Kohlrabi: a versatile cole crop

The weird stem enlargement is about the size of an apple...Kohlrabi (Brassica oleracea var. gongylodes) is one of the many cole crops (cabbage, kale, collard greens, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and more), which have all been bred from just one plant species. Kohl is the German word for...

Read More

Lime basil

Lime basil took over my early lettuce rows. I'd grown it here last year and now I know that it's an abundant reseeder. I'd let it grow since early September when I set up these 2 rows, but now it was time to give the lettuce and the beets more room.Abundant harvest of lime basil! I shared some with...

Read More

Gardeners know when to "fold"

Gardeners are gamblersWe plant seeds or seedlings and we bet that we'll end up with a bountiful harvest, but it doesn't always happen that way. So when a crop is in distress, we need to yank it out and move on to something else. Case in point: our fall cucumber crop that I talked about last time. We...

Read More

Spaghetti squash recipes & planting

A store-bought spaghetti squash contained a bunch of sprouted seeds.How long had it been sitting there in the store?I was craving a spaghetti squash, so we bought one. The rind seemed unusually hard and quite a number of the seeds had sprouted. I try not to waste squash seeds of any kind, so if I'm...

Read More

6 reasons to use pine needle mulch in edible gardens

I use pine needles in between my wide rows in the edible gardens.Here are some of the reasons for using pines needles in wide-row edible gardens. (Read my post "Wide row planting & trench composting" for the details on this planting method.)Pine needle mulch:1) does a good job at limiting weeds.2)...

Read More