With my little garden filled with new organic matter and thoroughly tilled, thanks to a great birthday present from my kids, it was time to have it tested to make sure it had enough of this and not too much of that. So, for $15 per test, we sent two soil samples to the Virginia Department of Agriculture. A week late, the results arrived. “No lime!” they said, but the soil could use a … [Read more...]

It came in the mail on the last day of 2024. The first seed catalogue of the year. When the days grow short and the bitter wind nips at your face and the grass turns brown and everything seems dead, a seed catalogue will brighten up your day. It tells you that spring is coming, bringing new life and pleasant weather. I am especially eager for the hope of a seed catalogue because my kids gave me … [Read more...]

I snowed this week, enough to cover the ground in a few protected places, then turned to rain I was really hoping for more snow, not to bring on the Christmas Spirit, but to fertilize my freshly tilled garden. Snow? Fertilizer? Good for gardens? Yep. Here’s why. Snow cover helps to preserve and add to soil moisture in the winter. Snow is also known as a poor man’s fertilizer. As … [Read more...]

My daughter asked what I want for my birthday – something I really wanted. I thought a minute and said that what I’d really like is for somebody to bring 20 bags of processed manure, dump it on my garden and plow it up. So, my three sweet children went in together, hired a skilled landscape guy who came out, thoroughly tilled the garden, added the manure, and tilled it again. My garden is … [Read more...]

Finally, it has frosted. It was halfway through November, but at last there was frost on the pumpkins, and on the collard patch as well. As every Southerner knows, you never eat collards until after the first frost. In a fall vegetable garden, the first frost sweetens the collards, turning starches into sugars and improving the flavor of vegetables. They are easily the best tasting greens on … [Read more...]

I have three tomato plants that are still producing. I went out this morning and plucked about 15 from the vines. Several were near perfect, while the others had a bit of black at the tops. For lunch, I sliced up two of the smaller ones and ate them with a dab of mayonnaise and lots of salt and pepper. They were amazing. Plump, ripe, juicy, and exploding with flavor. I don’t know what it is about … [Read more...]

Being a backyard gardener is generally not rewarding – financially speaking. Each spring I spend hundreds of dollars on seeds, plants, fertilizer, fencing, insecticides, and the like to get about $10 worth of tomatoes. But this year, I did okay. I planted 4 rows of peas and they produced nicely, even though you can buy frozen peas for a pittance, but these were extra sweet and good. I also got a … [Read more...]

My garden did okay this year. Several weeks of 90 degree-plus weather and no rain sure slowed things down, but overall, my tomatoes were decent. If a back yard gardener can only get a few good tomatoes, all is not lost. Last year, my tomatoes were almost perfect, only 1 or 2 had end rot. I had a bumper crop, but I didn’t particularly care for the tomatoes. The skins were tough, and the inside … [Read more...]

Recently, Nancy observed a striking bee-like creature feeding on our patch of aromatic Mountain Mint. The black and white bee with purple wings is actually a wasp – a Mason Wasp. They are found in the Eastern part of the United States in mid- to late summer, a frequent visitor to nectar producing plants such as goldenrods, snakeroots, and mountain mint. The striped wasps are solitary creatures … [Read more...]

I have found that there are two vegetables that like hot weather – okra and peppers. If you plant either one in early May, they often sit there and sulk, biding their time, waiting for hot weather, then they take off if you give them a bit of water. Nancy had several pepper plants in her above-ground garden and one plant grew like a weed, but no blooms and no peppers. It was four feet high, … [Read more...]