A Slow Start to the May Garden

The garden is off to a really slow start this year.  It’s mostly April’s fault.  That month gave us very cold weather right up until the end, so nothing got planted.  For the first couple weeks in May we were practically under water and it’s only been the last two weeks that we’ve been able to get a lot accomplished.  Here’s some flowering horseradish.  I’ve promised to take a little better care of my horseradish this year and it’s looking good....

Pickled Red Onions

We harvested a plethora of onions last year.  We still have yellow copra onions which store quite well.  Then there are the red onions which don’t store quite as well.  Those are definitely sprouting, so I cut out the sprouts and use what I can. I’ve been using them like crazy but then I use onions in just about everything I cook.  I have frozen chopped onions but I wanted to use the fresh onions as much as I could.  So I turned to the internet –...

Practical Organic Gardening by Mark Highland

I first met Mark Highland quite a few years ago, maybe at the Philadelphia Flower Show or at a Garden Writers conference. He already knew Geoff and Anneliese. Mark had just launched his company, Organic Mechanics, to produce high-quality potting soil. Since then, Mark has made a success of Organic Mechanics, and his passion for growing organically has evolved into his becoming a spokesperson for the organic method. Mark is a degreed horticulturalist whose...

Sweet Potato House

I’ve been starting my sweet potatoes from sprouted old roots rather than starting from new potatoes for quite a few years, now. It’s a close to fool-proof method. Here are 25 sprouts in a soil box. I removed the sprouts from the mother plants and cut them into handleable sections before shoving them into the soil. Note that many of the sprouts have already leafed out while still attached to the mother root. Some, however, are just pink sprouts that will quickly...

The Wellness Garden by Shawna Coronado

Gardening is excellent physical and spiritual activity. Most who garden, love it and need it, but what would you do if pain or restricted movement from a debilitating disease were forcing you to give up gardening and your garden? Shawna Coronado found herself in that situation when she was diagnosed with degenerative osteoarthritis. Shawna was already an established garden writer and well-known gardening spokesperson when she came close to giving up gardening with...

Black Friday Garlic

I try to plant garlic by the end of October.  This year it didn’t happen.  Having great faith in climate change, I knew I would get another opportunity or several before the ground froze too hard to work easily. Today the high temperature peaked at around 66 F and it was a quite pleasant day for planting, a very good way to spend Black Friday. I plant garlic in ridges, three per bed.  I work up the soil in a bed until it is soft. The ideal tool for this is an...

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