Being from Upstate New York, I never really had the idea to grow collard greens in the garden. But my husband had tried them before and liked them, so we gave it a go. Turns out they are a great late-season vegetable and last well into the winter, so you can still be picking fresh greens even ...
The garden looks pretty barren these days. We had a hard frost Monday night. It did in almost everything we had left in the garden: the last cherry tomato, a cilantro patch, and three basil plants I’d hoped somehow might make it through.Oddly, my lettuce survived. It’s in a container pushed ...
We harvested 280 pounds of pumpkin and winter squash this year, our biggest harvest yet. The total was: 71 pounds of pie pumpkins, 20 pounds of Buttercup squash, 127 pounds of Neck pumpkins and 63 pounds of Queensland Blue squash.Winter squash and pumpkins take a lot of space. To have a ...
Once a country girl, always a country girl. I bet there are many city folks who have their hearts tied to country roots. You CAN live the country life anywhere you choose. The saying, you can take the country girl out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the girl is evidently ...
We’ve had a busy year getting settled into our new house, working hard to get our new homestead up and running. For about six months or so it’s seemed pretty frantic – setting up new everything – garden space, compost bin, clothesline, fruit trees, kitchen …As all of you hard-core ...
After two failed attempts, we finally seem to have landed on the right formula for growing carrots. Carrots have been one of the very few vegetables we buy so we’ve been trying hard to figure out how to successfully grow them. Finally, this year we did it.Growing carrots is straightforward, ...
If you do one thing to help out your garden this year, check for squash bugs. Last year, during the July Fourth weekend, my formerly beautiful and lush winter squash plants suddenly wilted and died back. What was once a plot full of squash vines was instead nearly empty. The plants lost about ...
I haven't posted for several weeks. It isn't because I don't have a life, just the opposite. We've been exceptionally busy making improvements to our city home, plus the excitement of our oldest son's marriage to Kim. How fun to have a new daughter-in-law! Since Perry usually cares for our ...
Gardening is a risky proposition. You invest time and money and then cross your fingers and hope for good weather and no pests. This year we’re trying to spread out the risk by cultivating different plots. We have a backyard plot with tomatoes, summer squash, beans, pak choi, cabbage, ...
Each year come May we work hard to plant the vegetable garden and then cross our fingers and hope for a good year. The vagaries of the weather, pests or just bad luck can do in a vegetable garden at any time, and we never know how the season will be.All of the uncertainty of gardening helps ...
When we bought our house, we didn’t know we were getting a fixer-upper! But here we are, three weeks after our closing, and we still have a list of repairs (big and small) that’s more than two pages long. We have been working hard at trying to fix things, but it seems like when one task ...
Do you remember when every backyard had at least a clump or two of chives? Maybe out by the rhubarb? Nowadays many young people (and many not-so-young people) couldn’t tell chives from chrysanthemum, unfortunately. But there’s no reason that chives can’t make a comeback. They grow like ...
Oregonians love their coffee (and not exclusively, I know). We brew it at home or get it on the run. There are coffee “stands” everywhere, chains and local artisans. Standalone kiosk drive “thrus,” corners of the local grocery market, bookstores, craft stores, public library, gas ...
Growing lettuce is a great way to dip your toe into gardening, even if you don’t have a green thumb and you don’t have much space. It’s easy to grow and requires little space and effort. I grow most of my lettuce in containers on the deck. Even if you only have a window box you can try a ...
We work really hard setting up our garden every year, and want to get as much out of it as we possibly can. Since we're on the edge of the woods, we have lots of little critters who love our garden as much as we do. We also have chickens that have been very helpful in getting our beds ready ...
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