It’s Not Just Friday. It’s Pole Bean Day.

I try to gang all my meetings and errands together. I pick a date to get them all done. I assume I will not be able to do regular work on that particular day. This was supposed to be that day. But my first meeting ran over, bumping my second meeting out of the running—it was a lunch with a new user's group, so no one would even miss me. Cool. My afternoon meeting was canceled due to illness, and so I found myself at home with nothing planned or pressing. Part of me really wanted to blow... Continue reading

More Kitchen Window Gardening

I've been growing sprouts in a sprouting jar for years and learned of sprouting leafy vegetables in containers in the window last winter, but I never knew about this until I caught it on Pinterest a couple of weeks ago. I couldn't wait to try it out. There are a number of varieties of vegetables that will continue to grow even after you've devoured most of what you brought home in your grocery bag. Who knew? It's a great way to stretch food dollars and get the satisfaction of micro-farming... Continue reading

The Lasagna Garden

"I didn't know you could grow lasagna," my mother-in-law quipped as I showed her my latest experiment. She seemed as intrigued as I was when I first heard about this soil preparation technique. It's a composting method that eliminates the need to hoe or till. I'm going to give this a whirl! As I'm short on time and hoeing is not one of my favorites I really want to believe it's going to work. Here's the drill; designate a little patch of earth and begin covering it with compostable items.... Continue reading

Harvesting Seed for the Next Season

Broccoli is a cool weather crop. I've not had much success growing them, but I left one plant in the garden amid my rampant parsley, even though it was past time for broccoli growing. To my delight, it began to produce what I thought would be a big, yummy stalk. I checked it every couple of days, proud of my gardening prowess, waiting for it to look something like what I'm familiar with when I walk through the produce section of my local grocery store. As I'd not seen exactly how the plants... Continue reading