Home » Garden Blog
Category Archives: Garden Blog
Blueberries are for the Birds
Being a permaculture enthusiast means playing the long game sometimes. It’s kind of like having an investment that eventually pays dividends. I bought our house in 2007 knowing that I would be putting down roots in the City of Durham. What sold me on the property was our backyard—a fenced-in double lot, unusual for a […]
Where the Frogs Went
Lately we’ve seen cooler temperatures with periodic bursts of rain, filling up Farthing Pond and our big rain cubes. Last week I estimated that we had about 2,000 gallons of water at our disposal, so when Levi told me he wanted to “build some waterfalls” I was happy to oblige. I just let the water […]
Spider Lilies
I recently read the excellent book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles Mann. An overriding theme of this book is that pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas shaped their environment to fit their needs, time and time again. Some of these environments were barren intially but the land inhabitants were able to […]
The Fledglings
Our 3 bluebird babies. born on Easter Sunday, left the nest on day 17. It was a remarkable experience to see these little things on the day they were born–tiny and hairless, like little pink shrimp. We were all amazed at how quickly they developed. By day 4, we could make out their eyes–still fused […]
To Plant a Rainbow
One of Levi’s favorite books is Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert. In this beautifully-illustrated board book, a mother and daughter plant a rainbow of flowers in their garden. One night after I finished reading the book to him, Levi told me that he wanted to plant a rainbow garden too. That week he’d been […]
The Bluebirds and the Blueberry Bush
This weekend Levi and I worked and played in the yard together. It’s an exciting time now, as he’s able and interested in helping out on the “Family Farm” on Farthing Street. A few weeks ago we put together a bluebird house and stand. I didn’t let […]
Fig Eaters on Farthing Street
Trying to grow our own food has been a challenge, but in recent years we’ve had decent luck with our fruit-bearing plants like strawberries and blueberries, and our enormous fig tree. Every August we eagerly anticipate the fig harvest, and 2017 did not disappoint! This year little Levi had fun picking figs for the first […]
The Healing Salve
A few years ago I wrote about my obsession with the miracle plant, Comfrey. I wrote how the plant has been used for a variety of purposes over the years, from healing fractures, helping with skin irritations, insect bites and inflammation associated with rheumatoid arthritis. It’s a nitrogen fixer too, which means it’s a great […]
Salad Days
Tonight’s salad: Bok choy and lettuce from the backyard, fresh strawberries from the front. Mmmmm.
The Sweet Potato Harvest
Last weekend we dug up a bunch of sweet potatoes and transferred them to the cellar, where they’ll be curing for a few weeks under a fan. If they promise to be sweet enough by Thanksgiving, we just might let them out of the basement for the celebration. Earlier that afternoon I’d been staring at […]
The Gash
I was in the kitchen prepping for a spaghetti dinner when I spied a beautiful string of cherry tomatoes beckoning me from the backyard. I knew they would be a tasty addition to the evening’s meal, and I was so proud of myself for being able to grow my own food. Practically running out of […]
Lessons from the Incas
This week the Nature Boy is thankful for the ancient Peruvians. Everything that’s been going on in the backyard lately, they did it first, and better, too. More specifically, I’m referring to my attempts at: 1. Growing (massive amounts of) sweet potatoes 2. Storing, capturing, and distributing water for growing food This moment of recognition-gratitude […]
Paw, paw, where’s my maw?
This weekend I got to play tree doctor as I performed an IVF procedure in our paw paw patch. Fortunately, the procedure was inexpensive, requiring only a plastic bag and a paint brush, and a knowledge of paw paw anatomy. Paw paws can be tricky to fertilize because they are too stinky for bees, giving […]
Pax
Farthing Pond is frozen over for the third time this year.
The Harvest
This week we brought our fingerling sweet potatoes up from the basement where they’d been curing after this fall’s harvest. Unfortunately our basement wasn’t as cool as we’d thought, so they were a little soft. Next year we’ll need to keep them under the fan. This hasn’t make our little babies any less tasty, though—they are […]
The Rogue Squash
This year we had some butternut squash (Cucurbita moschata) grow up out of nowhere in our backyard. I’m sure a kindly bird dropped the seeds off for us (unless there is a Squash Fairy.) I cut off a piece and tasted it; it was the most delicious piece of raw squash I’ve ever had. Later […]
Figgin Out
It’s fig season on Farthing Street. This annual harvest is accompanied by a sense of urgency because there is always a very short window of time, sometimes just a day or two, when a fig is truly ripe and ready for consumption. Left on the tree too long, the fig will ferment and become food […]
A frog named Jabba the Hutt
We’ve got a new friend in the backyard. An enormous bullfrog, who I’ve named Jabba the Hutt, has established a presence at Farthing Pond. We’ve become quite close; I can sit down right beside him and he won’t even budge. He does let me know that I’m in his territory, though. He even answered my […]
Tie a sticky ribbon ’round the old oak tree
And they shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able to see the earth: and they shall eat the residue of that which is escaped, which remaineth unto you from the hail, and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field. (Exodus 10:5) As many of you […]
Strawberry fields forever
Yesterday Shawnna harvested our first strawberries of the year. She waited until I got back from my trip to do this. I don’t think I would have had that kind of self control! I got the plants last year from our neighbors Dan and Darcey, who had more strawberries than they knew what to do […]
Solomon’s Seal
I think it’s time for a new series called Nostalgic Plants of Childhood, starting with Solomon’s Seal. As a youngster growing up in Boone, I’d always see this plant when I was hiking in the woods. I loved its gently curving leaves and tiny clusters of white, tubular-shaped flowers. Thinking it was a mountain plant, […]
Way down yonder in the paw paw patch…
It made my morning to discover that our paw paw tree had flowered. The flowers are an astonishingly-pretty deep red with a hint of purple. We planted this tree a few years ago, but this is the first time it’s flowered, which means it should fruit sometime over the late summer. I’ll be honest with […]
Bamboo
UPDATE: Dear readers, it turns out that the “bamboo” in my back yard is actually wheat. Shows you what I know. (5/10/13) Recently some bamboo sprouted up in our yard. The sight of it made me a little anxious, probably because I’ve heard enough bamboo horror stories over the years to compile an anthology. These […]
Bat houses
I just purchased a bat house for $2.00 at a neighborhood garage sale. What a bargain! Why a bat house? For one thing, bats are a natural form of pest control: a single bat can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes in an hour. I’ve seen them flying around our pond at dusk, so I know […]
Foraging for onions
Nothing could be finer than foraging for food in your backyard on a glorious North Carolina spring morning. Today’s harvest was wild onions, and there were onions ‘o plenty. Wild onions are part of the allium genus of plants which includes all types of onions, garlics, chives, and leeks. (Allium is the Latin word for […]
