Vegetables

This is leek soup weather. Most of the trees have dropped their leaves, and the larch are enjoying their final glory before they drop their needles. When the days grow shorter, when we've had several freezes (and even a dusting of snow), and when we finally concede it's time to drain the hose and close [...]

This is not winter squash:One advantage of homeschooling is that faced with too much zucchini, yellow crookneck, patty pan, and kousa squash, you just bring out the butter knives and conduct art class. Wait to harvest winter squash I had to share that with you, because I don't have any pictures of winter squash. We [...]

Is there such a thing as too much sweet corn? On Sunday he asked me, "How was the corn you had yesterday for lunch, when I wasn't here?" I said it was getting a little mature. He said, "Oh, I guess I better freeze the rest of it." I had no idea how much was [...]

Tomatoes the Old-Fashioned Way I've been reading the The Little House on the Prairie series to my six-year-old at bedtime. We just happen to be on The Long Winter and were reading "Fall of the Year" just a couple of days ago, where the Ingalls were surprised by an early hard frost. Ma and Laura [...]

We don't have any green beans ready quite yet, though they're getting close. And even when we do have green beans, we're quite happy eating them boiled in water until crisp-tender, drained, and then tossed with garlic sauteed in olive oil, or maybe just butter, salt, and pepper. However, there comes a time in the [...]

Does this qualify as a ripe tomato? If it does, I think the vegetable gardeners at Purdyville have beat out Carol of May Dreams Gardens for the first tomato. My 23-year-old daughter started the seeds indoors and potted the seedlings on until they were in gallon size pots, maybe larger. Then my husband planted them [...]

I decided to join the Food Fest hosted jointly by Dinner Tonight and A Way to Garden. So, for the first time ever (well, not quite, there are some pesto recipes here), recipes at Cold Climate Gardening. Clockwise from top left: White Bush Lebanese, Benning's Green Tint Patty Pan, more White Bush Lebanese (I think), [...]

No thanks to me, but we have been enjoying some fabulous lettuce from the garden lately. Except for one week in early June, it hasn't been especially hot. So it might be the weather, or it might be the varieties, but we're eating salad every day. Salad every day . . . what do you [...]

Having written about arcane gardening topics myself (colchicums, anyone?), I understand the challenge of writing to an audience that is unfamiliar with the jargon and techniques of one's subject, an audience with no emotional investment in the topic at hand. Giant pumpkins are brobdingnagian in size. Their growth rate is astonishing. But neither fact could [...]