During a recent visit with my daughter, I asked to borrow her computer to write my gardening column. As she set it up, she said, "What do gardeners do in the winter? What can you write about?" She unwittingly gave me a great idea for this month's column. Gardeners answer questions. Our own and...

The end of the actual growing season this year, although much later than usual, still left tasks undone. But the tasks are such that they can mostly be done when we get around to them. Case in point: we have dried beans to shell. Technically a task, I enjoy shelling them while sitting on the deck...

Chip and I reluctantly admitted that the beautiful fall weather we had been enjoying must inevitably come to an end, and with this thought in mind, we ventured outside last weekend to finish the last of the gardening cleanup. Accompanied by two dogs and an aging tiller, we headed out to finish this...

If you build it, they will come. If this is true of baseball fields, I figured it was applicable to gardens for pollinators as well. In an effort to eliminate grass mowing coupled with a wish to provide habitat and food for bees, butterflies, and birds, I decided to plow part of a side yard that...

The tree had to come down. Chip remembers when his father planted the tree in the backyard of our house, Chip's childhood home, forty years ago. The oak had stood as a sentinel watching over generations of dogs who have shared the backyard with it. Its shade had sheltered small children running...

Papa, my Italian grandfather, lived in a Chicago tenement that afforded no room to nurture a garden. He rented a vacant property that he accessed by taking two different streetcars, a lengthy trip, where he happily grew vegetables for his family. I like to visualize him getting on the streetcar for...

If I can be outside, I am. Dating Chip 36 years ago provided many enjoyable outdoor opportunities, but one in particular made me wonder if I should bow out gracefully and beat a hasty retreat. Despite oppressive temperature and humidity, we dressed in long sleeve shirts, jeans, and sturdy shoes and...

It seemed like a perfect day for gardening. The temperature was in the mid-fifties. The sun warmed the air, the ground, and me. Part of the vegetable garden was already planted. We needed to till two other areas, plunk our plants into the ground, and we'd officially be finished planting. As I...

If you have ever grown your own potatoes, you know that it is very difficult to go back to eating store bought potatoes. You know, the ones that live in cold storage for months, ship from distant states, taste like cardboard (except the cardboard would be tastier), and seem to visibly sprout as you...

We are avid gardeners so we like to grow our own veggies. What Chip, my gardening partner, and I have found, however, is as we- ahem-age, we need to find better methods of gardening. I don't mind crawling around on the ground to plant, but I have found that in the past couple of gardening seasons,...