I don’t know about where you live, but around here the weather’s been just a wee bit loony lately. The seasons aren’t fitting into their four—Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter—boxes quite as neatly as they used to.  READ MORE 

Laurel Radomski: Plover, WI’s Laurel is “an avid—well, rabid—gardener” who’s had stories in Issues 95, 96, 100, 103, 104, 108, and 112!

Dave Salch: Southern OR’s Dave is a retired high-tech executive, father of 11, and now head of a ten-acre farm with a one-acre garden.  READ MORE 

I open my eyes to discover Bodie, the smaller of my two dogs, with his head on my pillow. I don’t move quickly enough to avoid his good-morning kiss, so I get puppy tongue up my nose.  READ MORE 

My wife and I have nine children living at our rural Oregon homestead. For us, teaching the ways of nature to the next generation is just as important as raising produce—small wonder we call the place Little Sprouts Farm.  READ MORE 

Approximately 13 years ago, I was the school principal in the village of Serowe in Botswana, Africa. It was a day in September when my personal secretary, Mary, knocked on the door of my office. I asked her to come in.  READ MORE 

Last spring, a group of gardeners here in our rural North Carolina town wanted to do a spring service project for our community. We decided to create a small garden at a local school, with six-year old children.  READ MORE 

All last year I wrote how much we missed our garden. Finally, after ten months, Spring and Summer having passed, we were able to move back home. Sadly, it was too late for my darling husband and companion of 53 years.  READ MORE 

Imagine a backyard full of blueberry bushes, plum trees, wild grass, and a profusion of flowers, with a curving brick walkway that carries you along a path half hidden from view.  READ MORE 

I volunteer with children after school, cultivating the love of knitting. One afternoon I asked a 12-year-old, “What time is it?” The young person looked at a watch and said, “It is 3:57.”  READ MORE 

I was born and raised in the dry country of Northern California. When we moved into our new home in Sharpsburg, Georgia, I was completely ignorant of Southern flora. I was mesmerized by the tall pines and thick woods that surrounded our yard.  READ MORE 

In our family, it’s always been the custom on the first day of every month—before speaking a single word, not even “Good morning” or “Coffee, please”—to lean out the window and yell, “Rabbit Rabbit!”  READ MORE 

McKenzie was the first to grace and bless my garden. As soon as I could, I brought this baby girl to my garden of refuge: refuge from anything, anything at all.  READ MORE 

Farming has shown me that when surrounded by the absolute worst of conditions, both people and plants will work hard to survive. When our part of California was struck by the disastrous firestorms in October, the lesson took on a whole new meaning.  READ MORE 

As I was sewing in my room the other night, I heard an insect repeatedly flying into the overhead light. I was trying, unsuccessfully, to ignore the annoying tapping—when the tink-tink of bug on glass abruptly stopped.  READ MORE 

I've worked in the nursery business here in Napa, California for 15 years. During that time I’ve learned that my job is to help grow gardeners just as much as plants. Especially in spring.  READ MORE 

I must needs be pounding out these wascally words in the barely-of-Spring, whence I am (or should that be was? Or even will be, if you consider I’ll probably be equally—if somewhat differently—horticulturally foolish again next season [one thing that sets us gardening types apart from normal people is the wonderful personality trait that allows us to return to our donnybrooks with the dirt year after year.  READ MORE 

Elizabeth Alexander is a poet and Professor of African-American Studies at Yale University. Her husband, Ficre Ghebreyesus, was a native of Eritrea, Africa who became a refugee, emigrated to Europe then America, and became a gourmet chef and abstract artist.  READ MORE 

Just down the hill from where I work in Glasgow, Scotland, there is a ruined garden in an abandoned churchyard. Graffiti is scrawled over the locked front door, rubble and trash are scattered all over the premises, and weeds flourish in every corner.  READ MORE 

Last spring, I attended a lecture at my local library entitled, “How To Create a Pollinator Garden.” The speaker impressed upon us the importance of including milkweed, the sole host plant for Monarch butterfly caterpillars, when planning our gardens.  READ MORE