You’ve raked up this season’s autumn leaves. I hope you didn’t treat them like garbage because they can bring all sorts of goodness to your soil. So much so that I gather up those bags that others put out for pickup — that is, unless the leaf goblin gets there before me. Read about autumn leaves and the goblin in my latest blog post.
Saving pumpkin seeds is one way to plan now for next year’s Halloween. But what is a “pumpkin” really? And what are the chances and challenges for a good or great pumpkin from this year’s seeds. Learn the answer to these questions — and more — by reading this weeks blog post.
Mercury plummeting out in the garden. No problem. I was prepared on all fronts. (At least I think so.) Read about those fronts in my latest blog post, here.
To prune or not to prune (this time of year): that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler to neaten up the garden or to suffer tangles of stems. With apologies to Bill Shakespeare, it depends on lots of things whether or not now is a good time to go out to the garden wielding pruning shears. I go over the why’s and the why not’s of pruning in fall in my latest blog post.
Biochar is a relic of ancient agriculture now used with a modern perspective. Applied to soils it confers myriad benefits. But does biochar make the best use of the plant feedstuffs?
My worst garden ever is now looking pretty good. For a number of reasons. Which I enumerate in my latest blog post. I can’t do anything about the weather but now I can pay attention to some things to make the best of even a poor growing season.
Did you know that it’s popcorn season. Not eating it, but harvesting it. Home-grown, it’s so easy and so delicious, better that those giant puffs of commercial popcorn. It’s also chestnut season, which, especially, with a couple of weeks curing, is also delicious. Both very homey this time of year. Growing, harvesting, and more all described in my latest blog post, here.
A recent visit to Maine was like a time machine, sort of. There was the Common Ground Fair, the first of many visits to was about 20 years ago. And similarly for a visit with Eliot Coleman, except these visits began 50 years ago! Still learning and getting better at growing plants organically and sustainably. The trip and conversations described, you know where, in my latest blog post, accessible from my website (my name dot com).
Grow figs where winters are frigid? No problem. Although this plant is native to the hot, dry climates of the Mideast, it can be grown successfully in a cold winter climate. (I’ve done it for decades.) Learn what unique characteristics of this the plant makes this possible and how to make use of these characteristics to get the plant to survive winter and bear ripe fruit, all this iin my latest blog post.
I gotta admit it, this year’s garden was my worst ever! I think I know the reason — no, the many reasons –why. We gardeners, farmdeners, and farmers can always blame the weather. What, specifically about the weather, and what other reasons can I suss. Read what I thought, some of it may apply in your garden or farmden, in my latest blog post.
