Pea vs drought
Pea vs drought: Sad and scary when plants die from lack of water. Seems way worse to me than being ravaged by pests. Kinda makes you realize how vulnerable we are. This isn’t a full-on drought, just an extended dry … Read the rest
Empty shelves
OK, so it’s only the result of a really good price on rice cakes, and emptied shelves aren’t unusual during sales. Still, this time, standing in from of them, I suddenly imagined how fast ALL the shelves could empty, and … Read the rest
Big city garden
My first visit to a big city community garden: FANTASTIC! I was happily startled by the energy flowing out of all those tiny, densely packed, hand-built, trellised plots, even though the garden was largely empty when I dropped by. A … Read the rest
Rain watch begins
The season’s weekly rain watch begins. Weeks start on Monday. The big 25 on the rain gauge is the magic 25mm/1″ mark, the rule-of-thumb ideal for a week—an inch of slow and steady rain over a few hours, and of … Read the rest
Bucket loading
Especially in spring, with constant seeding and transplanting, moving gear around the field is a bigger deal than it may seem. Forget stuff, even little things like a hose fitting or a seed plate or some twine, and you’re heading … Read the rest
Improbably early corn!
Fresh sweet corn at the beginning of May?! Wow, it’s a miracle! After a period of mild outrage when I first started tiny farming, as it sunk in how far and in what conditions most of our fresh food travels, … Read the rest
Rock garden
Rocks, rocks, as far as the eye can see. This is how the market garden field looks, before the post-winter work up. Months of snow and rain, have washed the surface rocks clean, so it looks worse than it is. … Read the rest