Category: Gardening
-
Poinsettias—The Color of Christmas
It’s a sunny Sunday, void of the lingering fog that has plagued the valley for the last few weeks, as I whip my BMW 440 off the main road and into the entrance of the Hollandale Nursery. It’s just a few days before Thanksgiving and I am here for my annual carload of Poinsettias, or…
-
Appreciating the Lowly Persimmon
A couple of years ago, my friend Kimberly and I were walking through my orchard when she spied an orange fruit hanging from one of the trees. Plucking it off and pointing it toward her mouth, she was about to take a bite when I caught her. “No!” I snapped. “You don’t want to eat…
-
Let’s Make Apple Cake
With a particularly fruitful apple crop this year, I’ve had to be very creative with baking and preservation. I think I’ve got every apple variety known to humankind since I just keep adding trees to the farm every few years. I’m not complaining, just on overdrive thinking of ways to use up all those delicious…
-
Let’s Make Eggplant Parmigiana
September may be here, but don’t even talk to me about pumpkin spice. Not when my summer garden is still going strong. There is plenty of time to still enjoy the masses of veggies still being produced, and one of those is eggplant. 🍆🍆🍆 “Whaaat?” you might say, if you’ve never tried cooking with eggplant.…
-
Plant the Rainbow!
Plant The Rainbow! How are your tomatoes doing? It’s nearly July and they should be coming on pretty heavily. Here’s a little throwback to a few years ago when I decided to experiment with heirlooms: Growing up in an old gardening family, one would think that heirloom tomatoes would have been the norm. But honestly,…
-
The Zucchini Are Coming!
Summer may not officially be here until the end of June, but the zucchini is, and we need to stay on top of that ferocious fruit before we send the neighbors hiding when they see us coming with a wheelbarrow load. Oh what to do, what to do with them?! How about dressing up like…
-
Time to Bloom
Gardening has always been a major part of my life, probably consuming more of my time than any of my other occupations. As I drag around my hose, eating watermelon and spitting out the seeds, I dream of the giant, green-striped fruits that would appear there the next year, as if by magic. Now, mind…
-
Wild Flowers are for the Bees
Just a few days ago, I was pretty excited when I received a package in the mail. Well, actually, I’m excited any day a package arrives, but this one was especially exciting. The package was not all that large, in fact some of the inner contents were so small that they could be considered almost…
S. E. Filomeo 