Vegetables

Our nasty, hot sticky weather--high 90s for days and days on end, coupled with so much humidity the hill across the street was covered in a white haze--has finally broken. Quite dramatically. Now we've been getting days where the warmest it gets is into the low 60s. There was no transition at all; it is [...]

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 [...]

This doesn't have much to do with cold climate gardening, but I found this article fascinating. Apparently Nepalese farmers have been growing the same corn as native Americans for so long they think it's native to Nepal--but it's not. How did it get there? No one is really sure, but that fact remains that "in [...]

I, at long last, (so it seems,) have everything planted. It always seems I reach this state with less dignity and aplomb than I would like. Later winter and early spring are spent dreaming up all sorts of things that I'll want to get done and complaining that I can't do everything. Then, starting sometime [...]

As I've said before, this is my first year trying wall-o-waters. But, before I get to my experience, I noticed that some guy name John Delaney had a few words on Wall O Waters. Too expensive? Yes, most certainly. Almost everyone I've asked about wall-o-waters has said "I've never tried them, they're too expensive. Overrated [...]

We had fresh corn from my corn patch this Thursday. It was good. The corn plants didn't produce as much corn as they could have because I didn't mulch them as early as I should have. But I'm happy that I got anything. Fresh corn tastes really good. And I can always promise to do [...]

First it was the windy day that blew a wheelbarrow over on top of my best tomatoes. Not, of course, on my over 200 nicotiana, but on my tallest, biggest tomatoes. Then there was the night it was supposed to get down to 39 degrees and actually got down as low as at least 34; [...]

What have people heard about soaking peas the night before planting? Dad always did, and I had assumed it was necessary for germination. However, I recently read that pre-soaking peas supposedly causes "legume seeds to absorb water too quickly, split their outer coatings and spill out essential nutrients, which encourages damping off seed rot." (The [...]

Most plants, if they're started indoors, should be started 6-8 weeks before your last frost date. Since our last frost date isn't until the end of the first week of June, 6-8 weeks is about mid-April. Leeks are the earliest thing I start--mostly right now I am doing planning. I'm trying very hard to strike [...]