The joke is “Leave your car windows rolled up in the summertime or someone will deposit a bunch of zucchini in your car.” But the truth is, there is no such thing as “too much zucchini.” Honestly, there are so many amazing ways to use zucchini, why would you ever want to give away this…

(In case you missed it, here’s Part One and Part Two of my series on Planning Your Garden.) There’s a buzz going around about “heirloom seeds” especially heirloom tomatoes,  leading people to believe that heirlooms have more flavor or are otherwise superior to all other tomatoes (thus they can charge you double for the seeds or plants.)…

Tomatoes. Is there any better reason to have a garden? Our tomatoes have done fairly well this year, despite a cooler June and two months of drought followed by two weeks of heavy rains. The tomatoes showed a little wear–delayed ripening, cracked shoulders and catfacing. Catfacing is a new problem that I’ve never seen before…

Get the best out of your garden You probably already know that farmers rotate their crops every year. This is to prevent their soil from becoming depleted and to ensure a productive harvest. Good gardeners will do the same thing and for similar reasons. Some types of plants are heavy feeders. Others share similar diseases.…

When my youngest son goes off to college next year, I will lose a great help in the garden. So for the last two years he and I have been working on several gardening projects to make gardening less labor intensive for me. This spring we’ve already completed two big projects: new raised bed and…

Now that we’ve had a couple frosts, it’s about time to put the garden to bed for the winter. Obviously we want the yard to look nice and clean, but putting the garden to bed is not just for cosmetic purposes. If we take care with the garden in the fall we lay the groundwork…

In case you couldn’t tell, I love herbs. I’ve been cultivating a perennial herb garden for four or five years now. I use herbs for everything–home remedies, soothing cosmetics and, of course, cooking. I have some favorites–basil, of course. And parsley is a long-time friend. But I have to say, for versatility, comfrey comes in…

Organizing my seeds Well, I finally did it. I finally organized my seeds. Well, actually, I’ve had them organized for several years, but over time my filing system has become inadequate and my seed box has been a jumbled mess for a couple years. So I needed to clean it up and make it work…

It’s still too early to plant your garden. But there’s still lots to do to get ready for this year’s garden. While you’re waiting for the weather to warm up, you can be getting ready for a great gardening season with these seven spring gardening chores: Test your soil and add nutrients if needed A…

I know I said that tomatoes are the reason we garden and that’s mostly true. But the thing I REALLY love about gardening is that we have healthy, chemical-free food year round. The food from our garden is more nutritious, tastier and saves us a ton of money. Our fall harvest Today (October 17) we…

As promised, here is my first installment of posts on planning your garden. First things first: tomatoes. It’s the reason God created gardens. I don’t care what else I grow, if I couldn’t grow tomatoes, I would be an empty shell of a person. We love our tomatoes And don’t think just any old tomato…

The catalogs are here! All it takes is one year of gardening and you’ll find your mail box flooded with seed catalogs. But there really are only a handful of catalogs that I order from. I’m pretty picky about who I order from and here are the ones that have made the cut this year.…

It’s every gardener’s nightmare: You spend all summer nurturing your lovely tomato and pepper plants along and when the time comes to pick the delicious fruits of your labor you discover they have ugly, black rotting splotches on the bottom of the fruit. You have fallen victim to the aptly-named Blossom End Rot (or BER).…

That’s how many seed catalogs I’ve gotten so far. And more coming every day! Some I don’t even bother with. Their prices are so-so, quality is about what you can get in the big box stores in town and some of these catalogs are so sterile—the pictures just do not inspire you to garden. Want…

Starting seeds should be a simple thing, right? Just poke some seeds into the soil, wait a few days and…voilá! You have plants. That’s true of a lot of seeds, but some seeds–like most nightshades and some flowers–like to be extra warm before they’ll germinate. So unless you keep your house really, really warm, you…

(Part One is here.) Yes, it’s January and yes, we’re having the coldest temperatures of the last two years. But it’s still time to think of early spring crops. Start with brassicas It’s almost time to start your brassica seedlings. The Brassica family is extremely cold-hardy. It includes things like broccoli, cabbage, collards, kale and…