Amie knows why bees are good. – Mama, excuse me, Mama? Bees are good because if there is a flower on the plant then they go into the flower to get the nectar and make honey out of it and they also do something good to the flower. Pollinate, yes. Despite the lack of pollinator-attracting …
Category Archives: garden
TO DO (List) Like There’s No Tomorrow
White sheet curtain to block the sun’s heat. Today we’re in the 90s, while yesterday we barely made the 70s. Things we need to do before winter (update TO DO LIST in sidebar): attempt compost tea top dress beds with compost install last rain barrel (for toilet flushing) pull poison ivy all over restart Starbucks …
Trelisses and Potato Bins and Dinner
Last week “big hail” was predicted, so DH and I ran out and covered most of the beds with row cover. We also managed to drape some over the tomatoes in the pots, but by then it was too dark to take a picture. I don’t know what good it would have done, since no …
Soil Test Results
I know. It was a bit late that I had my soil tested, but – apart from it being too clayish – we’ve always had a good feeling about the soil of our veg garden. The catalyst for sending the soil in anyway was the loam I bought for filling up the terraces we built, …
Growing Children in the Garden
A couple of days ago Amie was helping me in the garden. She was raking away the weeds I had just hoed – though raking around is closer to the truth. There was a lot of chopping with her little rake, too close to my face. There was also yelling – “Go away, weeeeeds, go …
Garden News
The rain barrels were finally installed, all four of them, on Sunday, and for once I looked forward to the rain on Monday, which filled them all up in 15 minutes! We have a fifth (metal) barrel, a well-made one which we got from a neighbor, but before I use it I want to ask …
Garden Bounty
These are today’s pickings: green beans (mostly Provider), some mint and thyme, snipped onions tops and some more Swiss Chard. In a few weeks I’ll be laughing at the amounts in this picture (I hope)… Amie was picking too, buckwheat flowers in our patch up front. Some of the buckwheat has gone to seed, so …
Food from the Garden
I harvested the fingerling potatoes because I suspected Late Blight. If they had had one more month, they would’ve made for a good yield. Now… not so much. Let’s just say that 2.5 lbs of seed potato went in and less came out. You do the math! And please don’t call them cute. Potatoes from …
Rain and Slugs Slugs Slugs
It’s the middle of Summer and you wouldn’t say so. The Boston Globe reported that eastern Massachusetts may have had its “dimmest” June since recording began in 1885. Through June 22, Boston and vicinity had received just 32% of the available sunshine. In an average June, the region gets 55% of the possible sunshine between …
Oh no! BLIGHT! (?)
Via Skippy’s Vegetable Garden, which operates quite near to us, this news: If you grow tomatoes or potatoes, take heed. This is shaping up to be one of the worst years for Late Blight, the fungal disease made famous as the cause of the Irish potato famine of the mid-1800’s… Late blight is caused by …