PLAN(T) AHEAD
A Whole ‘Nuther Garden
It’s hard to imagine that the weather will eventually turn cool, then cold. But of course it will, I’ve been planning what vegetables to grow late in the season after cool temperatures have sapped the vitality from tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers. You might also consider it, because growing fall vegetables is like having a whole other garden, but in the same space.
Cool weather brings out the best flavor from vegetables such as kale, broccoli, and carrots. And the harvest season is long; fall vegetables just sit pretty awaiting harvest at your leisure.
I hew to three commitments I make every summer in planning for fall vegetables.
The first is to maintain soil fertility. Getting another growing season out of my garden means more fertility is needed, so fertilizer and/or liberal amounts of compost or other organic matter needs to be added to the soil. Fall’s predominantly leafy vegetables are heavy feeders.
My fertility system used to be Read more
AND THE BEST PASTE TOMATO IS . . .
Is a Tomato a Tomato
If a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, then a tomato is a tomato is a tomato. Or surely a paste tomato is. After all, paste tomatoes are rarely eaten fresh; they are mostly just cooked.
Each summer in my garden, we grow and put up enough canned tomatoes to keep us in soup, stew, and sauce for at least a year. 
A couple of summers ago, I sorted through some of the paste tomato varieties available, planting, growing, and evaluating flavors of the reputed best. These were varieties highly touted by seed purveyors, some gardeners, and on the web.
I admit to entering this foray with prejudices. Read more
PLANTS FOR TEENS
Do This! Do That!
The teenage years are turbulent times. Yet there are a couple of plants that could soothe the teen spirit, whether said teenager is a gardener or not.
Newfound independence makes a teenager soon tire of being told to “do this” or “do that.” Letting a teenager dish out some of this himself or herself might assuage some of the bother in hearing it. And the plant for this job is obedience plant, a plant that gets it’s name for how well the flowers obey. Botanically, the plant is Physostegia virginiana, but it also parades under the common name “false dragonhead”. Hmmmm.
At any rate, point the plant in whatever direction desired — to have them all flowers face outwards in a vase, for example — and theyill stay put.
Even we parents of teenagers can enjoy obedience plant, not because it obeys without an upward roll of its eyes or murmuring, but because it’s a pretty plant, obedient or not. 
Its flowering wands rise three or four feet high, each closely studded along its top portion with tubular, lipped blossoms that are lavender pink with darker speckles. Read more
