From the category archives:

Vegetables

Summer Squash

July 31, 2008

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), and [...]

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Fabulous Lettuce This Year

July 8, 2008

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.

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Backyard Giants: Book Review

October 23, 2007

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 [...]

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Colony Collapse Disorder: Are there any facts out there?

September 2, 2007

This looks like a bee visiting a corn poppy, but really it’s a fly. This comment explains.

Perhaps, like me, you’ve noticed there haven’t been as many bees flying around this year. If you’re the sort of person who gets nervous around bees, this might even seem like a good thing to you. But perhaps, like [...]

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Rethinking Your Vegetable Garden

January 7, 2007

Barbara Damrosch rightly points out that not only is this a good time of year (for us Northerners, at least) to be thinking about what to plant in the vegetable garden next year, but it’s also a good time to think about that garden on a more FUNdamental level:
If your vegetable garden isn’t fun anymore, [...]

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A Vegetable Wishlist

December 14, 2006

In her latest Washington Post column Barbara Damrosch writes
It’s raining seed catalogues and the forecast is for the downpour to continue well into January.
She then starts in on her vegetable wishlist, what she would like to see the “elves” at the “North Pole Experiment Station” tinker with in her favorite vegetables to make them even [...]

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Pushing the Possible

December 13, 2006

When growing food, the greatest obstacle a cold climate presents to the gardener is the short growing season. In a classic example of great minds thinking alike, here are two books that address that obstacle with similar approaches. All of the authors live in New England and were influenced by Scott and Helen Nearing and [...]

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Johnny Loves Me!

December 1, 2006

I mean, Johnny’s loves me. I happened to be looking at tomatoes online tonight (which is early for me!), and lo, I discovered Valley Girl! Despite anything anyone says to the contrary, I am going to believe this tomato was developed just for me. (I am a girl, and I am living in a Valley.) [...]

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Testing Seed Germination. . . what do you learn?

March 22, 2006

Not much.
As is my habit every spring, I test my seeds to see whether they’re still any good, or if I need to buy new ones. This is a very easy thing to do–you stick half a damp paper towel in a little plastic bag, drop in ten seeds (5 if you’re starting to run [...]

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Answers to Betsy & Heather’s questions

February 28, 2006

Hi gals, isn’t it fun to dream of gardening when it’s raining too much to set foot in the garden? And, yes, Betsy, this is not the end of winter. In Boundary County we can have snow & freezes every month of the year so it’s not over yet. It’s a very [...]

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Potatoes

January 11, 2006

As I’m beginning to get started on my seed order this year, I remember that I meant to post on potatoes. Last year, due to the fascinating varieties offered by Fedco, I ordered my potatoes from them instead of Johnny’s. Most of you probably know that Fedco is divided into several distinct branches; the seeds [...]

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Artichoke Question

October 30, 2005

Denise Kemp writes:
My brother-in-law gave me an artichoke plant this spring that was given to him. He told me that I need to lift the plant in the fall but didn’t have any details on whether to take the leaves off or leave it in dirt or newspaper or what so I’m not sure [...]

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NOT A CORNFIELD (a rant)

October 10, 2005

It’s NOT A CORNFIELD. Oh, how could you be misled? How could you be so uncouth, so uncivilized, as to not recognize it for what it is: a work of art. Sigh. Only in California* could 28 acres of growing, living Zea mays be not a cornfield! There are two things about this that really [...]

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