Volunteer Tomatoes

by | Sep 11, 2013 | Talk Dirt to Me

Seed catalogs sell a lot of F1 hybrids: crosses between two inbred lines. Inbreeding sounds pretty icky (I hope), but in garden plants we don’t really worry about it. Inbred lines are kept genetically isolated: they’re not allowed to have funny business...

In fair Verona where we lay our scence

by | Sep 19, 2013 | Talk Dirt to Me

Young Juliet foolishly threw her lot in with a Montague, Romeo, saying “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.” She dismissed his last name because Romeo was a hunk. She’d barely had a conversation...

Learning to love leeks

by | Sep 26, 2013 | Talk Dirt to Me

A colleague at work spent part of a beautiful afternoon last week helping his 12 year old grand-niece find 30 tree leaves from an assigned list. The project, at least as I saw it, had no particular pedagogic purpose; though they did take a lovely walk. Some of the...

Butt-drupes

by | Oct 3, 2013 | Talk Dirt to Me

Standing like sentries on either side of our decrepit porch are two semi-maintained holly bushes. These, like all of the remaining foundation plantings predate our ownership of the house. I tend not to get attached to shrubbery. I guess I’d promote that as a...

Soybeans and stomach aches

by | Oct 10, 2013 | Talk Dirt to Me

This year is the first time I’ve seen field soybeans growing in the valley. I don’t mean to say that this is the first time it’s been done as I’m sure it’s not, but I happened to notice a few fields growing in Hadley. Of course I’ve...