Tag: Gardening
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Cucumber Plants
One of the most refreshing midsummer garden staples is the cucumber. Cuke. Cucumber. Refreshing no matter what you call it. I think we’re just about ready to start transplanting our spring-start cucumber plants into the high tunnel. But it’s a gamble. They won’t withstand frost. They will wilt and wither, and we will ring our…
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Time to Harden Off Veggie Plants
Gardening is a bit of a balancing act. And a gambling act! So many variables: spring climate conditions, high tunnel preparation, readiness of transplants,… And the exuberance of gardening after months of winter. And so, year after year, we arrive at this point. Is it time to harden off veggie plants? A few weeks back,…
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Start Over
Start over. Reboot. Reawaken. Rehabilitate. Revitalize… Peppering the pages of Rosslyn Redux, these references to revival and new beginnings are woven intricately into the DNA of this peculiar project. Juan Aballe opens Country Fictions up(as featured in Panorama,) by declaring that for years he has searched and imagined a “future in better places where we…
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Transplant Soon?
With the high tunnel prepped and heating up and a variety of organic veggie seedlings maturing, we just might be able to jumpstart garden planting by a month. Transplant Tomatoes Soon? (Photo: R.P. Murphy) We have been fortunate this year to have help getting our vegetable plant seedlings underway from the Amish family up the…
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Crocus & Dwarf Iris
It must be spring! Sometimes affectionately cooed (by nobody ever) and sometimes disparagingly grumbled (almost always), “mud season” has rounded the proverbial corner. Dun and drab are giving way to brilliant white and violet and — as soon as the daffodils and dandelions bloom — vibrant yellow. ¡Hasta la vista, winter! Spring has sprung. Crocus…
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Germinating & Thinning
Sowing seeds, witnessing unassuming flecks burst with life, observing brave tendrils wobbling-then-rising out of the moist soil, phantom white threads greening as they ascend, precocious seed leaves opening toward the sun,… Germinating seeds that will find their way into Rosslyn’s vegetable garden (and eventually onto our table, into our mouths and the mouths of family,…
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The Art of Home
The art of home is a tidy title with an unpretentious posture. And yet it’s idealistic and evocative, ample and ambitious. Frankly, its restrained and self contained first impression is a little misleading. Maybe even a little ambiguous. What do I even mean? I’m not offering a catchy epithet for design and decor. Nor architecture. And…
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Hoop House Scissor Doors
Time for a late season look at our still-semi-new hoop house’s new upgrade: scissor doors. We made it through our first season with ropes to gather and tether the “caterpillar tunnel’s” east/west ends with the assistance of ballast (rocks and bales of sod) to secure the often wind-loosened plastic. We made it, but by season’s…
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Papaver Bee-ing
Whether hummingbirds or butterflies or honey bees or bats or scores of other pollinators accidentally doing the work of fertilizing flowers from generation to generation, the appetite for nectar powers progeny. A sweet song of perpetuity. A dulcet dance engendering poppies aplenty. Papaver Bee-ing, Haiku By coincidencea poppy pollinator,the bee nectaring. I wonder, in our…
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The Impudent Carrot
Fair warning, gentle hearted readers. I’m about to share an image of an anthropomorphic carrot alongside a human hand returning the misanthropic gesture. Still reading? And accompanying this potentially offensive image is a potentially offensive poem. So if you’re super sensitive and/or if you’re indisposed to gardeners’ laugh therapy, no judgment (but best stop reading…
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Orange Cucumbers
Ever since I asked (and answered) the question “Why are my cukes turning yellow/orange?” I’ve been inundated with inquiries about orange cucumbers. Are yellow-oranging cucumbers safe to eat? Do they taste bitter? How can I use orangey-yellow cukes? While I’m flattered with your confidence that I can demystify your quandaries related to orange cucumbers, it’s time…
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Poppies Aplenty
Poppies aplenty! A gardener can never grow too many poppies in my estimation. Biased? Yes, unabashedly biased when it comes to Papavers, I’m afraid. (The oriental poppies that we plant at Rosslyn are in the genus Papaver in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. No worries, you won’t be quizzed later.) So smitten am…