Most annual vegetables send out flowers.  It’s their way of ensuring their own reproduction. The home gardener must manage flowers, tending the ones that will develop into fruits we want and removing those that distract the plant from its functions. Leave the flowers on these plants, as they develop into vegetables: tomato cucumber pepper eggplant peas beans squash, including zucchini, acorn, and pumpkin (a special case, as the blossoms are edible but if you eat [...]

When we had some red potatos sprouting in kitchen recently, Alex tucked them carefully in the corners of our backyard compost bin. They are now over a foot tall.  It used to be pretty shady back there but American Electric Power recently hacked away some tree branches and the plants may get more sun than before. I see no reason to disturb the tubers.  Having something rooted gives us another excuse to be lazy composters [...]

The premise: Plant 1 pound of seed potatos in a potato tower (described below) and nearly a hundred pounds of potatos will fall at your feet at harvest time.  The premise is that each time you load up the tower with more soil, potatos send out more baby tubers that then grow into full size potatos. The experience: We planted a potato tower in mid summer 2009 with two pounds of mixed seed potatos gifted [...]

Do you want to grow potatoes this year?  So do I! However, I don’t have much space for them.  Potato tubers are usually sold in two pound bags at the minimum, which is more than I can use of any one kind. Let’s pool together and share an order of potatoes.I would like to grow Cranberry Red, All-Blue, and German Butterball potatoes.  The Seeds of Change catalog suggests that 2 pounds will plant 20 row [...]

In the introduction to my Grow Your Garden series, I shared reasons people garden.  I hope you have nailed down some inspiration because now it’s time to plan in earnest! My first principle of garden planning is to grow what you want to eat.  This sounds simple, but sometimes people plant what’s available or what their mother planted but it’s not something they actually want to consume.  Just last year, we planted a big row [...]