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

A Native American Gardening Technique

I have three sisters. But I am not talking about the three headstrong women who share my parents with me; I'm talking about the girls in my garden. I happened upon this planting technique fiddling around on Google one day. It's an ancient, Iroquois planting method for corn, beans, and squash. The three sisters sustain each other and I am utterly "a-maized" (I love a good pun if there is such a thing) at the results. In our neck of the woods, this process can be started in early- to... Continue reading

Powdery Mildew, Your Butt Is Mine!

Last year my squashes and cucumbers were growing like weeds in the garden out back. I was proud, happily envisioning months of delicious stewed squash, cucumber sandwiches, and refreshing cucumber water. Then I noticed a dusting of white powder on many of the leaves. I had a sense something was amiss but hoped it was merely dust that settled onto the leaves after a dry-weather lawn mowing session. I mean it easily wiped off. I told myself all would be right as rain when, well, it... Continue reading

The Thrifty Gardener – A Book Review

I've been reading and studying Alys Fowler's The Thrifty Gardener, and I'm so sad I've come to the end. I've quoted and linked back to her several times in this blog series, so some of you may remember me mentioning I had ordered her book. As my experiences in gardening for the last two years have been less than spectacular, I decided getting myself educated probably wasn't a bad idea. Go figure. I ordered through Amazon and the publication came right away. What a delight. The... Continue reading