This Allium 'Millenium' will always remind me of our next-door neighbors when I was a kid. Not because they grew this particular variety of Allium—it was introduced in 1990, long after I'd left home—but because their son called me up one day and asked if I wanted a few clumps of it. He had planted it in a container at his mom's retirement apartment, and when he switched over the planting from summer to fall, as one does, he decided the ornamental allium might be nice for someone to plant … [Read more...] about My Old Neighbors
vegetable gardening
Garlic Do’s and Don’t’s
Believe it or not, garlic is easy to grow and tastes much better when you grow it yourself. I know this from personal experience. So do yourself a big favor and do a couple of things. Buy some good garlic bulbs to plant this fall from some place with a lot of different varieties like Botanical Interests (which appears to be sold out of garlic—see you waited too long before you ordered) or Burpee or Johnny's Selected Seeds (which is close to being sold out). THEN, listen to the … [Read more...] about Garlic Do’s and Don’t’s
The problem with vegetable gardens
The problem with vegetable gardens for some gardeners isn't the planting. It's the harvesting. That's right. Some gardeners have trouble harvesting from their vegetable gardens. Is it ready to harvest? Should I pick it today? Will it be better tomorrow? You want to eat those homegrown vegetables at their absolute perfect peak of perfection! You can't decide. Pick now or wait? You repeat those questions as you stand there looking at your vegetable garden the next day and then the next day … [Read more...] about The problem with vegetable gardens
Use a ForkTress to protect your green bean seedlings
My sister sent me a text the other night asking if I still use plastic forks to keep the rabbits from eating my green bean seedlings. Yep, I sure do. I sent her back the current picture as evidence. The garden fairies also wrote about this method in their last update and that post has been shared a few times. Since I cannot let the garden fairies upstage me again, I decided to write my own post. Here's the scoop. When I sow seeds for my green beans and edamame, I line the rows with … [Read more...] about Use a ForkTress to protect your green bean seedlings
The Man Who Grew Vegetable Marrows
It would make a great Jeopardy game show clue. "The Man Who Grew Vegetable Marrows". The answer: "Who is Hercule Poirot?" We might also accept the answer, "What is the title of Chapter 3 of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie?" I've been watching "Poirot" on Netflix for several weeks and finally in season 7, episode 1, in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the famous Belgian detective from countless Agatha Christie mysteries had just retired to a village called King's Abbott and … [Read more...] about The Man Who Grew Vegetable Marrows
I had some time, I had some seeds
I had some time, I had some seeds, so I decided to sow those seeds for a fall harvest in my vegetable garden. I put them all in one bed, the bed where squash plants met an early demise at the first sign of those awful squash bugs. By putting them all together in one bed, I figured I could cover them easily enough if we had an early frost. But we didn't have an early frost. In fact, we've only had one morning where there was even a hint of frost. Overall, the weather has been mild all fall and … [Read more...] about I had some time, I had some seeds
