I was showing off my comfrey patch (above) to my mother-in-law when suddenly she asked “what is that!” I confessed not to know. I had weeded the bed – which also has some hostas, feverfew and columbine in it – some days before, and I had noticed this one weed, very beautiful, very singular, and …
Category Archives: garden
Feeding the Family from the Garden: Is It Possible?
Magnificent espaliered pear tree at the Cloisters I investigated my tomato plants more closely today and to my consternation all the green tomatoes – at least 50 of them – have disappeared. The stems have been chewed through. I also found 6 chewed off stems on the eggplants. There are a lot of husks in …
Continue reading “Feeding the Family from the Garden: Is It Possible?”
We Get to Eat Too
The cucumbers are finally coming in. Amie was happy to harvest some, though she won’t eat them. These, maybe… Still no zucchinis or squashes in sight, just like last year. Of the dry beans, Jacob’s Cattle is the first one ready for picking. I love the sounds of the hard beans rattling in their dry …
Garden Being Eaten, But Not By Us!
How to Harvest and Save Seed from Kale
Take one kale plant, overwinter it in hoop house – kale is a biennial. In Spring let it flower and go to seed. Cut it down when leaves start getting brown, hang upside down to dry for months. When plant is fully dry and pods are almost bursting, stick the entire plant into a pillowcase. …
Tomatoes and Green Beans
This is one more long update. Life is so full it’s tough to find a moment to sit and write it all down. But here goes… Home-grown salads are a common fare nowadays: lettuce mix, beet “greens,” cherry tomatoes, onions, garlic scape dressing. I could throw in bell peppers too, but I’m letting them mature …
Raspberries and Other Harvests
Amie and I went to visit our new friends of the Freecycle comfrey, L and S, last week. Their raspberry garden was bursting with plump juicy berries. L helped Amie pick, she is so good with young kids. Amie was in seventh heaven, practically yelling with the fun of it. I chatted and picked and …
First Carrots, and Garlic
No, really. I already harvested carrots. Well, Amie harvested them: No doubt you’ve noticed that these are baby carrots. Baby carrots. I had let that bed go to weeds, and when pulling said weeds today found that carrots have much less purchase on the soil than weeds do, and they too came up. So after …
First Tomato
This should have been a joyous day, a glorious day. Instead there was cussing. I don’t often cuss, so it was shocking. What happened? The chipmunks got to the first tomato of the season. THE first tomato. The ICONIC tomato. The one you take a picture of: Its good side Its chipmunk side They also …
My Camera Works Again
Feverfew Vervain Maltese Cross