I’ve been eating a lot of my favorite early spring vegetable the past few weeks. Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) is the earliest vegetable harvested from the garden each spring – a sure sign that the gardening season has begun! One of nature’s perfect foods, asparagus is elegant yet easy to prepare. It is equally good [...]
I’ve been spending some time cleaning up the garden – removing spent plants and those ravaged by the heat and dry weather; cucumber plants that suffered an attack of mites brought on by the hot, dry weather; broccoli and lettuce plants that have gone to seed because of the heat, and stuff that I didn’t [...]
Most gardeners know that lettuce is one of the cool season crops. This means that lettuce plants perform best in the cooler spring and fall temperatures. When I lived in Northern California and coastal North Carolina, where winter brings frequent frosts but only occasional hard freezes, I was able to grow lettuce and other salad [...]
Finally, we are getting some sunshine and warm temperatures in Cincinnati after weeks of rain! I have spent the past two glorious days doing nothing but gardening, falling into bed at night exhausted but content. In my last post, I told you about my broken clavicle, and that I’m forbidden the use my left shoulder [...]
Spring is fickle. One day it is approaching 80 degrees, and a few days later – today - it barely gets up to 50. That’s o.k. We also had a rain deluge and four separate tornado warnings during the night which, thankfully, did not amount to much except soggy ground and cold. It’s spring! I spent several chilly hours [...]
I never used to grow roses because they were fussy flowers with a host of insect and disease problems that had to be dealt with to have success. Regular applications of fertilizer and pest control were mandatory. And while the flowers were beautiful, they came on awkward-looking, thorny plants that were a pain to prune [...]
Like gardeners everywhere, I can’t wait to get gardening in spring! So it finally happened – I sowed some seeds, both indoors and out, the other day. Outdoors, I planted snow peas and sugar snap peas, spinach, leeks and onions right on schedule. Pushing the season a bit, I also started some lettuce, carrots, radishes, [...]
Strawberries from Florida and California have been appearing at the supermarket in past few weeks, for what seems to me to be pretty reasonable prices. Which makes me long for some fresh picked strawberries from the garden! Strawberries are a favorite at our house, and we do buy them at the store, but I prefer to eat [...]
Last fall, I blogged about overwintering tender plants like geraniums, coleus and begonias by taking cuttings. Since cuttings from these plants break new roots so easily, I just put them in a vase of water and wait for the roots to form. It’s kind of like having a row of flower arrangements in my window! When [...]
I’m a little later than usual in placing my seed orders this year, but finally getting around to it today. Before I can order new seeds for the vegetable garden, I need to take stock of the seed that’s already on hand, and sketch out a preliminary planting plan. I have a lot of seed [...]