About the Author
Marissa Ames
Articles by Marissa Ames
Growing Sunflowers from Seed
Add to Favorites Whether planting short fluffy varieties or annual forests, growing sunflowers from seed is easy. Unlike food crops tracing back to South America, Europe or Southeast Asia, sunflowers …
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A Guide to Different Colored Carrots
Add to Favorites A large culinary family includes cumin, dill, fennel, parsnips, parsley, cilantro and different colored carrots. Though carrots are primarily eaten for the roots, it wasn’t always this …
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Pumpkins and Winter Squash Varieties
Add to Favorites People who are new to growing pumpkins often don’t realize how many varieties are available. They also don’t realize that pumpkins are winter squash varieties. Within North …
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Decoding Catalogs from Top Seed Companies
Add to Favorites Shopping for seeds sounds easy, doesn’t it? But when you open catalogs from the top seed companies, you’re assaulted with foreign terms. VF, OP, F1, PVY. How …
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Growing Sweet Potatoes in Cold Climates
Add to Favorites America’s favorite candied root vegetable has an ancient history of warding off famine. Sweet potatoes were domesticated in South America over 5,000 years ago but other civilizations …
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What’s The Big Deal About Heirloom Tomatoes?
Add to Favorites Each year, I see the sales ads: Heirloom tomatoes on sale, only $2.99/lb. Customers flock to them. The pictures show huge, lumpy, full-color tomatoes instead of the …
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Deer Fencing Tips to Protect Wildlife and Gardens
Add to Favorites If you homestead near wildlife, you may have only two options: good deer fencing or no garden. “What’s wrong with sharing your bounty?” I often hear newbie …
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Straw Bale Gardening Instructions and How it Works
Add to Favorites I didn’t believe it. Though straw bale gardening instructions sat before me, I was skeptical. I compost. Plant in the ground. Nourish my soil with probiotics. Nobody …
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Growing Stevia Indoors: Produce Your Own Sweetener
Add to Favorites Who says we can’t have it all? We began homesteading because we wanted control over what we eat and use. That includes our sweeteners. Minimally processed sugars can be …
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Kitchen Scraps and Coffee Grounds for Plants
Add to Favorites Composting isn’t always a fine art. Sometimes, it just means saving coffee grounds for plants and dumping them on the soil. When I started my first garden …
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5 Reasons to Start Garden Composting in Planter Boxes
Add to Favorites Fall means yard cleanup. Organic debris becomes garden compost. But small spaces might not have room for composters or piles. Garden composting directly within planter boxes solves …
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Homemade Barbecue Pits: A Fun Way to Fertilize Your Soil
Add to Favorites An ancient concept, homemade barbecue pits incorporate three things: fire, the ground, and food. Today the same concept can be employed for emergency cooking or tender slow-roasted …
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How Open Range Ranching Applies to Non-Ranchers
Add to Favorites The laws surrounding open range ranching are opposite what you’d expect closer to civilization. But you need to know the rights and responsibilities of both yourself and …
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Don’t Be Fooled: Growing Saffron is Easy!
Add to Favorites Life is short. Cook with saffron. My motto strengthened when I started growing saffron and stopped buying it. Ancient people plucked the reddish stigmas of Crocus sativus …
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How to Make Homemade Soap: Easy Terms You Should Know
Even with easy homemade soap recipes, beginners get bombarded with foreign terminology. Use this glossary if you’re wondering how to make homemade soap easy.
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