Blogs

A week ago, I waved goodbye to the last Monarch butterflies that hatched in my garden on the plentiful ascelpia tuberosa, orange milkweed. 

When an Almanac colleague and gardener greeted me one day with,"Good morning! I left a bag of pickling cucumbers in your office!", my eyebrows jumped, my jaw dropped, and "Oh, wow—thanks!" came out of my mouth.

I’ve never been one to make my own jams, jellies, and preserves, but when a coworker brought in her homemade sweet pickles and the taste evoked nostalgia, I thought it was about time I learned about canning and preserving.

No, I’m not Rumplestiltskin, the cranky gnome in a Grimm fairy tale; I can’t spin straw into gold.  But, straw saves me money, crops and my sanity, which is golden to my thinking. 

I find that getting seeds to germinate properly is the most difficult aspect of planting the garden.

May is always a hectic month for me. Here, in the northeast, the gardening season is short and intense.

I don’t own a clothes dryer, which means using sturdy indoor and outdoor drying equipment.

I never plan ahead with my desserts unless it's a special occasion. So, the old-fashioned fruit crisp has become my go-to last-minute special and a family favorite—chopped up during dinner preparations and put in the oven before we sit down to eat.

Aggressively marketed as important for health and hydration, a mind-boggling array of packaged beverages vie for our attention in the marketplace: sports drinks, energy drinks, fitness waters, vitamin waters—even “designer waters.” That’s not even counting the dozens of varieties of plain bottled wat...

Last blog I asked you what edibles you would plant if you were limited to only three.  The response was overwhelming, with tomatoes topping everyone’s list.  This week, I’m sharing a few bits of tomato trivia and a number of gardening tips for big, healthy harvest.