My new Corona® Hoe and I cleaned up the vegetable garden

My new Corona® Garden Hoe and I cleaned up the vegetable garden earlier today.

It didn’t take too long. The plants had mostly dried up before being hit with a bit of frost a few days ago. I easily pulled up the peppers, tomatoes, squash, and corn plants and tossed them on the compost bin. Then I used the new hoe to knock down the weeds and smooth the raised beds.

I was surprised at how hard

Vegetable Garden Cathedral Update

Get into the garden

Come with me into the Vegetable Garden Cathedral for an update at the end of the growing season.   

If you are new or visiting this garden for the first time, you may wonder at the name of it.  I call this the Vegetable Garden Cathedral because last year I arranged the rows as one might arrange rows of pews in a church, with a center aisle.  Plus, I often go to church on

Guest Post: Vegetable Garden Update

Garden fairies here.

We are garden fairies and we are providing an update on the vegetable garden, but first we wanted to write a few words about some of the re-bloom that is going on around here.

In all our years of being in and around gardens, which is more years than you have fingers and toes to count on, unless you are some kind of, well never mind, we are garden fairies and we would

Dear Friend and Gardener: Late Veg Garden Update

Aster 'Alma Potschke', which has nothing to do with the veg garden

Dear Dee and Mary Ann,

I have been quite lax in providing updates for the Dear Friend and Gardening virtual garden club.

Let me catch you up on the vegetable garden.

I spent the better part of yesterday morning cleaning up weeds in the garden.  I pulled out nutsedge and foxtail and grubbed out prostrate spurge and purslane.

Glass Gem Corn

... And every evening after she had finished her chores,

 if she had been good all day,

meaning no whining or fussing,

no being mean or unkind to others,

no temper tantrums.

If she ate all her vegetables without complaining,

did enough steps to keep her FitBit happy,

and didn't forget to change out of her regular clothes into her gardening clothes before heading out to the garden...

In this mess...

Raphanus sativus

Did you know that the flowers of Raphanus sativus come in several colors, including in my garden, purple, white, and pink? I did not know that until I went out to the vegetable garden yesterday to pick whatever was ready to pick before the big rains came.

Oh, the big rains? There really hasn't been a big rain so far this weekend. There were a few scattered showers here and

Dear Friends and Gardeners August 23, 2010

Dear Dee and Mary Ann and Gardening Friends Everywhere,

I am not pleased to report that we are about to break a weather record that was set back in 1897. That was the year they had the driest August on record with just .47 inches of rain, less than half an inch for the entire month.

With just eight days left in August, we have had just .37 inches of rain and there isn’t any rain to speak of in

How's your garden doing?

"How's your garden doing?"

That's usually the first thing I hear when I see my aunt and uncle from the southern part of the state. I don't have to ask "which garden" because I know they are asking about my vegetable garden.

They also have a vegetable garden.

We compare notes. They plant their garden earlier, usually by several weeks. Then they often use a hotbed to get a jump on the season

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Variegated Corn

Now, that's a pretty leaf.

I don't know who you are, where you been or what your taste is in leaves, I just know you can't deny how striking that leaf is.

Just look at it. Good lines, fine gradient change from a good, basic green to light green to cream to a rosy edge.

It's the best corn I have growing right now, Zea mays Quadricolor Variegated Ornamental Corn. That's what the seed packet

The garden continues

Out in the vegetable garden, the harvest continues on a near daily basis.  I'm currently picking tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, summer squash, and for the first time this morning, edamame.

Edamame as in soybeans.

While the harvest is wonderful, there are a few missing players.  My green beans were a flop.  They were starting to form just as I left town for a week and temperatures during the

Surprise Lilies and Surprise Announcements

Garden fairies here.

We are garden fairies and we have taken it upon ourselves to wipe out everything Carol just wrote about the surprise lilies, Lycoris squamigera, because it was all so boringggggg.

We garden fairies do not like boring posts whatsoever. In fact, we gave what Carol wrote six G's out of a scale of five G's because it was beyond anything we could imagine when it comes to

Summertime Thanksgiving

I am grateful to live and garden where I can grow vegetables, enough to make a dinner completely from the garden.

Monday evening's harvest included zucchini squash, some of it slightly oversize, making it perfect for grating up for zucchini pie.

There was also okra, ready to be cut up, soaked in water, coated in corn meal, and fried.

And tomatoes, including the first big slicer of the season,

Garden Design Update: Garden Gate

I've always liked the idea of entering the vegetable garden via a gate.

With a gate, the garden feels more like an enclosure, a sanctuary, a quiet retreat separate from the rest of the yard.  I imagined opening the gate, going into the garden, and having the gate close behind me, as though I'd entered a room. 

With my vegetable garden already surrounded on three sides by a privacy fence, and

Corn Pollination: A One Act Play

Corn Pollination

A One Act Play

By

Carol M.


Cast of Characters

Corn…………………………....….A sweet corn stalk
Tassel……………………………….A simple tassel at the top of a corn stalk
Silk………………………………… The silk on an ear of corn
Bee………………………………… A simple honeybee
Wind………………………………..A gentle summer breeze

TIME: Summer
SETTING: A garden


ACT ONE

SCENE1


(We see a patch of sweet corn growing in a garden)

Explanations

When someone who knows me in that place called "the real world" asks me for the url for my blog, I think about what the most current blog post is before handing over the secret code to get to it.

Then I tell them "Let me know if I need to explain anything...".

Apparently, there are some things to explain, like this squash.
When I take it to work and offer it to any takers, I usually get some

Dear Friends and Gardeners July 26, 2010

A postcard from May Dreams Gardens

Dear Dee and Mary Ann and Gardening Friends Everywhere,

It’s been a busy week. Didn’t have much time to work in the garden. The weeds noticed and have grown faster than rabbits breed. But the garden is going well. Picked my first ears of sweet corn and finally got some cucumbers from my late sown hill of them. Peppers are coming on strong as are tomatoes,

Post Produce: Tomatoes

Let the tomato season begin!

Until today, my vegetable garden was teasing me with little cherry tomatoes called Mexican Midget and another small  tomato variety called Tomataberry.  Mexican Midget tomatoes are good, but Tomatoberry is so-so.  Those are the little ones in the picture.

Then this morning -- ta da! Big tomatoes!

I've already followed all the required rituals for the first big

Dear Friends and Gardeners July 19, 2010

Dear Dee and Mary Ann and Gardening Friends Everywhere,

I'm very late with my letter this week, having just returned from a few days in Chicago. I had hoped to post something Monday evening after getting there, but I could not get a good Internet connection in my hotel room. Oh well, such is life.

Before I left, I checked the garden and picked all the squash that was ready to be picked and gave

Best Green Bean Year Ever

Do you know what we call a whole lot of green beans?

We call it a "mess of beans" around here, as in "I just picked a mess of green beans, nearly five pounds worth".

I also picked green beans last Sunday, and though I didn't weigh them, I would guess I picked maybe three pounds worth.

These are the very best green beans I have ever grown in all the years - and there are many years - that I

Dear Friends and Gardeners July 12, 2010

Dear Dee and Mary Ann and Gardening Friends Everywhere,

Wasn’t Buffa10 just about the most fun you’ve had as a garden blogger?

I got home yesterday well before dark, just in time to see that a tomato hornworm had devoured most of a pepper plant. I’ve never had a hornworm eat a pepper plant, but I guess they do, especially if they want something a little spicier than a tomato plant. (Insert