Cold Climate Gardening

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My ‘America’ spinach has withstood my torments much better than the ‘Olympia’ spinach. I had trouble with the ‘Olympia’ dampening off, to begin with. (I did start them inside; more on that later.) The ‘America’ looks settled in, but the ‘Olympia’ looks like it’s hanging by a thread. I actually wanted ‘Tyee’, but Fedco was […]

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This just came in my mailbox:
I just stumbled across this site, and it’s great.
I am desperate to ask some of the gardeners what to do about my poor tomatoes, but cannot figure out how to post. [Ed. note: You have to register and then be approved before you can post, but anyone can submit a […]

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I ought to be going to bed, so this will shorter (for me). I find it highly annoying that we can go from having 86 degree weather one afternoon to having a 23 degree night, in less than 48 hours. It just isn’t fair.
It also isn’t fair that even though it says on […]

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Today is my grandma’s 98th birthday. I originally wrote this essay for a Fine Gardening contest (which I didn’t win), and decided to revise it and share it with you in honor of her special day.
It’s funny how gardens are such emotional things. You enter some gardens and feel as though you are in someone’s […]

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Dear Kathy,*
The bladder campion is back again. This weed, Lychnis alba, always pops up in one place or another in my sunny back perennial bed. Last year this time, I moved one that had sprouted elsewhere in the back bed to my “white” garden, which had just been dug out and needed filling in. It […]

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Several years ago, while passing time in a waiting room, I read a quote in Garden Design that went something like this: “Gardening [or was it farming?] is the only socially acceptable form of gambling.” Ever since, I have regretted that I did not copy this quote verbatim or, at the very least, commit the […]

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