Mangos have long been one of my favorite fruits and I learned early on that one of the best parts of slicing up a ripe one is what's left behind: the slippery pit, still covered with a thin but delectable layer of fruit. Which I like to suck on, secretly, in the kitchen. Strange? Off-putting? Maybe. But there is an important reason why it is a habit I will never give up.

How do you organize your kitchen linens? If I'm being honest, I'll admit my system is a little haphazard. I have cloth napkins in a pile at the end of the kitchen counter, while my tea towels and wash clothes are stacked in one of the cabinets — and quite messily, I might add! I like this idea much better. Keeping everything in a basket is so much nicer and neater. I also like seeing the colors and patterns peeking out!

Does your mom love tea? Here's a simple and inexpensive, yet heartfelt, idea for Mother's Day.

Last week we asked those of you who garden in small spaces to share your best advice for starting and maintaining a successful kitchen garden in pots or containers. You had lots of tips to share, but we culled the top five. If you're ready to jump in and start your own cook's garden, read on for advice from those who've done it before:

Springtime is tough for home cooks. This is non-intuitive; after all, the markets! Ramps! Asparagus! Green good things all of a sudden! There's a lot going on, but for many of us, those exciting little bits of produce don't really show up until mid-May, leaving us bored and tired of our winter cooking routines. I don't know what it is about springtime, but I find my cooking motivation dropping off. What about you? Do you experience this? 

We're all about sourcing, prepping, cooking and eating good food here at The Kitchn, yet there's one area we seldom think about: using food plants as dye. But now that I have the beautiful poster pictured above hanging in my kitchen, I'm inspired to take another look at my food scraps and consider what color they might produce on a t-shirt, or a napkin. Take avocado pits, for instance. Depending on the mordants (used to help fix the color) an avocado pit will produce anything from a pale mauve to a deep grey. 

Even if you keep a clean kitchen, there is a good chance harmful bacteria like E. coli and salmonella may be lurking in a few easily-overlooked areas, according to new report from the public health group NSF International. But for the most part, all you need is warm, soapy water and a little elbow grease to keep these areas clean and germ-free.

Not long ago, my neighbors and I got together for a quiet tea-and-knitting evening. The idea was to enjoy some company and maybe get a small project done or add a few rows onto a knitting project. We all brought things to nibble and the hostess made ginger tea. Some of us knit, one of us sorted receipts, and the others just came for the company. Busy schedules aside, this was easy to organize and easy to pull together. Not much happened:  a few inches of a scarf came into being, a few stories were told, several cups of tea were drunk. Wild times, eh?

If you've ever read our About page, you know we say The Kitchn is a site for people who like to get their hands dirty while they cook. One way to interpret that is quite literally — as in, "dirty" from digging in the dirt! As home cooks, we know that growing herbs, fruits, and vegetables is a natural extension for many of you. So we want to know: if you live and cook in a small space but still manage to grow things in pots or containers, what advice would you give to a fellow home cook and newbie gardener who wants to try his or her hand at it?

I found myself working in the yard today, dedicating a few hours to digging up dandelions by the root. It's the best way for us to get rid of them without chemical sprays. Plus, it turns out that the oft-damned "weed" is useful: