On Beetles

On Beetles

The bugs have arrived: the yellow pinstriped Colorado potato beetles and their lumpy orange babies, as well as the clumsy iridescent green and copper Japanese beetles. Together they are skeletonizing the leaves of the eggplants, potatoes, and beans. So much digging...
Celebrating Small Life

Celebrating Small Life

Strawberries are amazing things: technically they are not berries at all, but thickened stems, called receptacles. The little bits on the outsides are not actually seeds, but dry fruit (“achene”) that contain their own seeds. And unlike most other fruits, strawberries...
Shoots and spaces

Shoots and spaces

The lettuce seedlings jostle for space – leaves pushing up against each other like too many kids in the backseat of my car. I hate thinning the seedlings: plucking out life that looks so green and healthy. But I know that otherwise the plants will be stunted and...