Entertainment
The Joy of Being a Beginner
Last fall, I moved into a Brooklyn apartment with a balcony and made a promise to myself that I’d learn how to garden. I poured over heirloom seeds online and set one reasonable-seeming goal: to hold a single vegetable in my hand that I’d grown from a seed.
Spring rolled around. When I opened the seed packets I’d confidently ordered months earlier, most of them were alarmingly tiny. Would a single extra drop of water kill this? I wondered. But after googling things like “overwatering vs under-watering” and reading a bunch of gardening tips that I immediately forgot, I planted my seeds in starter trays by my living room window. If everything went according to plan, they’d get big enough to go outside just as the evening temperatures stopped dipping low enough to kill them.
“I’m not sure this is going to work,” I told a friend who had a plot at a nearby community garden. “Seeds want to grow,” she replied. It was very reassuring, and sure enough, within days, little sprouts were shooting up.
From then on, the state of my seeds was the first thing I checked every morning. If I went away for the weekend, I’d drop my bag as soon as I returned and head straight for them with a pitcher of water. I was sitting on my apartment floor repotting when the April 5th earthquake hit New York City; I had to wipe the dirt off my hands before checking my phone to figure out what was going on.
By mid-April, however, things seemed a bit bleak. My plants had flatlined. They didn’t seem big enough to move outdoors, but I followed a planting schedule based on the last frost anyway. It was nice to have a reason to go outside so early, and gardening made me more attuned to the weather. Wind had been a minor inconvenience until plants with thin stalks that I very much wanted to survive were in its path. Temperature wasn’t something I accessed first through my phone’s weather app; instead, I felt it each morning when I opened the balcony door.
One day, carrying pitcher after pitcher of water from the kitchen sink, I also realized that I didn’t usually spend much time as a beginner. It felt good to experience the frustrations and delights of someone who’s just starting out. When I planted beans, I was reminded of how little I knew. I’d ordered Hidatsa Shield Beans mostly because they’re so beautiful. When it was time to sow them, I was confused: I plant a bean and it…multiplies into many beans? Grows into some sort of bean bush? But instead of turning to the internet for an instant answer, I decided to let myself be surprised.
Spring turned to summer. I picked a few dozen snap peas before the plants died of what I believe was heatstroke. I was on track to grow juicy heirloom tomatoes when they got some sort of brown rot that can be caused by over-watering, under-watering, too much fertilizer, not enough fertilizer, or maybe the pressure of being my most desired plant. The cucumbers that started out strong grew bulbous and tasted…off. I would not be 2024’s answer to a young Martha Stewart pulling up handfuls of vegetables in dirt-stained jeans and a cream cable-knit sweater, but I was still having a good time.
Despite some setbacks and a teeny yield, I met my goal and even surpassed it. I loved clipping fresh rosemary and chives from their pots. I made a few balcony-to-table kale salads. My favorite plant was the ground cherries grown from a seed that first arrived in North America with a Russian immigrant and had been passed down through generations of women. Once you peel off the papery husk, it tastes like sugary cereal from the nineties (in a good way). Plus, there were the non-plant gains, like watching bees buzzing around my balcony and chatting with neighbors about what we were trying to grow.
I recently texted a friend who has been gardening for years in California. “The beginner is shocked when a plant grows from a seed; the seasoned gardener expects it,” I wrote. He answered: “I think every gardener is delighted by what they grow.” It’s nice to know that excitement doesn’t diminish as you get more experience.
This first summer season, I made plenty of mistakes, but I didn’t let that get in the way of enjoying the process. Even though it was low stakes, every single thing that grew made me giddy. When something didn’t work out, I learned what I could or blamed the heat, which is easy when it’s August in Brooklyn. I’m still a bit heartbroken about those tomatoes, but overall, the whole gardening experience was a nice reminder that you don’t have to be particularly good at something to have fun doing it. I’m already making plans for next year. I also have a new goal: grow at least one big, juicy heirloom tomato.
Do you garden? What do you love growing? What tips do you have?
P.S. 14 readers share their gorgeous gardens, and a San Francisco home with a beautiful garden.
(Photos by the author.)
Entertainment
Moon phase today: What the Moon will look like on March 1
It’s a new month, and while the Moon may appear totally full, we’re still a couple of days away from this yet. But in the meantime, there’s still lots to spot on its surface.
What is today’s Moon phase?
As of Sunday, March 1, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. According to NASA’s Daily Moon Guide, 94% of the Moon will be lit up tonight.
With just your naked eye, tonight you’ll be able to see the Mares Imbrium and Crisium, as well as the Tycho Crater. If you have binoculars hanging about, dust them off and pull them out to catch a glimpse of the Mares Nectaris and Frigoris, and the Endymion Crater. And proud telescope owners will see all this and more, including the Apollo 15 and 17 landing spots, and the Schiller Crater.
When is the next Full Moon?
The next Full Moon will be on March 3. The last Full Moon was on Feb. 1.
What are Moon phases?
According to NASA, the Moon takes about 29.5 days to orbit the Earth. Over the course of this period, it moves through eight recognisable phases, what we call the lunar cycle. While the same side of the Moon always faces us, the amount of its surface lit by the Sun changes as it continues along its path. The shifts in sunlight create the different appearances we see from Earth, ranging from a fully illuminated Moon to a thin sliver or near darkness. The eight phases are:
New Moon – The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it’s invisible to the eye).
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Waxing Crescent – A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).
First Quarter – Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.
Waxing Gibbous – More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.
Full Moon – The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.
Waning Gibbous – The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)
Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) – Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.
Waning Crescent – A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.
Entertainment
Men are paying to have negative posts removed from Tea app
As reported by 404 Media, online service Tea App Green Flags will scrub negative posts from anonymous gossip app Tea and similar online forums where women post about negative experiences they’ve had with men they’ve dated.
According to 404 Media’s interview with Tea App Green Flags’ founder, simply identified as Jay, the company launched two years ago to tackle posts on the many Are We Dating the Same Guy Facebook groups. His focus has turned to Tea in the past year.
“We just want to take down posts about people who are being defamed,” Jay told 404 Media. “And when I say defamed, it means like, ‘this guy has a small penis,’ or ‘this guy smells.’ That doesn’t fit the mission statement of what the Tea app was for, which is to warn women against people who are harmful, who are abusive, who are cheaters.”
Tea App Green Flags’ site claims to have removed over 2,500 posts from the Tea App for over 759 clients. Most of the service’s clients are men, although Jay noted that occasionally the wives and girlfriends of men posted on the app will reach out.
Prospective Tea App Green Flags clients must provide their name, age, location, and photo to the service, as well links to specific posts targeting them. According to Tea App Green Flags’ FAQs, they can only remove posts with direct references to a client. On average, the site says, a Tea App “takedown campaign” will take 21 – 30 days. The lengths of other takedowns depend on the platform.
Price-wise, it costs $1.99 to report one Tea account and up to $79.99 to report 25 of them. The company also offers “24/7 Reputation Monitoring,” which costs $19.99 per month and alerts clients when they appear on Tea or Facebook.
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Jay would not share the details of the takedown process with 404 Media. Tea does have a free form for takedown requests on its website, and says that it will “only reply to takedown requests submitted via the takedown portal.”
Jay emphasized to 404 Media that Tea App Green Flags does not extend its services to people who have been accused of sexual assault multiple times on Tea, or who have been accused by one person using their real name and photo in a Facebook group.
“Sometimes we find along the process that there are pedophiles or people who actually did what they did, and they’re very bad,” Jay told 404 Media. “So we say, ‘we’re not doing this.’ We can’t take a rap for that. We’re ethical. We just want to take down people who are being defamed.”
Tea markets itself as presenting “dating safety tools that protect women.” In July 2025, it was the target of a large-scale cyberattack that exposed thousands of user images including drivers’ licenses, leaving users vulnerable to doxxing and harassment. These images were provided as verification for accounts, although the app itself is otherwise anonymous.
Jay claimed to 404 Media that Tea’s anonymity “causes a cesspool of defamation,” and that he would prefer if women shared their faces, even if they are speaking out against dangerous men who have done them harm.
While Tea is meant to be a women-only app, Tea App Green Flags is proof of men’s infiltration of these online dating spaces. (Tea itself was founded by a man: Sean Cook.)
“I have a Tea app account. I’m a dude,” Jay told 404 Media. “All my reps have Tea app accounts. They’re men.”
Mashable has reached out to Tea for further comment.
Entertainment
NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for February 28, 2026
Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is for people who love golf.
As we’ve shared in previous hints stories, this is a version of the popular New York Times word game that seeks to test the knowledge of sports fans.
Like the original Connections, the game is all about finding the “common threads between words.” And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier — so we’ve served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.
If you just want to be told today’s puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for the latest Connections solution. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
What is Connections: Sports Edition?
The NYT‘s latest daily word game has launched in association with The Athletic, the New York Times property that provides the publication’s sports coverage. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.
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Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there’s only one correct answer.
If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake — players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.
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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.
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Here’s a hint for today’s Connections: Sports Edition categories
Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
Here are today’s Connections: Sports Edition categories
Need a little extra help? Today’s connections fall into the following categories:
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Yellow: Golf Equipment
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Green: Materials in a Baseball
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Blue: SEC School Locations
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Purple: First Names of Chicago Bears
Looking for Wordle today? Here’s the answer to today’s Wordle.
Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today’s puzzle before we reveal the solutions.
Drumroll, please!
The solution to today’s Connections: Sports Edition #523 is…
What is the answer to Connections: Sports Edition today?
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Golf Equipment – CLUB, GLOVE, RANGEFINDER, TEE
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Materials in a Baseball – CORK, LEATHER, RUBBER, YARN
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SEC School Locations – ATHENS, AUBURN, LEXINGTON, OXFORD
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First Names of Chicago Bears – CAIRO, CALEB, LUTHER, ROME
Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be new sports Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today’s Strands.
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to today’s Connections.
Moon phase today: What the Moon will look like on March 1
Heat rally in 4th quarter to take down Rockets
