April 25 At Maple Hoo: A Morning In Pictures

There’s not a ton of new or exciting garden news to report here yet, what with this being a ridiculously chilly spring so far. Last year we had no real concerns about the last possible frost date, since we were confident it was over once March was in the rearview mirror. But this [...]

Garden Update: The Seedlings Are Growing!

As much as the weather here is trying its hardest to stay on the “chilly” end of the springtime temperatures spectrum, it can’t fool us into thinking summer is never going to come. It might not be warm out, but the sunlight’s getting more and more garden-y, and in our little plant window the [...]

Companion Planting: Take That, Pests!

We have recently upgraded from “throw stuff in the ground and see what grows” gardeners to “throw stuff in the ground, then read about how we could have done a smarter job of that, then see what grows” gardeners. Among the things we’ve read about how we could have done a smarter job of [...]

All Walks Of Potatoes

So we planted four types of potatoes this year, Yellow Finn, All Blue, Banana Fingerling, and Desiree. They’re very distinct-looking potatoes, as their names would suggest; the Yellow Finn is a small, yellow waxy potato, the All Blue is, well, all blue, the Banana Fingerling is a waxy, yellow and elongated, and the Desiree [...]

Crop Update: Onions And Radishes

Our onions are starting to look like actual plants now, instead of just seedlings:

And meanwhile, in the next bed over, the radishes are rapidly expanding. Some of them are even growing their second leaves:

What’s sort of hilarious about the radish arrangement is that we laid that whole bed out with a very ambitious design [...]

Hey Maple Hoo — What Are You Growing Today?

Today was a hard-labor kind of day, a day that prompted Pookie to invent the term “yardfun” to trick us all into thinking we were enjoying what we were doing. But no matter how tiresome the work in the yard is, it’s all made up for by the sight of our plants growing in. [...]

Maple Hoo Orchard: The Trees, Part 2

Today we re-fenced the remainder of our orchard, and took formal portraits of the trees while they were in the nude. If you look at Part 1 of this series, you can see what a difference a week makes for the leafing-out of these little guys. It never ceases to amaze me how [...]

Maple Hoo Orchard: The Trees, Part 1

For most of our lives, we were not big apple-eaters. I spent most of my youth thinking that I just flat-out didn’t like apples, but I’ve since come to realize the problem is that apples from the grocery store taste like ass. They’re cloying, one-dimensional, and often mealy. We’re lucky enough to [...]

So… What’s In Bloom?

We have recently taken to perusing other people’s garden blogs, and discovered a delightful blogosphere-wide activity called Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. The gist of it seems to be that you venture forth into your garden on the 15th of every month, catalog everything that’s blooming, and post about it. Despite the fact that [...]

Look Who’s All Groweds Up Now!

Our little peppers are too big for their seedling trays now!

And the garlic? Towering.

The garlic bed is starting to look lush! (Okay, it’s not quite lush, but it certainly looks more green than any of the beds around it.)

Meanwhile, one bed over, the banana fingerlings are starting to reach for the sky: