by Greg Alder | Apr 12, 2024 | Vegetables |
(Originally written in December 2021) Next week my daughter turns four, and so does one of the above kale plants. It was in December 2017 that I sowed a handful of kale seeds. We ate leaves from the plants that grew through that winter while my daughter was learning...
by Greg Alder | Mar 29, 2024 | Vegetables |
My tomato plants are on deck, waiting to be planted, because it hasn’t warmed up to their liking yet. This last week’s nights still dipped into the 30s in my yard, we’ve got more rain this weekend, and a shift to consistently dry and warmer weather...
by Greg Alder | Feb 2, 2024 | Vegetables |
Most staples are laborious to get from the ground to a form that you can use in the kitchen. Wheat, for example, takes a lot of work to dry and thresh and grind into flour. Potatoes, by comparison, are not only easy but the harvest can be as fun as finding treasure....
by Greg Alder | Oct 6, 2023 | Pests, Vegetables |
Never do today what you can pay your kids to do tomorrow. It is sage advice that has been passed down for millenia. Last week, I employed it. I had been running around the yard in pursuit of white butterflies, the ones that lay eggs on the leaves of plants in the...
by Greg Alder | Aug 11, 2023 | Vegetables |
Last week I was with my cousin Paul as he bought a large heirloom tomato at a farmers market and then made breakfast with it the next morning: toast with mayonnaise, hunky slices of tomato, and salt. It looked like the right thing to do. So when I got home I picked a...
by Greg Alder | Aug 11, 2023 | Vegetables |
Last summer, many of my tomatoes were cracking near the stem and I couldn’t figure out why. Based on consulting some books and getting some advice from a farmer friend, I thought some possible causes were “inconsistent watering,” intense sunlight...
by Greg Alder | Jun 24, 2023 | Pests, Vegetables |
One downside to the wet winter and cool spring we’ve had is that earwigs, pill bugs, slugs, and snails have found this weather heavenly, and they continue to munch on my vegetables even during these first days of summer. But I’ve got a few tricks up...
by Greg Alder | May 5, 2023 | Vegetables |
Though they are pretty and bees love them, I’d rather my onions not make flowers. Why? Because the flower stalk ruins the core of the bulb. An onion that has flowered, sliced in half. Once the onion plant sends up a flower stalk there is nothing you can do...
by Greg Alder | Jan 13, 2023 | Vegetables |
In spring and summer, I tend to grow my lettuce and greens as individual plants, and I harvest them by picking individual outer leaves. But during the cooler times of the year I often switch to the cut-and-come-again method, where I sow the seeds densely and harvest...
by Greg Alder | Jan 6, 2023 | Vegetables |
I hate to see folks letting their vegetable gardens go dormant in the winter. The eggplants and tomatillos and cucumbers decline in the fall, and they don’t replace them with cool-season crops. They just wait to get started again in the spring, as if they live...
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