Grow it in a pot. Ferment what you grow.
Container vegetable gardening and what to do with the harvest, from the extension-service guides: what size pot, what to fill it with, how much salt goes in the jar, and the gear that is worth buying.
Grow in containers
Pots, bags and beds: sizes, mixes, watering and feeding.
Container Size Chart for Vegetables
How big a pot does a vegetable need? For fruiting plants such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and cucumbers,...
Best Potting Mix for Container Vegetables
Which bag should you fill your tomato pots with? For most growers, the answer is a commercial soilless...
Grow Bags vs Pots for Vegetables
For most vegetables, a plastic pot is the easier container and a fabric grow bag grows the better...
Best Self-Watering Containers for Vegetables
Which self-watering container should you buy for vegetables? For most patio growers with one tomato to keep alive...
Container Vegetable Gardening for Beginners
You have a patio, a balcony or a stretch of driveway, no garden bed, and you want to...
How to Fertilize Container Vegetables
How do you fertilize container vegetables so they keep producing all summer? You mix a slow-release fertilizer into...
How Often to Water Container Vegetables
How often should you water vegetables in pots? Check every container once a day. Water any pot whose...
Vegetables That Don't Grow Well in Containers
Which vegetables aren't worth growing in a pot? University extension services keep naming the same short list: full-size...
Ferment the harvest
Salt ratios, jars, lids and weights, and recipes for what the garden gives.
Salt Ratio for Fermenting Vegetables by Weight
How much salt goes on a bowl of shredded cabbage? Weigh the cabbage and use 2 to 2.5%...
Best Fermentation Weights for Mason Jars
For most people fermenting in a wide-mouth mason jar, the Nourished Essentials Easy Weight is the glass weight...
Best Fermentation Lids for Mason Jars
Is a special fermentation lid worth buying, or will the lid that came with the jar do? For...
Fermenting Vegetables at Home with Easy Beginner Recipes
There's a particular kind of magic that happens when you walk into your kitchen on a crisp autumn...
Here for the Minecraft mod?
Every Farmer's Delight recipe for the Cooking Pot, the crafting table and the feasts (1.21), read from the mod's own files, with the real dish beside each one.
Soil & compost
Bins, cover crops and the life in the soil.
Best Compost Bins in 2026
Composting transforms kitchen scraps and yard waste into nutrient-rich soil amendment, closing the loop on your garden's ecosystem....
How to Plant Fall Cover Crops When Half the Country Is in Drought
The question in every September garden email this week is whether it is worth putting seed in dry...
Companion Planting Secrets Soil Microbiome Decoded
Beneath your garden's surface lies an invisible world teeming with life—billions of microorganisms orchestrating a complex dance of...
Season by season
What to plant and do now.
What to Do With a Container Garden in Fall
By the end of this page your summer pots will be cleared, the healthy ones replanted with cold-hardy...
Plant Garlic Now Your First Fall Garden Bed Will Thank You
Garlic is the one crop you plant in autumn and harvest the following July, and the window for...
Microclimate Mastery for Year-Round Harvests
Imagine harvesting ripe tomatoes in November, overwintering tender herbs without bringing them indoors, or coaxing an early spring...
Spring Planting Zones Explained
Every spring, gardeners face the same anxious question: Is it safe to plant yet? Put those tomato seedlings...
Farm & family
Passing a farm on, the people farming now, and this farm's own history.
Family Farm Succession Secrets
Farm succession planning is the process of passing a farm to the next generation. That means more than...
Transfer Farmland to Children With a Partnership or LLC
How do you pass the farm to your children without cutting the deed into pieces? You put the...
Ambassador George C. McGhee and His Farm at Farmer's Delight
Who was George C. McGhee, and why is a Virginia farm called Farmer's Delight tied to his name?...
The History of Farmer's Delight Plantation in Loudoun County Virginia
Farmer's Delight is a brick house built around 1791 near Middleburg, in Loudoun County, Virginia. It still stands...
New on the site
The latest guides.
Fermentation Brine Calculator: Salt in Grams for Any Batch
Choose how you are salting, put in the weight of the vegetables for kraut and kimchi or the...
Potting Soil Calculator: How Many Bags for Your Pots and Raised Beds
Add each kind of container you are filling, with how many of it, and the calculator gives the...
Farmer's Delight Recipes: Every Cooking Pot Meal, and How to Cook It for Real
Farmer's Delight is the Minecraft cooking mod by vectorwing that adds cabbages, tomatoes, onions and rice, a Cooking...
Transfer Farmland to Children With a Partnership or LLC
How do you pass the farm to your children without cutting the deed into pieces? You put the...
Best Fermentation Weights for Mason Jars
For most people fermenting in a wide-mouth mason jar, the Nourished Essentials Easy Weight is the glass weight...
Best Fermentation Lids for Mason Jars
Is a special fermentation lid worth buying, or will the lid that came with the jar do? For...