June 2010

Fried Squash

Recipes

I’m going to have to buy squash to make this from now on because my eight squash plants produced a total of 4 squash before I ripped them out.  They were infested with squash borers and squash bugs and I gave them to the chickens.  I hope they ate every bug. It’ll be worth buying [...]

Read it →

The Dead Count

Barnyard

This has been a tough year for the Caswell farm.  We’ve lost: Monty to a raccoon Baby chick #3 to the next door dog Spiky Hermit Crab to depression (never came out of his shell) And the other one to heaven-knows-what a couple of months later. And ten tadpoles… I think we’re going to lose [...]

Read it →

Easy as Mesclun: How to Grow Leaf Lettuce

Beginner Gardens

I decided to do a little tutorial on how I grow salad greens after the following conversation with my husband: Me:  How much do you think this would cost in the store, a huge bowl of fresh organic mixed salad greens? Husband:  Oh, about four dollars.  But that’s without e. coli.  The e. coli will [...]

Read it →

The First Blackberry

Garden

The winter before last, I cut all the blackberry canes nearly to the ground in the misguided understanding that they would recover in time to produce the following summer.  They didn’t.  In retrospect, I should only have cut the canes which had borne fruit that year and left the prima canes, the ones which sprang [...]

Read it →

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Garden

I have it on good authority that this is actual, real squash: It ‘s a White Lebanese.  Maybe the wedding tent is working.  Time will tell.  I’m hand-pollinating any female blossoms I see and I haven’t witnessed any squash pest attacks so far. Of course, that may not mean anything.  Sneaky cusses. This is a [...]

Read it →