noon, the concrete radiated so much heat that our dog refused to step outside, and every family meal became a frantic race against the sun. That’s when

I used to think “decorating” meant draping a few string lights and hoping for the best. Then, one humid July evening, my guests milled around my sparsely lit patio, shuffling between a blinding floodlight and a mosquito-ridden dark corner while the lone speaker blared in one direction like a megaphone. After that cringe-worthy night I

I still remember the first backyard picnic BBQ I tried to host on my own. I’d just bought my starter home—barely enough grass to justify a mower—and I was determined to inaugurate it with burgers, friends, and a thrift-store picnic table I’d power-washed the night before. The food was tasty enough, but I underestimated the