Category: vegetable gardening

If there were to be a contest for the most sorely neglected culinary herb, lovage would certainly rank among the top five candidates. I first encountered this member of the parsley family two decades ago, not so much because I’d heard tales of its tastiness, but because I was curious to learn how a plant [...]

One of the things I find odd about garden writing is that while there is generally more than ample advice about sowing and planting food crops, there is comparatively little information about harvesting, which, after all, is the entire point of the exercise. And often times, proper technique is critical. Take garlic for instance. Garlic [...]

A month or so back I wrote about lilacs, and the uncanny ability their scent possesses of being able to transport you out of time and place to sunny moments of your past.  But for me, there’s another plant with similar abilities – though through a very different manner of delivery – that’s just now [...]

Well, it’s almost solstice, and the annual garlic harvest has once again come to a head. (I know, I know – I couldn’t resist.)  But seriously: the individual cloves I planted last November have overwintered, sprouted, and have now formed 2′ tall plants, ready to flower. These blossoms, twisty floral spikes called  “necks” in the [...]

For those of you who garden in a large swath from Georgia to Maine, you may remember last year as the season without tomatoes. Late blight, a ruthless mold disease eliminated every plant in my garden – and in the garden of everyone else I knew.  Rumored to have begun in a shipment of tomatos [...]

Every spring, I marvel at the crowds of people buying flats and flats of expensive annual and vegetable seedlings at nurseries and box stores. For expediency’s sake, that’s fine; but for better economy, and for better gardening, you can save a tremendous amount of money, and grow a much wider variety of plants, if you [...]

During my last lecture stop in Denver, I received many questions from the audience about how long seeds could be stored, so I thought I would post a small chart listing the number of years seed can be reasonably kept, if properly held, i.e. if kept in airtight bags in the refrigerator, not left out [...]

OK, so we’ve all been there: enticed by those luscious catalogs glowing with glossies of ripe and redolent vegetables, we’ve rushed out, bought large quantities of seeds, and then stuck the packets in a drawer, only to remember them again in June, far too late in the game. Well, thanks to our friends at John [...]

One of the nicest things about gardening is that it’s a hobby easy to share, and around the world there are folks with fabulous landscapes just waiting for someone to ask: may I see your lovely garden? That request, golden to any proud gardener’s ear, will open almost every door, if asked politely, and can [...]

As promised, the best of the best, and worst of the worst seed-grown vegetable list from 2009. Now remember, to some extent these ratings are subjective, and dependent on climate; when choosing varieties, you must always select cultivars that are adapted to your site and growing conditions. Take for instance, that all time American favorite [...]