I love the smell of parsnips in the afternoon

It smells like victory. At the end of the season last fall, I dug up about two dozen well-formed parsnips, almost six pounds worth. Also the usual tomato, eggplant, and chile pepper. This was the biggest surprise, as I had never had any luck before growing carrots or parsnips. But last winter, I had enough […]

A bowl of cole

Finally my first harvest of Brussels sprouts, after planting them last spring! They grow so slowly. I think they didn’t even form sprouts until late in the summer. And of the four plants, only one has formed sprouts worth snipping, just barely the size of my thumb, and just barely starting to open. On the […]

Today’s ounce of raspberries

My late season of “everbearing” Heritage raspberries is coming in dribs and drabs. There are just enough flowers to keep the bumblebees coming back to the raspberry patch, and just enough fruits to keep me checking on them every few days. Some days, I almost get a handful of raspberries!

Penultimate Harvest

A frost warning sent me out to my community garden plot yesterday to gather all the green tomatoes that were never going to get ripe. I picked a heavy bagful of tomatoes, a few from my Butter Bush, a lot from the Rutgers, plus four more huge tomatoes from a volunteer tomato plant in my […]

Even for the squirrels it’s harvest time

The squirrels plant corn all over the place. You might think they’re just caching it, by hiding kernels in the ground, but in some spots it comes up spaced so evenly, it looks deliberately planted. And in this one spot, which doesn’t actually get all that much sun, somehow two years in a row now, […]

Rescuing a ladybug

I was the sort of kid who would pick up worms from the sidewalk after a rain. In fact, I still move worms back onto the grass. Lately, I seem to be making a habit of rescuing bugs from the T.

It’s raspberry season again!

I finished eating the raspberries from the first season about a couple weeks ago. These are the second wave that comes from the fallbearing raspberries. They are Heritage raspberries, and they make big, cone-shaped berries. Most of mine are growing under the butterfly bush, and I think they pick up some of the dusky fragrance […]

Guess what: Bumblebees can sting twice

Bumblebees do not care if an intrusive gardener cuts down some overenthusiastic butterfly bush. They hardly notice if that gardener carries away that branch, should there happen to be luscious purple flowers to forage on. But if the bouncing of that branch drops that bee down the collar at the back of that gardener’s neck, […]

I grew some food!

Because of all the rain, it’s been about a week since I visited my community garden plot. I was startled by all the changes.

Don’t give up on lettuces

I went to water my community garden plot today. After a hot, dry weekend that I spent hiding in the freezing air conditioning at Readercon, I feared everything would be all crispy. Instead, the plants looked fine.