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Lisa Barker grew up around food preservation — a backyard cherry tree marked the start of canning season every year, and the work continued through fall as apples, pumpkins, and root vegetables came in. It's a habit she learned from...

Preservatives show up in most packaged food today, which makes long-term storage tricky for anyone who'd rather avoid them — whether that's for personal preference, a hiking or camping trip where fresh food isn't practical, or building a genuine food...

Hydroponics is a relatively easy, inexpensive way to extend your growing season past what outdoor soil and weather allow — which means fresh vegetables and herbs for your freeze-dried entrees and soups even in the dead of winter. How It...

Anyone who's successfully lost weight and kept it off, or who runs a household through a genuinely chaotic week, tends to share one habit: planning ahead. The usual approach — cook a big batch on Sunday, portion it out for...

You don't need a yard, let alone farmland, to get the real benefits of gardening. A handful of tool categories exist specifically to make growing food and plants practical in an apartment or small urban space. 1. A Compact Urban...

A little planning during your growing season pays off later: dice and freeze-dry a soup's worth of vegetables now, and you've got a shelf-stable kit that turns into a real dinner in about 10 minutes — just add water, a...

Pickling is one of the simplest ways to extend a fresh harvest: submerge fruit or vegetables in a vinegar, salt, and spice brine, and the vinegar's acidity preserves them for weeks or months instead of days. Most pickled produce stays...

An herb garden is one of the most forgiving places to start if you're new to growing your own food. Herbs grow quickly, tolerate a little neglect, and reward you fast — most are ready to harvest from within weeks...

Food waste is expensive in ways most households never fully add up. Between spoiled produce, forgotten leftovers, and food tossed simply because it wasn't used in time, a typical household loses real money every year — and that's before counting...