Add to that the fact that they are a medieval plant? They had me instantly.
You get comfortable and spread out. You take out every patio accoutrement and your hummingbird feeders multiply.
How could I not have known we had flying squirrels among us?
When do you get the traps out and set? Good question! And the answer is — of course, in keeping with organic gardening tradition — “it depends.”
The first couple of years I just didn’t know that codling moths had to be attacked with a multi-pronged approach.
There’s nothing that strikes fear into the heart of an organic gardener more than a new pest. There’s the moment you discover the interloper: “Now what the hell are you?” you say out loud, to nobody in particular, as you go through the encyclopedia entries in your mind and panic takes hold.
With our exceptionally warm October, many trees decided to just keep on photosynthesizing and put off losing their leaves. Then came a weird early cold blast paired with a few inches of heavy snow.
Arranged in chapters named for each non-supermarket friendly, bizarre and downright hostile fruit she explores, the book is a deep dive into fruit you have probably never heard of.
Like most 75 year-old farmers, it is the simple things that interest me. Take twine for instance.
Why am I willing to tie up vegetables in paper with string, wait a month then blanch them again after carefully removing their spines?
