I am chomping at the bit to start digging in my garden. I have planted a few peas, beets, onion sets and lettuce, but I must bide my time before the summer garden goes in. Still, that doesn’t stop me from buying garden toys, and I have a new one – a cucumber trellis. I have found that most cucumber vines like to climb if there is something nearby to cling to. They’re up and at ‘em like Jack … [Read more...]

I discovered a great garden tool this week, one that I have had in my shed for 4 or 5 years and never used. It’s a Twist Tiller that I gave Nancy for a birthday present since she probably does more gardening and tilling than I do. I tried it once, the first summer, but the ground was sunbaked, and it seemed like too much work. But when I planted this spring, I decided to give it another go as … [Read more...]

We had a vacant lot across from our house on Jennings Street in Beckley, WV. It had a fairly steep incline, and it became our sledding course. We set up ramps and jumps and spent hours and hours of winter fun. In spring, there were a few apple trees which we visited each fall but in spring, there were tons of strawberries, just growing wild. We rifled through the high grass and picked hundreds … [Read more...]

  With the arrival of this spring-like weather in February, I am chomping at the bit to get in my garden, but patience must prevail. I will wait until March to begin planting, but that doesn’t mean I can’t start buying seeds - which I did. I stopped by Blue Ridge Farmers Co-op (formerly Southern States) and filled a small paper bag with onion bulbs and bought two packages each of Black … [Read more...]

  The seasons have changed. The Christmas displays are down at Wal-Mart and in their place are 50-foot racks of seeds. It won’t be long. This is the time of year when my thoughts turn to the garden, hoping the tomatoes will behave and the cucumbers will be plentiful, and praying that the squash borers will take a year off and that rain will come, but not all at once.  About the only … [Read more...]

I plant spring onions from sets every year. They are usually the first things to pop out of the ground. Then, after about a month, they are mature enough to pluck from the soil and eat as delicious, tender spring onions. But I never pull them all up. A few get a little too plump for raw, spring onions, so I leave them alone. By July, the green tops have disappeared, and it looks like the onions … [Read more...]

  Finally, a good frost. It was halfway through November, but at last there was frost on the pumpkins, and on the collard patches as well. As every Southerner knows, you never eat collards until after the first frost. It’s something about that frost that brings out the sweetness in what are easily the best tasting greens on the planet. I once went through the line at Food Lion with a … [Read more...]

I grew vines in my garden this summer. Not tomatoes, just vines. They bloomed on time, then nothing. Finally, a few baby tomatoes popped up but then went away. In early September, honest-to-God tomatoes finally begin to form on my four vines, but they mostly stayed green. The handful of tomatoes that did turn red were pecked by some critter, likely a chipmunk. Last week when we had a frost … [Read more...]

Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good – especially in a vegetable garden. My little garden has really not performed as I would like, in spite a lot of rain and a lot of sun.  My cukes were so-so, my squash crop was pitiful and other plantings were hit and miss. But along about June when I pulled up my early sweet peas, I decided to put a few short rows of green beans in their place. I had … [Read more...]

  It’s been a strange year for back yard gardeners. We have had weekly rains since April, so you think that would be good. But we have had almost weekly 90 degree sweltering days and that’s often not so good. My early garden was pretty good – lettuce, peas, and onions, but my summer garden has not been so great. I got a dozen cukes and several of the vines just died. I’ve picked a dozen … [Read more...]