Poppies in Snow Snow today (March 7) — a perfect time to plant seeds outdoors. Yes, really! Obviously, not just any seed can be sown in snow. The ground is still frozen solid so I can’t easily cover seeds with soil. And cold temperatures are going to rot most seeds before the weather warms enough […]
A Book Is Born Finally, after all the hard work, I have in hand the first copies of my new book The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden. This book grew out of my long love affair with gardening—such a congenial confluence of colors, flavors, and aromas […]
Swelling Buds What an exciting time of year! After a spate of 50 plus degree temperatures, lawn grass — bare now although it could be buried a foot deep in snow by the time you read this — has turned a slightly more vibrant shade of green. Like a developing photographic film (remember film?), […]
To a Cat’s Delight How does your cat like your houseplants? I don’t mean how they look. I mean for nibbling, a bad habit of some cats. Bad for them and bad for you because eating certain houseplants could sicken a cat, or worse, and, at the very least, leave the houseplant ragged. One […]
Another Year, Another Pruning and Re-potting I’d like to say it was the birthday of my baby ficus except I don’t know when it was actually born. And since it was propagated by a cutting, not by me, and not from a seed, I’m not sure what “born” would actually mean. No matter, I’m […]
A Pillbox Relaxes Me A little blue pillbox has solved my sleep problems. I’ve touted the abundance of fresh figs I gather in summer and fall from my greenhouse, and the salad greens in winter. Not to mention the transplants for the garden in spring and summer. All this has come at a price: sleep. […]
Be Careful What You Say/Send/Deliver As you look online or peruse the seed and nursery catalogues that turn up in your mailbox, take note of those flowers that you might need to grow and preserve for the purpose of delivering messages for Valentines Day next year. For this year, fresh flowers from a florist will […]
Fear Not I used to find orchids intimidating to grow. Their dust-sized seeds are fairly unique in not having any food reserves so — in the wild, at least — need the help of a fungus partner to get growing. And some orchids (epiphytes) spend their lives nestled in trees so need a special potting […]
Mini-Trees for Flavor Second best to fresh-picked vegetables in winter, which are not within most gardener’s grasp with temperatures in the single digits, are fresh-picked herbs. Fresh-picked herbs — indoors — in winter are within the grasp of most gardeners, even non-gardeners. Flowering and fruiting demand lots of light energy, but it is the leaves […]
