I love the first frost. I’ve never joined the chorus of gardeners who view it as a disaster to be lamented. Sure, half the garden has been obliterated. High time! By then I’m tired of picking beans, finding homes for the extra squash, and feeling I need to can every last tomato. Besides, frost is …
It’s often said that making compost is like cooking. You assemble your ingredients — in this case, a combination of dry, high-carbon organic materials such as dead bean vines and straw, mixed with moist, high-nitrogen ones such as kitchen scraps and manure. Then you use heat to break the ingredients down. With cooking you use …
There’s a red-stemmed collard in my garden right now that is taller than I am — impressive for a member of the brassica family. It’s a magnificent creature, with huge blue-green leaves that get smaller as they ascend the magenta stalks. The top is crowned with abundant sprays of pale yellow blossoms, presently enjoyed by …
Summer is by no means over and plans are already underway for next year’s garden. You’re not the one making them, though. It will be months before the new seed catalogs arrive, and what with weeding and watering you might not have had a chance to come up with a scheme for next year. But …
Some recipes seem perfectly written for the garden, but it’s the other way around. The garden writes the recipes. Nobody ever said, “Beans and corn would taste great together. Let’s grow some.” The Native Americans planted them together, the beans climbing up the cornstalks for support. They were then reunited as succotash. All the world’s …
“The Green Leaves of Summer” was the theme from the 1960 film “The Alamo” and became a pop standard. Its nostalgic lyrics celebrate both the green time of the year and youth, the green time of life. They’re about abundance and green fields. But when it comes to salads, I’ll take the green leaves of …
“House proud” is a nice old-fashioned phrase. It describes the feeling you have when everything is reasonably clean and in order. It reflects the fact that while we all may befoul our nests to some degree, we like visitors to feel comfortable and welcomed when they walk through our door, not assaulted by our mess. …
In an eruption of patriotic cheer, mojitos are suddenly on the menu at our house for a family get-together. Neither my husband nor I are cocktail experts, but the mint in our ever-moist “mint ditch” is a lush green. So we’ll be muddling together mint leaves and ice cubes in tall glasses, replacing the traditional …
If there were a prize for the most versatile vegetable, the scarlet runner bean would be a serious contender, even though it’s hardly a garden staple. It may be best known as a children’s plant. Kids are often encouraged to make a tepee out of bean poles and sow scarlet runners at the base of …
Lean, mean but decidedly green, my young friends were determined to rid their garden of tomato hornworms by picking them off rather than spraying them. “We killed the mothers!”, they exclaimed in triumph, and told how they’d sought out the fat green worms with rows of small white eggs on their backs. Unknowingly, they had …
Its name in Mexico, verdolagas, means “green lakes.” Up north it’s purslane, and as sure as the sun will rise to its zenith on June 21, purslane will appear in my garden and spread its verdant mats from shore to shore. It is the quintessential weed of summer, its vigor fed by warm, bright days …
When spring is in progress, gardeners converse in Fahrenheit. They cheer when the thermometer hits 50, crow when a sunny day breaks 60, commiserate over a drop to 40. But the number that should be on all lips is the temperature of the soil. Soil heat rises steadily in spring, but its progress lags behind …
