If ever there was a plant to “take a notion,” as the old folks in my family used to say, it’s a watermelon. In exploring this issue, allow me to present two modest case studies: Exhibit A: During my most recent teaching gig, a third grader came back to class after lunch with a single […]
Tag: gardening
The lemon pies and the dusting
Whenever I iron an item of clothing, which is exactly and only when I feel like it, I think about Cookie. No, not cookies. I think of a girl from my high school class who was nicknamed Cookie and who became a homecoming princess in our senior year. One time before class started, I was […]
Rhubarb, the other carnivorous plant
Who doesn’t love a good old-fashioned meat-juice IV? Take my little back yard rhubarb patch, for instance. This often-misunderstood plant, with its poisonous leaves and delicious stalks, is a straight-up carnivore. To keep the plants happy, we learned to bury fish and crab carcasses close beside them; they would gobble that stuff up by the […]
Subsistence in the time of the zombies
I admit it: I spend far too much time thinking about zombies. Here’s what happened: I was working on building a row of garden boxes near the property line fence, when I was stopped by a sudden mental image, one that I confess was a little bit unsettling in its clarity and detail. I imagined […]
The magic and mystery of the acorn squash
I have often wondered, who was the first person to chase down, kill and eat a Dungeness crab or a shrimp? Exactly how hungry was this person? For different reasons, I have speculated about the journey that the acorn squash has taken over the millennia, from the vine to the belly, and whoever tried it […]
Assault on Salmonberry Hill
I have decided to win this one. Many years ago, my husband and I identified the best spot in our yard for a garden, and began feeding it compost, thereby building up a raised area of rich soil that gets as much sun as one can reasonably expect in this part of the world. And […]
A-gardening we will go
Recently I started growing lettuce in window boxes. Now, of course I could put together a garden box or a greenhouse, or both, and grow my lettuce that way. But here’s the thing. I am too lazy to go outside to pick my lettuce. Actually, I am trying to set things up so that I […]