I have four healthy cherry tomato vines and fully anticipated I would be plucking the tender beauties throughout the summer for garden salads. But the cherry tomatoes had other ideas. I have had very few to date, but in the next few weeks I will have them in spades. The vines are dragging the ground, they are so loaded. I don’t know why the cherry and grape tomatoes wait until so late … [Read more...]

  Pity the backyard gardener. If the deer don’t get you, the rabbits will. And if they leave you alone, the squirrels bite and dig up everything. Then there is too much or too little rain or stink bugs or Japanese beetles. In Chuck Strauss’s case, it’s a tomato hornworm. Chuck said that one day, the leaves were completely gone from two of his tomato plants. He thought at first it was deer, … [Read more...]

This spring I planted four hybrid cucumber vines I bought from the Corner Store Garden Center in Ruckersville. They are Sweet Success Hybrid Cucumbers which grow and resemble English cucumbers – long and straight. The damned rabbits nearly mowed down three on my young plants before I could put netting over them, but one vine is doing great and the others are making a comeback. About a week ago, … [Read more...]

With bated breath I await that first tomato from my garden. Currently, all our tomato vines are prospering. Nancy’s little cage and above-ground potted plants on the patio looks like a tomato jungle with lush vines and lots of small to medium size green tomatoes. My tomatoes in the ground garden also look healthy. This year I planted one cherry tomato plant for salads, and I had one volunteer … [Read more...]

  I’d like to say that I am an excellent backyard gardener. I’d like to say that, but it wouldn’t be true. Sometimes the stuff I plant grows, and sometimes it doesn’t. One of the problems I’ve always had – because my soil is very claylike – is simply getting the seeds to sprout. The poor things find themselves under a big clod of clay and can’t make it through the soil. This year, … [Read more...]

  I always plant my little backyard garden too early. After a long winter – and desperate for the coming spring – I put my unsuspecting seeds and seedlings into the cold soil – and nothing happens. Many of my experienced garden friends don’t make a move until May 1. This year, I did better. I managed to get some spring onions, lettuce and beets in the ground in mid-March, then waited … [Read more...]

Bet you thought I wouldn’t write any more about creasy greens, but you would be wrong. I’m sure hundreds and hundreds are out there dying for a creasy greens update, so here it is. The creasy greens saga began last spring. My wife Nancy had received a large bag of creasy greens seeds from her cousin, Billy, as he remembered his father and Nancy’s mother cutting and eating the succulent greens … [Read more...]

  I am chomping at the bit to get in my garden and stick something in the ground. Seeing that first little green shoot erupting from the earth is one of the most amazing sights of all. In preparation for the big day – which is I hope comes this week when the ground dries a bit – I have purchased a pack of Frosty Peas. Not Frosty the Snowman’s peas, but a variety called Early Frosty … [Read more...]

  Lots of backyard gardeners like to get started with their early plantings around the first of March. Some say, “Plant potatoes by March 15 and harvest on the Fourth of July.” Wild onions will soon be peeking through the grass and spring onions can go in the ground as soon as you’re ready. Trouble is: When will the ground be ready? The soil is unbelievably wet. My back yard has the … [Read more...]