I have written about this before, but butternut squash is the go-to squash for "pumpkin" pie (and bread).  The canned "pumpkin" you purchase in the grocery is butternut.  I grow it every year, until this season, when the few seeds I had failed (maybe they got too old?).  But, luckily I had been seduced by the glossy photos on a seed house website and ordered Autumn Frost squash.  This squash is a pretty, buff colored squash, more orange than butternut, and just as tasty (some have green markings).  Though it is smaller than butternut, it is prolific and I will grow i ..read more

 Sometimes, nature pays here little jokes on us!  I accidentally pulled these out while weeding. Have fun out there ..read more

 Botanical Art I started gardening when I was a kid. Wherever I had a place where I could grow veggies, I did it.  In the mid 2000's, I began taking botanical art classes and earned a Certificate in Botanical Illustration a few years later.  Why? So I could document what I grew, and the produce of others.  In fact, fruits and veggies are my favorite subjects!  Here's one: Asian Long Eggplant (Sorry about the photo quality, I need to work on that ..read more

  I try to buy decent potting soil as I pot up a large number plants every year and have many house plants.  Quality, organic potting soil is expensive, so I will sometimes reuse old soil (if I think it is relatively disease- and weed-free), recharge it with finished compost and coffee chaff (a peat and perlite substitute).  In a pinch I bought a less expensive potting mix and did not read the ingredients for the dreaded "forestry byproducts," aka tree bark leftovers from making mulch (I suspect it is swept off the floor).   Shredded tree bark is a bad substrate in wh ..read more

  Brown Turkey Figs One of the first things I planted when we moved to our central Virginia home 20 years ago were three brown turkey fig trees. Positioned on the southeastern corner of our house to protect the roots in winter, they started producing fruit in about 3 years, really hitting their stride at the 5 year mark, producing hundreds of ripe figs per day for weeks. Then "the music died."  Late freezes damaged the young fruit (which is really a flower in disguise) and the subsequent fruit could not ripen in time.  For the last 4 years we got nada, zilch, nothing. So, the ..read more

  Turmeric  Ginger I wrote last season about my success with growing culinary ginger. I was so happy with the outcome (pickled sushi ginger anyone?), that I also ordered organic turmeric rhizomes this year and started some of those plants. Both turmeric and ginger are in the same family, the Zingiberaceae.   We had a very hot and dry July and I was watering often- the gingers do like their water.  Then we had a hot and wet August and the plants really shot up.  Stay tuned for the outcome, I hope to have ginger and turmeric to share with friends!  By the w ..read more

  If my reader recalls, I have a thing for pawpaws, ever since discovering them while walking down by the James River...and reading about them, most notably Andrew Moore's book pictured below (a riveting read for us garden nerds): The pawpaw, and in this case I mean Asimina triloba, not the other 10 species of Asimina, is North America's largest native fruit.  It is the northern most member of a family of tropical plants. The pawpaw is now in commercial cultivation, and many improved hybrids exist.  Fruit from wild trees can have variable taste depending on the tree (and by ..read more

  from https://weather.com/  7/27/21 Dear Central Virginians, That recent reprieve from the hot weather was great, but, sadly, it is not going to last. More days in the 90's are ahead, plus limited chance for rain.   This is a "do what I say..." post. For a number of years, I have occasionally used soaker hoses.  But, because I was leaving a fairly newly planted vegetable garden for over 3 weeks in June (what was I thinking!??!?) I set up a series of soaker hoses on a timer and I am glad I did! For shorter vacations, I often asked kind neighbors and friends to w ..read more

 I really enjoy growing garlic. I plant softneck garlic in the fall, in late September or early October and it overwinters with little sprouts, starting to grow again in the spring.  Typically, I harvest it in June when the leaves turn yellow and a "test head" looks ready (not round, but forming distinct cloves). But, this June I was on vacation when my garlic was ready.  I missed optimum harvest by over 2 weeks. What happens then? See the head of garlic pictured above? The cloves have started to separate from the head. If I waited longer, the cloves would have fallen free of ..read more

I am not the greatest grower of carrots, but I do eat a lot of them. I've had luck with other root crops from sweet potatoes to turnips, daikon, and radishes, but carrot culture eluded me for a while. I particularly love the purple carrots pictured above. I don't know if they taste any better or more nutritious, but they certainly appeal to the botanical artist in me.  These are called Cosmic Purple Carrots. The interior can be solid orange, yellow, or orange with a yellow core. Like most unusually colored vegetables, they don't really maintain their color after they've been cooked, b ..read more