For the love of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squashes, potatoes, onions, radishes, peas, beans, broccoli, cauliflower, etc… how to grow them in containers, community gardens, and other small spaces.
This spring I started seeds of a long, red, Italian radish variety called ‘Candela di Fuoco.’ They did well enough considering the strange weather that season — I ate the crunchy roots and sautéed the greens. When two stragglers bolted in the heat, I let them go and ate their flowers. The plants continued to …
Last weekend we dug up a boatload of Jerusalem artichokes aka sunchokes from the garden, right on schedule. Believe it or not, many of the tubers are even bigger this year than last. And there are more of them! God help us. When we began digging, I told Davin that we would only be excavating …
Recently, the addition of an island/counter that has suddenly provided me with more counter space than I have ever had before, as well as the well-timed arrival of an indulgent purchase of newly published cookbooks has us spending whole days in the kitchen. I am always drawn to the kitchen in other people’s homes. It’s …
Yep, I’m behind. As always. No new story here. It is November 15 and I am yet to plant my garlic. I have been here before. In fact, there was that year that I didn’t get garlic in at all. As I write this, there is a total of six cloves in the ground. That’s …
Last spring we made a big change to the structure of our garden which resulted in a new perennial bed. Since the perennials were still quite small and lacklustre, I made use of the gaps and filled them in with an assortment of seeds including annual flowers, herbs, and greens. All of the plants I …
Here we are again folks. It’s too many green tomatoes time! Friends, I was smart and totally on top of my shit this year. I picked away at the harvest in manageable chunks rather than frantically hauling them all inside at once. But today, with the high winds and heavy rains of hurricane Sandy looming, …
It is a chaotic blanket of thin, tangled branches smothering the lilac bush. A wild thing in a garden that has gone mad with wild things and wildness. And once it got going that poor potted dahlia hardly stood a chance. I’ve realized that it is a living approximation of my grandmother’s “Christmas tree.” My …
I took a break from posting the Herbaria recently. I did continue shooting the photos so I am resuming where I left off a few weeks back. This week marks more tomatoes. All varieties have come in and many were already starting to wane at the time of this photo a few weeks back. It’s …
It is exquisite close-up. Design by nature.
The hot peppers are in their prime, the late season tomatoes are ripening faster than I can use them, the sun is setting earlier in the evening (no more gardening until 10pm) and even the tomatillos are not far now. All of the hallmarks of the September garden have arrived. I am trying my best …
How I prune my tomatoes is a popular question and while I was out doing that work yesterday evening, I figured it was high time that I address it here on the site. There are countless ways to approach tomato culture, all or at least most of which are probably right and good. I am …
Clockwise from Top Left: 1. This is a view of half of one of the raised beds, situated about midway down the garden on the west side. This bed housed an assortment of crops last year, but this year it holds several determinate (bush) and dwarf tomato varieties that have quickly turned into a jungle …