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Melon Shmelon
As much as I love to eat them, melons are my garden nemesis. After planting them for just over five years, this is the first summer where it seems I will be able to eat a watermelon from my yard, assuming critters don’t steal them. There are just two growing – one of which we only discovered three days ago. It was hiding beside the fence under a blackberry bush. The other has stopped growing, so I’m assuming it should…
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July Planting in NC
Because I like to make things easy for you, here’s a quick table of crops you can plant in July in the coastal and piedmont regions of NC. If you live somewhere else, try Google. It’s pretty great. (Sorry, that was snarky. We are zone 7b and our first frost is Nov 1(ish), so add or subtract days to your timing based on your frost date.) Source: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/pdf/hil-8001.pdf Vegetables Suggested Planting Suggested Cultivars Days to Maturity Asparagus (crowns) Nov. 15–Mar.…
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Weekend Heat Wave
Whew. This heat wave is something else. We have a thirty minute window in the morning during which the heat is tolerable and we water the garden and trees and let the boys play outside. Then, it’s indoors for the rest of the day. Joe brewed his first batch of beer (it will have nice sweaty overtones), and I got the heck out of dodge and went out with a friend to shop for clothes I don’t need and eat…
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Single Serve Garden
As a harvest of beans has been steadily coming in for several weeks now and the heirloom tomatoes are starting to blush, I’ve been thinking on the idea of a single serve garden. Some days we haul in a grocery bag of beans, squash and cucumbers, and other days it’s just a handful here, and a sprig of something there. Several weekends ago I wanted to saute squash for guests and didn’t have enough for everyone, so I threw in…
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Harvesting Beans with Kids
Daily I am learning that my four-year-old is capable of much more than I ask of him. I find that the more responsibility and tasks he is given, the less he whines and the more he takes pride in his abilities and being helpful. I suppose preschoolers do have something in common with Thomas & Friends – they want to be very useful! This brings us to beans. Our garden is jam-packed with pole beans, bush beans, edamame, peas, and…
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In Bloom: Climbing Rose