Food Gardening Network

Growing food, fun & more

September 2023

At The Gate

We are all so grateful to you. You get it: you understand—and cherish—the value of a magazine that shares gardening’s heart. It is a joy for me to help Mequoda Publishing Network create this little gardening gem for you. Thank you for making this possible.  READ MORE right arrow

Contributors

Typing on a laptop in a garden
Barbara Kodner: A longtime writer, St.-Louis-based Barbara wrote a book of stories about octogenarians who had lived in the same country farmhouse as their parents. Her work appeared in GreenPrints Issue 130. Ramona Scarborough: Hailing from Salem, Oregon, Ramona gardens and writes with her father as a guiding force. With six published books, she has won writing (and gardening) contests—and her work has been published in magazines.  READ MORE right arrow

Stories

A Heartwarming Harvest (with audio)

What could be in this big box?” asked Beth, my adult daughter, as she started to open it. “It’s not my birthday or anything.” “I know,” I replied. “but it’s just the perfect time for it.”  READ MORE right arrow

The Green Wars (with audio)

Raising five kids, my father never had much green stuff in his wallet, but he had a green thumb on his hand and “went green” in the 50’s—long before it was the in thing to do.  READ MORE right arrow

Breaking Dormancy

My dad grew a vegetable garden in our backyard—a tiny one in a rocky, almost hidden corner behind the garage. He spent a lot of hours alone down there, digging, planting, weeding. Once in a while, there’d be a few, maybe small, ears of fresh corn on the dinner table, Dad smiling as he served them, as proud of them as his shot-filled quail or dove.  READ MORE right arrow

“Where Have All the Fireflies Gone?”

Those of us who have achieved a certain age remember Summer and Fall in ways that no longer exist: Collecting empty soda (pop) bottles to take back to the store for the deposit. (Two cents for a regular empty; a nickel for a quart size: two of them and you could buy a comic book!)   READ MORE right arrow

Lemons in my PJs

Read by Michael Flamel   Listen Now: oday, I met our new next-door neighbors. It did not go well. I live in Upland, California, which is considered part of the Inland Empire. Like most of California, our region boasts crowded freeways, coffee shops, grilled fish taco stands, and more than our fair share…  READ MORE right arrow

Sunflower Boyfriends

Six decades ago, as a preteen, I marveled at how a sunflower came to dominate my parents’ small garden. Then one decade ago, I had a flashback when my wife, Margaret, asked a simple gardening question. We had moved into an Alexandria, Virginia, townhouse with a parking side street, separated from the main street by a 10-foot-wide grassy median.   READ MORE right arrow

Gardening for Mom

My mother is a Master Gardener: she received her certification from Michigan’s Wayne State University when I was a young girl. I remember the garden being her retreat from a stressful job as a nightshift ER nurse and a failing marriage. Whenever she had free time, you’d find her weeding, watering, or tending to whatever else the gardens needed.  READ MORE right arrow

Garden Thief

In Spring, Summer, and early Fall, half of the yard behind our small bungalow on Detroit’s East Side was a vegetable garden. I often sat at the foot of my bed looking out the small window that faced the yard.  READ MORE right arrow

Buds

Poems

Cuttings

Broken Trowel

Letters to GreenPrints

Writer's Guidelines

Kits

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