From the category archives:

Grow your Own

Late August bounty

August 19, 2010

My garden is going gangbusters this month.  But then again, isn’t everyone’s?  Like Susan’s garden, I have tomatoes coming out of my ears, but I’m not complaining.  Instead, I’m whipping up quick batches of tomato sauce and freezing them for the cold months. I planted a number of varieties of tomatoes last May — including [...]

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Tomato Harvest

August 16, 2010

This past week we harvested more than 60 purple calabash tomatoes, all grown from seed (purchased from the Monticello Garden Shop!). Who knew that in my tiny suburban townhome back yard I could have such abundance? Remember when I was starting out (see post here). Well, they ended up growing like crazy. Being that I [...]

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Edamame season

July 20, 2010

Back in the early spring, I planted edamame. A LOT of edamame, in fact — a pound of seeds, which took up 25% of the space in my garden and even then I still had to find other places to plant.  I ended up putting extra seeds in every available nook and cranny, including around [...]

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Plan now for the fall

June 24, 2010

Even though it’s hot as heck outside and you’re not yet sick to death of zucchini, if you want cool weather veggies, you need to start planning now, as most of your fall garden needs to be started in June and July.  Plants like lettuces, broccoli, cauliflower, endive, kale, spinach, carrots, beets, and chard are [...]

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My favorite herb — basil

June 17, 2010

One of the great things about gardening is having an herb garden just a few steps from my back door.  I have a dedicated area that is 4′ x 10′ where I grow all the standards — rosemary, oregano, thyme, chives, sage, and more. What you don’t see on that list is basil.  I actually [...]

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Confidence renewed

June 1, 2010

Remember a couple of weeks ago when my confidence in my gardening plans was shaken? Well, it was completely renewed this weekend. Our peas have come in and we’ve been gorging on the tiny green orbs for a couple of weeks. Yesterday I pulled out the vines, as they were starting to die back from [...]

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Cluck! Cluck!

May 20, 2010

How would you like to wake up in the morning and eat farm-fresh eggs with your breakfast?  If you had chickens in your backyard, your eggs couldn’t be of a more recent vintage. Yes, that’s right, I am suggesting that you might want to build a coop and start raising your own Chicken Little and [...]

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Strawberry fields forever

May 13, 2010

One of the many great things about early May in Virginia is that it’s strawberry season. Strawberries might just be one of Nature’s most perfect foods.  They’re at their best when they are grown organically and then eaten right after they’ve been picked.  Strawberries grown in California (or further afield) and then shipped to your [...]

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A momentary crisis of confidence.

May 11, 2010

I’ve been gardening for about 15 years now, but didn’t really have much of a kitchen garden until a couple of years ago.  Last year, my family moved into a new house with a blank slate for a yard, which gave me the opportunity to imagine all the possibilities and just how big my kitchen [...]

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Compost

May 6, 2010

Are you composting? Compost is important — it enriches your soil and gives your plants a vitamin boost that’s quite potent.  That crumbly black stuff coming out of your compost bins makes for a healthy, thriving garden which means lots of tomatoes and beans and cucumbers and more. I will tell you honestly that I [...]

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