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...]

  They are in my yard. Worse. They’re in my garden. Early this week, they snatched every single baby tomato off my vines. Let the Rat Wars begin! Apparently, rats are making their rounds all over Charlottesville. I subscribe to Next Door, a community web site, and several people have posted pictures asking, “What kind of squirrel is this?” Not squirrels. Rats. Common gray rats with … [Read more...]

    I’m not too concerned about global warming, it’s global wetting that bothers me more. Usually, this time of year, I send my lawn mower on a 4- to 6-week sabbatical while the grass in my yard lies dormant. Not this year. Global Wetting has me out there as often as twice a week cutting grass, and before I can recharge the battery on the mower, the grass is at it … [Read more...]