RATIONALITY CHALLENGED
With spring's warm spells comes irrationality. Avocadoes in New York? Why not? Rush out to plant onions. (Timing turned out correct).
OLD ENEMIES RETURN
Two very old foes -- damping off and quackgrass -- do an encore here. Now, after gardening for many years, I know how to deal with them -- not eliminate them 100%, but to keep them in check.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE WEATHER
The weather is bouncing me around, have me revel in the warmth and the worry in the cold -- for my plants, fruit trees and bushes in or nearing bloom, leas sprouting. Note to myself: Do not plant peas on St. Patrick's day next year.
HISTORIC PEAR AND NUTTY PINE
Gardening leads me down an historical road, with Lady Petre pear, the first pear to originate in America; and then down a road to the future, with visions of my limber pine seedling one day yielding delicious pine nuts.
FAILURES, SUCCESSES
I'm about to give up on jasmine; can anybody help me? But I think I got growing cardoon (for flowers) and winter lettuce down.
UPCOMING EVENTS
THE WEATHER CALLS THE SHOTS
Nice, sunny days and outside I go, to prune. Three steps to pruning blueberries. Cold weather, and inside I go, sowing seeds and trying for very early, greenhouse cucumbers.
FLOWERS, ONE VERY, VERY SPECIAL
Finally, my decades-long quest has ended; I have seen the blue poppy. Now I'll try again to grow this plant, which collapses in hot summer weather.
