Tag: Garden

Summer things

Fresh peaches from a nearby orchard . . . . . . and sweet ripe blackberries, picked from a neighbor’s garden patch are this summer’s consolation prizes.   We’ve very little to harvest in our own gardens now.  ...

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Photographing the peas

Garden photography has its challenges, not the least of which is the light.   Golden sunlight at dawn and dusk turns everything a rich, warm tone, which is lovely for some uses and not others.  The diffused light of a moderately...

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Of seeds and dreams

It’s the time of year when all things seem possible.  I dream of verdant growth, record harvests, perfect blossoms, and fruit unmarked by insect damage and snacking birds.   My wish list of seeds and plants is long and...

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Violets in the sand

The common violet is one of my favorite spring flowers. It’s fragrant, pretty, tough and prolific. What’s not to love? This particularly sturdy violet pushed its way through a layer of sand deposited a couple weeks...

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Greenhouse flowers

This winter’s tatsoi (mustard greens) crop is in full bloom in the greenhouse. The leaves are no longer yummy, but I’ve left the plants to flower because the blossoms make me smile whenever I step inside. The seed...

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Collards in bloom

Champion collards, planted in the greenhouse September, 2007. Collards, like most brassicas, are biennial – that is, they go to seed their second year. Collards don’t keep calendars. They had their warm season and...

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Mating Rituals

Lately, everywhere I turn, everything I do, I see pairings. Nature all around me is courting and matching up. Maybe it’s just the season, spring springing and all that. Maybe it’s because I’ve written a few romances and my mind...

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Fresh mustard

I’ve never cared much for mustard greens. The canned variety just tastes nasty, I think. The fresh ones gathered in the pasture when I was a kid weren’t much better. Still, they were on the list of cold hardy greens...

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Winter again

January 3 overnight low – 14 degrees. January 5 high – 71 degrees January 6 high – 73 degrees January 7 high – 71 degrees Cover the greenhouse beds, uncover the greenhouse beds, yada yada yada. We had...

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Blankets for plants

I’ve been using floating row covers in the greenhouse lately to add an extra level of protection on cold nights. Jugs of water around what few tender plants remain in there help a lot, too. The water warms with the...

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Strawberry joy!

Photographed November 30, 2007 – one very confused, but delicious ripe strawberry. You’d better believe I washed it off and ate it. Variety: Jewel Planted: September 2007 My supplier kept the dormant plants in cold...

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Purple wave

I always grow purple petunias, not because I like them, but because my younger daughter liked them so much when she was small. I think she still favors them, but not with the single-minded exhuberance she exhibited a decade ago....

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