Bye-bye Broccoli: Hello Summer!

Good-bye broccoli! What a bounty we've enjoyed. From the initial harvesting of the main curds (heads) at the end of November through the endless come-again spears until last week, there have been more than 40 harvests! Broccoli sprouts from the root. I'd never seen or noticed this behavior before. ...

Read More

Only two public events left on the book tour

Talking to people at the Wildflower Festival in Delandabout my vegetables and my books. A fun event.The "Flowered Shirt" Book TourJune is upon us and that means that this whirlwind book tour is almost over, and of the six or seven dates left, only two are public.1) June 10th I'll be speaking to the...

Read More

An almost full moon

An sojourn outside this evening as it was becoming dark surprised me with an almost full moon.  It was high in the sky as dusk descended, so was easily visible. I remembered that the April full moon hike was on the 25th -- the full moon date for May is also the 25th, although tonight's moon looms...

Read More

What's New

So Kids, took my mom and my sister out to the GreenHouse. Boy was that fun, the weather was perfect and it was such a lovely country drive. It was part of my mom's Mother's Day gift. We got a lot of really great plants, here are a list of some of them. Thats one thing that I really love about Spring,...

Read More

Swapping out cool-season to warm-season veggies

It's been a strange spring, for sure.  But it's finally time to harvest the last of the greens to make room for the tomatoes, peppers, and squash in my mountain raised beds. The early planted tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers have survived, but they vary in how they've coped with the unseasonably low temperatures, too.The early spring cole crops (direct-seeded) are bolting, although the lettuce...

Read More

The last cool-weather crops

It's my opinion that the best growing season here in north Florida is the winter because the cool-weather crops that grow right through to late spring. But now that season is transitioning to the warm/hot weather and those lovely crops that we've enjoyed through the winter are ending their cycles. I've...

Read More

Swiss chard

I wish I had a photo to go along with this post! I harvested lots of chard from the mountain beds earlier in the week (they were starting to bolt).We had part of it (the harvest) cooked a couple of days ago, but I included the final harvest in a chard salad to take to a local foods potluck this evening.  Yum. I'd not made a fresh chard salad before, amazingly, but chard (chopped finely)...

Read More

Enjoying waterfalls

My gardening companion has been visiting great wildflower and waterfall areas, as part of his field work for a new project.Here's our boy Woody, enjoying the research!Woody at Jones Gap Fa...

Read More

An Edible Gardening Convert

A nice collection of lettuces.A guest post by Claudia Graves, a college friend and now a new and enthusiastic gardener.Zero to sixty in three yearsMy mother could grow anything. It seemed that her touch could bring a sickly plant back from the brink or encourage a healthy one to thrive. “The greenest...

Read More

Waiting for monarchs

I brought some Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) shoots and (dug-up) plants to share with a friend in the mountains.  She's "fostering" monarch caterpillars through Monarch Watch (I think).  What a great thing to do!I had plenty of milkweed in the Piedmont, but the chilly spring has meant slow emergence in the mountains.  And the numbers of monarchs overwintering was at a really low...

Read More

Bok Choy

This year I have a lot of Really fun greens that I will be planting. One unique green is Bok Choy, sometimes called Pak Choy. I am planting a Red and Green variety. They should be planted every 12" apart, and can be used as a cutting green or harvest all at once, like a one stop shop. Unfortunately they...

Read More

Spring migrants

The director at the Garden where I work (in the Piedmont of SC) reported hearing numerous warblers yesterday in our woodland gardens (in this Facebook post). Wow!And Journey North's expert described an amazing array of sightings in his final Weather and Songbird post.It's a great time to be out watching (and listening) for bir...

Read More