I took these photos and wrote this post two weeks ago. In that time the garden looks totally different, we’ve already made a batch of peppers and my butternut squash plants are so big they’re growing over the fence and into the neighbor’s yard. By now this is more of a look back than an
Spring is taking its time to settle in this year. David had to wear his winter jacket last Saturday, and we had to turn our heat on. In May. Then, after the cold snap, we had a week of rain in the forecast to look forward to. I decided I’d appreciate the rain a lot
I would classify our garden last year as only quasi-successful. We dealt with a lot of pests (like squirrels and chipmunks) and lost most of our squash to vine borers. After all that, I didn’t really have steam to plant a fall garden. Instead, we planted a sort of fall garden. I’ve never had a ton
Remember my resilient gerbera daisies? We had a few really cold nights in the middle of November, and I had every intention of bringing my plants in. But then David got sick, then I got sick, plus it was annoyingly cold outside, so we just hunkered down and ate chicken noodle soup for three weeks.
Since I posted about squirrels eating all my tomatoes, we haven’t had any more squirrel problems. I can’t believe I wasted so much worrying about how to get rid of squirrels when all I had to do was threaten them on the Internet. Now, at the end of the season, we’re finally harvesting tomatoes. Our
I thought my pepper plants were done for the year, then I sprayed some epsom salt on the leaves and turns out they had some oomph left before the end of the season. My mom and dad have made this dish as long as I can remember. We call it “peppers,” with no other adjectives,
Four year ago, for our four-month anniversary, Tom gave me an orange gerbera daisy. A week later, my mom gave me a pink gerbera daisy for my birthday. I re-potted both plants and have had them ever since. In the winter I bring them inside and sort of forget about them. All winter they sit
Tom says gardening seems to be 10 percent planting, 10 percent harvesting, and 80 percent getting rid of pests. I’d never really thought about it before, but this year those numbers seem about right. We’ve been having trouble with our squash plants since spring when I couldn’t get my zucchini seedlings to sprout. Once they
Today at the grocery store I bought two tomatoes. I have 10 tomato plants in my backyard, but apparently that’s not enough to feed all of our neighborhood squirrels and also my family. Every time I go outside, instead of ripe, red tomatoes, I see tomato carnage. See that stub? That’s where tomatoes should be.
Even though we have a small garden we seem to be overwhelmed at harvest time. What we want is the exact amount of basil called for in the recipe I’m making, not a basil bush that will bolt and turn brown at the fall breeze. In the spirit of overwhelming fresh produce (I know, what