Making It Grow Minutes

Would you try potato chips on a tomato sandwich?

The chewing gum industry in North American exploded when chicle, the latex like substance from sapodilla trees, was introduced to America in the 1870s.

Resin from trees in the spruce genus was the source of the first commercial gum in our country, State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum.

Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight? Some people do save their gum but prefer not to stick on the bed post. Fortunately, you can find adorable gum parkers.

For thousands of years people have chewed gums that are extracts from trees.

Birthdays, anniversaries, various milestones – all reasons for getting together. When having fun time flies and that’s just what’s snuck up on Making It Grow, we’ve been on the air for thirty years.

When it comes to popcorn garlands, you would think you'd just string popcorn and that would be that. But with the internet, there's step-by-step directions

People like to put different toppings on their popcorn.

Popcorn isn't just one particular variety; apparently there are tons of different popcorns out there

The U. S. Department of Agriculture is not just a place for the latest and best research on crops, diseases, and insect pests. While looking for information on popcorn, I came across the site for popcorn on the USDA History Library.

Archaeologists have identified remains of popcorn from at least 6,000 years ago.

In my part of the state, farmers plant large fields of sunflowers to attract mourning doves during the legal hunting season.

Among some of the sayings associated with sunflowers from the Teton Dakota tribes is, "When the sunflowers were tall and in full bloom, the buffaloes were fat and the meat good."

Annual sunflowers are important in the cut flower industry and grown commercially for cooking oil and for seeds eaten by humans and birds.

The annual sunflower is native to North America and was widely used by early indigenous people as food, a source for dyes, and lots of medicinal purposes.

Sunflowers are the national flower of Ukraine.

My mother decided to be modern in cooking and discovered premade stuffing mixes. The bread based one had herbs in it and that’s what I grew up having at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Carolina aromatic rice should be kept in the freezer – along with South Carolina corn meal, grits, and other locally sourced items that make mealtime so pleasurable.

For some peculiar reason, I’d never heard of corn bread in buttermilk for lunch until we went to a laundromat in Atlanta next to an old-fashioned drug store and sat next to a gentleman who ordered that.

Most southerners make corn bread in cast iron skillets as the crust you get is superior.