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How Now, Chow Chow?
Every chow chow recipe I’ve seen includes sweet peppers. Maybe I’ll use some of these. I keep hearing about chow chow and how desperately I need to try making some. Since learning of this concoction...
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Autumn in Lewisburg’s Community Garden
Cabbages provide some drama at the Lewisburg Community Garden. If this is on a private allotment, some Lewisburg family is going to be sick of cabbage-based side dishes. I stopped in recently at...
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Horseradish!
After 17 months in my refrigerator, the horseradish roots my brother gave me looked pretty happy. Those are some seriously healthy-looking green leaves… despite that they’ve seen almost no light for...
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Blond Zucchini?
As long as I’ve known zucchini, it has been a dark green squash like the young one in this photo. To some kitchen gardeners, the existence of blond zucchini is no surprise (though calling it “blond”...
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Gloom and Bloom Day Autumn, 2014
Why are there cosmos in my kitchen garden? Someone once told me that cosmos growing with sweet corn keep away corn ear worms. I still don’t know whether it works, but I’ve yet to find ear worms in my...
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Cruising Autumn in Pennsylvania Farm Country
Weeds in the foreground provide a glimpse of some crop nearing harvest that stretches back to barns, silos, and storage buildings. Behind all that, a wooded hill shows off in early autumn. About five...
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Bloom Day After Freeze
My pea plants have been in bloom for four weeks, but cool autumn temperatures have slowed growth. I’d bet many blossoms are all of four weeks old and still looking fresh. The few pods that remain from...
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Crazy Squash Story
You could describe a neck pumpkin as a megagigantic butternut squash. This one is about 30 inches from stem to blossom end. At harvest it weighed 19 pounds. In central Pennsylvania, people favor neck...
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Happy Birthday, Bren!
The part of our visit that most resembled a formal tour began with the flower bed in front of Bren’s house. It was instantly apparent Bren’s garden plan preserves habitat for felis catus, the domestic...
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Vegetable Seed and Corona Tools Giveaway 2015!
The Quickest Way to Enter The quickest way to enter the giveaway: Leave a comment on this blog post that shares an entertaining gardening experience. Send an email that includes a mailing address and...
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Don’t Freeze Ya Freesias
The coldest days of winter and a typical central Pennsylvania snow reaffirm the area’s USDA hardiness zone rating. Freesias would not survive this winter outdoors. Freesias! I took a flier last spring...
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Amazing Green Sausage Heirloom Tomatoes
For at least four months after harvest, these tomatoes got moved around in our dining room until I noticed they’d started to wrinkle. These are Green Sausage tomatoes—an heirloom paste tomato that...
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2015 Seed Giveaway: Grand Prize Winner
My (nearly) annual seed giveaway closed on February 15. Seeds are almost in the mail! Here’s where things stand: I’ve laid out seeds to fill 50 envelopes for winners of this year’s seed giveaway. My...
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Unlikely Starters in my Kitchen Garden
It’s still cold enough in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania for ice to form on the water in my “rain garden.” I use quotes because I dug a hole several years ago and it has been wet only in spring thaws and...
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First Crocus, 2015… and Figs
Perhaps as hardy as the other crocuses in my yard, this one sneaked under my fig tree lean-to and managed to get a head start on spring. This is an awkward “first crocus of spring” post. The photo...
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Tomatoes Under Lights
It took just over four days for my first tomato seedling of 2015 to emerge. Saturday and Sunday, March 21st and 22nd, I planted 73 tomato seeds in five planters. The planters are under lights in my...
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Chili Pepper Seedlings Under Lights
My first chili pepper sprout of the year is a sweet pepper, but I don’t know what type. Last year I collected orange bell and sweet Italian pepper seeds from my harvest and managed to store them...
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Hen and Chicks?
I spent a dollar to buy two Hen and Chicks plants at a yard sale in autumn. With snow predicted, I “heeled in” the plants in my vegetable bed. When the snow finally melted in March, I found this...
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