It’s hard for me to say exactly when gardening stopped being just a healthy pastime and became an all-consuming passion. One day I’m fertilizing a few tomato plants, and the next thing I know, an eighteen-wheeler is unloading 50 yards of compost for a 3,000- square-foot cutting garden.  READ MORE

I need help. I am a Maine gardener. I don’t mean I need help because I attempt to grow fruit and vegetables in Maine—in the mountains, no less. That’s a sickness for which there is no cure.  READ MORE

My husband and I both grew up in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. Now you have to understand that in eastern Kentucky, a garden is an essential part of life. Not particularly because you need a garden to live—raising a garden is just something you do.  READ MORE

I grew up in a fishing village in Newfoundland, on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. My parents eked out a meager crop of potatoes, cabbage, turnips, and carrots, but that was all they ever grew at our cold and rocky home.  READ MORE

I pulled into the driveway after work and got out of the car. It had rained again, the sixth day straight here in eastern North Carolina, and the humidity enveloped me like a sweaty blanket during a hot flash.  READ MORE

I'd like to offer a warning about the myth of a “quick mulch job.” I should know that mulching is never as easy as I expect (isn’t this a universal law for every project?), but I recently proved it—yet again.  READ MORE

One Summer, when I worked for a small-town newspaper here in West Virginia, Don and Willalea Kelley invited me to their home to cover what Don calls his “stinking plant.” Don, a board member at the local senior center, is especially proud of his blueberry bushes and also, apparently, of his exotic lilies.  READ MORE

During the early 1950s, my wife, Peggy, our four small children, and I lived in Ithaca, New York. Like all households, we had the chores of doing laundry, cooking, shopping, looking after the house and grounds, and getting up at night to comfort a crying child.  READ MORE

I looked out over my front yard, about a quarter of an acre of gardens and woodsy areas. It was early Spring and the only thing showing, so far anyway, were my white plastic forks. We had moved from the Ontario suburbs to our country dream home the previous Summer.  READ MORE

When I saw the bright and shiny Facebook ad that proclaimed “FREE MULCH—DELIVERED!” my heart almost skipped a beat. All too well, I remembered mulching my flowerbeds last Spring. It took many trips to the hardware store in my trusty blue minivan to buy enough bagged cypress mulch to get the job done  READ MORE

I am 68 years old. You could say that I’ve been around. Yet not too long ago, I did something I’ve never done before. I raked the street.  READ MORE

There was a big commotion next door the other evening. That struck me as odd. Just minutes before, I’d had a pleasant enough conversation with my new neighbor in the checkout line at the grocery store. I’d met her and her husband a few days earlier when I went over with a fresh hummingbird cake.  READ MORE

One of the things I miss most about my dad is his wonderful and slightly quirky sense of humor. I often think of my dad when I eat sweet corn.  READ MORE

I am out for a walk in early June in Seattle when Anna, our neighbor on the corner, alerts me about her pears: “There’re going to be a lot of pears this year,” she says, aiming a stream of water from her garden hose at a rosebush.  READ MORE

Back when I had a real job, my coworkers loved it when I brought veggies from my garden to share. At least they said they loved it. Unless you think they were just being polite in thanking me for all that free zucchini?  READ MORE

Once my husband’s military tour ended, we moved from Ohio, my home state, to his, California. My folks and I then started calling each other every Sunday night at 6:00 to share news about family and friends.  READ MORE

When I think of my father, I picture him tending to his plants. Or, at least, hands on his lower back, gazing down at them. One of my most cherished childhood memories is of his evening trek out to the garden—in his underwear. Yep. Just his underwear.  READ MORE

After my husband left, I was forced to take over his one chore—mowing. I figured, if he can do it, how hard can it be? We had just bought $800 worth of Bahia sod and, by golly, I wasn’t about to let that investment wither and die.  READ MORE

Gardening wasn’t really my family’s thing. My parents grew up in New York, my mother in Queens and my father in Brooklyn. Their idea of gardening was repainting the concrete slab in the back of the house green to look like grass.  READ MORE

When we bought our country home near Bloomfield, California, we were warned about the wildlife: Deer will eat all your 2.5 acres, possums will destroy your garage, and the raccoons are rabid and will eat you!  READ MORE

Old Lady Hetch loved to garden. But she was getting on in years, so she always offered to pay the kids on my block a few dollars to help out in her yard. Most part-time jobs for us 12-year-old boys ended with the last snowfall and wouldn’t start up again until the golfers emerged on the local fairways.  READ MORE

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

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

I am a goof. Being 73 may have something to do with it, but un-fortunately, I think I’ve been rather unorganized most of my life. Take the other day. I was simply heading towards the green-house to transplant a few penstemon seedlings I had started a couple of months ago when I noticed an empty space on a tree limb—and remembered its bird house.  READ MORE

Dad flower gardened with enthusiasm and curiosity. It didn’t matter if plants were pass-alongs, came from purchased seed, or were just happy accidents—he enjoyed them all. Dad’s color blindness made for some entertaining combinations.   READ MORE

I never thought I’d be that guy. You know the type. The type of guy who is obsessed with his lawn. Not like partially obsessed, I’m talking full on Google-knows-everything-about-you stalker type obsessed. I’ve seen Gran Torino with Clint Eastwood.  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