One of the stories in this issue could possibly be read as having a political intent. It doesn’t, and it didn’t many months ago when I bought it. GREENPRINTS tries to stay away from politics. A garden is a sanctuary from worldly concerns; so therefore is this magazine.  READ MORE 

Mark Burton: From Louisburg, KS: “I spend a LOT of time sitting in a cubicle writing technical geological reports. This story is one of my first attempts to spend more time on the things that matter.”

Janet Barr: From eastern PA: “I do most of my writing late at night so it rarely infringes on my gardening. I would hate to give up on either one.”  READ MORE 

I have long been in love with The Gardener’s Year, that most beautiful of garden reads. (Indeed, I first ran an excerpt from it back in GP#4!) How odd its existence! The author was a Czechoslovakian playwright and science fiction writer—he invented the word “robot”!  READ MORE 

I am not sure if I could be considered a successful gardener or not. I certainly have the desire, and I spend my fair share of time working around the yard. Results are mixed.  READ MORE 

It all started with Iris. For some years now, I’d notice her each May—just one fan of leaves and two or three stalks of flowers, poking up amid the roadside weeds at the edge of a field near my home.  READ MORE 

The next potential big crop for Vermont, says the front page of our local newspaper, is saffron. The saffron story shared the headlines with the school lunch program, the Little League scores, and a debate over a new fire engine purchase, which shows the sort of comforting, low-level news we get up here just south of the Canadian border.  READ MORE 

What does it do? What does it do? Everything! With its GPS tracking system and 2GB of RAM, it always knows its exact location. I program hiss volume and wriggle and rattle speeds with my computer through a USB port, and infrared motion-detecting software enables night patrols.  READ MORE 

My sisters and I were the children of gardening parents, and it was ordained that we should all be gardeners. As infants, each of us watched the rest of the family garden from under the hood of a battered old wicker carriage.  READ MORE 

It is a bright and sunny morning here in Vermont. But it cannot erase the dark thoughts that kept me awake most of the night—and are now following me as I walk under an ancient maple tree at the edge of a country road.  READ MORE 

My parents divorced when I was about four. In the following years, both my mother and father were always very loving toward me, but their relationship with each other was chilly at best.  READ MORE 

First, I am pleased to announce that I have planted my peas earlier this year than ever before and certainly earlier than anyone in my native Pennsylvania would consider even remotely sane. As always, this is not my fault.  READ MORE 

I am just a half-way, fair-weather, wanna-be gardener. There, I’ve said it. My niece, now she has a beautiful garden. But then she does everything beautifully.  READ MORE 

I am late to gardening. When we first left the city, our front yard was lawn, lawn, lawn. At some point, I decided to redo the yard in a different image. The grass went, and I added Plants. Shrubs. Perennials.  READ MORE 

You see, at the moment I don’t have a garden. We had a bad house fire last December and were moved into a hotel, where we’ve been ever since—and expect to remain until June. It’s comfortable here, even luxurious, but I do miss my garden.  READ MORE 

In my student days, I lived in a sixth-floor studio apartment overshadowed by a high-rise office. My small container garden flourished or withered depending on two things: (a) the sun’s movement above the Minto condominium’s north tower and (b) whether my creative writing had gone well that week.  READ MORE 

Would you like to carve pumpkins with me and the boys tonight?” Instantly my heart rate jumped. Joel’s boys were six and ten years old, but although he and I had been dating a while, I’d yet to meet them.  READ MORE