February 23, 2023

snowy garden

I’m visiting my mother today and its quite snowy! I’m feeling like this is finally winter. She has about 4-5 inches of snow on her garden. It’s heavy wet snow and is stuck to all the tree branches and the garden fence and is looking very pretty. I have a small winter tunnel in Mom’s garden. I hastily made it with a couple layers of row cover on low hoops, greenhouse plastic on top using a cucumber trellis as a support, and all the layers are held down around…

January 6, 2021

2021 plan for my mom’s vegetable garden

My mom’s vegetable garden is in her side yard along the tree line at the east side of an big open area. Several times in the past 40 or so years we have moved the garden further out into the yard and away from the trees. Of course, the trees just keep growing. Most of the vegetables do OK now, except the tomatoes. They really need more light. Plus the garden has a phosphate problem – there is way too much in the soil. Someone went overboard at some point…

June 6, 2020

mulched paths in Mom’s garden

I am tired of weeds!!! I put down a water-permeable black weed cloth on the paths of my mother’s garden and covered it with chopped hay-straw mulch. It’s working well. I visited her today and it only took me a couple minutes to weed the rows. I think it looks really nice. Mom is picking lettuce, chard, kale, parsley, and snow peas now.

April 28, 2020

the first plants in Mom’s garden

I planted a bunch of plants in my mother’s garden last Saturday. Lettuce, peas, spinach, arugula, parsley and beets. Then we dragged her very long hose out and watered things in. It’s still pretty cool here, often dropping to low 30’s at night. I haven’t planted anything out in my garden yet. In fact, I noticed my count down timer on my sidebar here said “zero weeks until my last frost.” Not this year. I’ve added a couple weeks to the timer. May 10 is my guess for this year.…

April 8, 2020

turning Mom’s garden

On Monday I prepared my mother’s vegetable garden. Last year I set it up as six or eight raised square areas. This year, it’s five raised rows. I like to raise the soil where I’m going to plant so the paths are defined and soil in the beds doesn’t get compressed. Also, so I can conserve on compost by just putting it where I’ll be planting. It took me a couple hours to set up the rows and work in the compost. I first weeded the area, then used a…

February 4, 2020

my mom’s Florida garden

I visited my mother in Florida last week. She spends the winter in the sun and warmth (in the Naples area) and it only makes sense for me to share some of that with her. Years ago, we gave her a small Grow Box on wheels. She always fills this with herb plants she finds at the local Ace Hardware or the supermarket. And she likes to add a tomato plant or two. This year her box has parsley, cilantro, basil and a small patio tomato. She has a couple…

March 13, 2018

Mom’s garden during ANOTHER March nor’easter

Arrgh! (Or as my sister wrote, AYFKM!!?) We’re in the middle of our third nor’easter in 10 days. The first was 2 inches of heavy rain with very high winds and lot’s of coastal flooding. The second was about 8 inches of very heavy wet snow that brought down lots of trees. This one is a blizzard that will give us 2 feet of fluffy snow with high winds. Some years, I’m out planting peas about now.

April 19, 2016

Mom’s garden

My mom’s garden looks pretty good. I planted winter rye that did very well over the winter. I am gradually working on turning it under. I planted Super Sugar Snap peas at the far end of this photo and have branches in for support. Mom’s garlic looks really good. It’s about the 3rd or 4th year now that I have used a portion of her harvest for replanting.

May 16, 2014

planting mom and dad’s garden

I brought my parents 5 or 6 trays of seedlings I raised. We planted them in their old garden and in a newly dug up addition. In their old garden, we planted basil (Nufar), peppers (sweet, Bell, Joe Parker NuMex, Amelia Cayene and Thai hot), eggplants, tomatoes (early planted Siberian Red, Orange Blossom and Pink Beauty) and parsley. In the new addition we planted winter squashes (acorn, Waltham butternut and buttercup) and summer squashes (Yellow Crook and quik pik, and zucchini Elite and Romanescu) and cucumbers (Diva and Straight 8).…

April 16, 2013

spring planting in Mom and Dad’s garden

Today, my parents and I did the first work of the season on their vegetable garden. Here are before and after photos. BEFORE AFTER Only a couple hours work. We raked, then weeded and marked out paths. My Mom had her pad and pen and wrote down what we planted where. Dad and I planted seeds and seedlings. We did our best to leave enough room for the warmer weather crops, like beans and tomatoes, and to plan for crop rotation. Dad put row cover over the newly transplanted…

weeks and counting until my last spring frost