Gardening Stories

I took up gardening somewhat recently. The first reason being, we get such glorious summers where I live on the East Coast, and I decided that I wanted to spend more time outside. Where I am, the summers are long, hot, and dry. So long, in fact, that we don't really get an autumn until it's closer to winter. It's the same with spring. Getting out in the garden seemed to be the easiest way for me to spend more time outside...

I discovered gardening recently. Yes, I know I didn't invent sticking some seeds in the dirt and hoping it turns into something, I mean I recently discovered the hobby, which is now an obsession of mine. Growing up, my father had a vegetable patch. I remember very vividly each summer looking at the bumper crop of sweet corn, tomatoes, cabbages and herbs that had grown. Back then it hadn't interested me. I think because it...

I have several secrets for growing large pumpkins. The basic essentials are good, like water, cultivated soil, manure or other nutrients in the dirt. Luck has a bit to do with it, no late freezes, no unkind weather. I don't let more than one pumpkin grow on each vine. Most people know this kind of stuff, but my super secret is birth control pills. I plant lots of birth control pills around the root of the pumpkin. Well, I...

Yesterday, planting daffodils and tulips in the new bed I made, lining tree trunks from the pine and spruce that once grew taller than my house, old warriors, now fallen so that I could have more sunlight in my life, more color all around me, taking what I need, to create the world I want to live and die in. And kneeling there-- dirt beneath my nails from giving each bulb the earth and space it needs to blossom in the spr...

I had a pet worm that pulled out my weeds, he filled his long pockets with vegetable seeds. He’d plant them in rows and I’d water them in, then he’d slither back home to my old compost bin. He grew carrots and marrows as big as a car, I’d feed him with honey I kept in a jar. He grew a prize parsnip that won me a medal, so I bought him a bicycle but he couldn’t peddle. He said he’d rather, have some new muck, so I got him...

‘A’ is for Aphid Aaron Aphid and his brother Pete wouldn’t eat vegetables, their preference was meat Squashed hedgehog, old bones, or even a worm, the thought of fresh beans just made them squirm. Swarms of blackfly flew over their heads heading for the gardeners prize rose-beds I’m not bothered said Pete, not whilst there’s meat I cannot be asked to get up on my feet. Their Mother was livid, green leaves on the vine and...