“What’s a shall it?” a lady asked me at question time following a talk at a garden club. Or so it sounded, but when she added that it is often mentioned in recipes, I recognized a variant pronunciation of shallot, more familiar when sounded like allot, not a ballot. The word is the French eschalote, … Read more
Now that garden activity are in full swing, too, are aching muscles! The joy and enthusiasm of gardening are often dampened because the unused muscles rebel due mainly to incorrect gardening carriage and motion. What do we do for our muscles? Do we take advantage of last year’s painful experience? Do we prepare ourselves by … Read more
In June, the vegetable garden really begins to pay dividends. Radishes, spinach, lettuce, green onions, peas, turnips, beet greens, and others will be in good supply, and—if you got an early start—even broccoli and cabbage before the end of the month. So the gardener is inclined to take it easy and rest on his oars. … Read more
Lima beans have a good texture and a delicious flavor. Of all the different vegetables grown in the garden, lima beans are almost the last to mature. At first, you might think this is a drawback, but it is not. They grow after the peas have finished, and while they cannot take their place, they, … Read more
Now the time is here to grow vegetables for fun and ease the family pocketbook’s strain. For most of us, the years of apprenticeship are over, for we learned to grow vegetables under the pressure of wartime necessity if we had not done so before. Some of us found it hard work. However, raising vegetables … Read more
It has long been a mystery why so few home gardeners grow Brussels sprouts. Is it because people do not like to eat them or think they are challenging to raise? Most people think they are a delicacy obtainable only at a fancy price at better restaurants and greengrocers. They have not realized that Brussels … Read more
Loaded with health-giving vitamin A (thousands more units per pound than white potatoes), homegrown sweet potatoes are so flavorful than those you buy at the store cannot compare with them. So, if you can grow ordinary potatoes in your garden, why not grow sweet potatoes, too? They are no more difficult and produce as well, … Read more
Several readers share how they introduced their friends to gardening. M. Hauber It all began with my transfer from an office with southern exposure and yards of sills to a reconverted attic office with two postage-stamp north windows without sills. By the end of September, when I would have had each window sill banked with … Read more
A casual visitor strolling through my yard may notice only a well-kept lawn and many flowers. An experienced gardener’s eye will spot a row of fern-like foliage just back of a border of dwarf marigolds. Looks like carrots, they’ll think, and be right. Down the perennial row, they’ll notice a plant with huge tropical-looking leaves … Read more
Witloof Chicory, also called succory and French endive and sometimes erroneously called endive in food markets, looks like a corpulent, pallid cigar. But it commands a very high price (and gets it) for it is highly prized by the epicure. The young shoot of Cichorium Intybus is forced into growth during the winter from roots … Read more