The onions and shallots I sowed on 1/17 germinated 7 days later. This is the progress 12 days after sowing. Ambient temperature 62F/16C. 🌱

Here's a practical guide for planning your garden, with links to goal setting advice and seed starting advice. It's been difficult for me to stay focused on anything lately, reading about new horrors every day. I'm trying to remain hopeful and help people garden. open.substack.com/pub/gardenin...

100 onion and 150 shallot seeds sown today. Target transplant date first or second week in April under netting against Allium Leaf Miner Fly. Anticipated harvest first half of July. 🌱 #vegetablegardening #organicgardening

For a brief moment this week, Roast Beef consented to sit in the basket by my desk. He usually doesn't bother with me at all, but since his preferred human is away, perhaps he wanted some company. He's a weird, awkward, anxious Beef, but he's our Beef. #catsofbluesky #caturday

This is no surprise to anyone. 🌱

Winter Sowing: Prairie Smoke, Willowleaf Bluestar, Downy Woodmint, Purple Poppy Mallow, Orange Butterfly Milkweed, Rattlesnake Master, Gray Goldenrod 🌱 #nativeplants

Here's a 2025 Garden Photo Album. Happy New Year to everyone! 🌱 #nativeplants #invertefest #organic-gardening #bugsky

Merry Christmas from Roast Beef, Feline Intern Gardener, who is patiently waiting at the table for Christmas dinner to be served. #catsofbsky

I made several types of cookies for Christmas gifts, but these are my all time favorites. These are how PA Dutch people make sugar cookies in southeastern Pennsylvania. They are cake-like, buttery, vanilla, and tender. They're coated in sugar before baking, rather than iced.

Happy Solstice gardeners. I wrote an article about how I use the winter solstice to plan the garden year ahead. Tomorrow our days get longer! 🌱 open.substack.com/pub/gardenin...

Hey #nativeplant friends, does anyone have a seed resource for Willowleaf Bluestar, Amsonia tabernaemontana var. salicifolia?

59 left now. Much like many of you, I *also* can't wait to stop posting about this. The end is near! Help me get there! Order a 2026 Love Notes from Nature Calendar! SquidFacts.net

Looks like the coating to 3" of snow in the forecast was a bit of an understatement. At least it's fluffy.

😩

This year's harvest of home grown Aleppo Pepper flakes is three quarts! 🌱 The best tool for making chili flakes is the food mill. Much less dust and faster than the food processor. #vegetablegardening #organicgardening

I thawed out the frozen Wiri Wiri Peppers from this year's garden to make pepper sauce this weekend. It's really hot, as usual. Two bottles will last us a year. Two bottles will go to my Guyanese neighbor who introduced me to these peppers, and the rest I will gift to folks who give me leaves. 🌱

I processed the dehydrated paprika harvest today. Surprisingly nice yield considering the plants were heavily deer browsed this year. Homegrown paprika is flavorful and aromatic. It's nothing like the stuff from the supermarket. If you can grow any other sort of pepper plant, you can grow paprika! 🌱

I wrote an article about how I compost. I hope you find it useful. 🌱 open.substack.com/pub/gardenin...

I managed to plant my garlic last weekend. I grow about 40 heads of Music hardneck garlic each year. I plant it close in richly composted soil in a patch pattern. The patch is 12 sqft. I plant in mid-November. I cover with leaves to insulate the soil and net to keep the squirrels out. 🌱

I made my puree for winter baking today from four butternut squash, which yielded 9 cups of puree for the freezer and enough to make pumpkin baked oatmeal for breakfast. I freeze the puree in 2 cup and 1 cup quantities. A pie recipe takes 2 cups. My favorite pumpkin cookie recipes take 1 cup. 🌱

I finally got questioned by the cops today, but it wasn't because I was looking through trash bags in the neighborhood for leaves. It's because of this innocent looking cat. I was working on spreading compost today, dressed in dirty garden clothes, when this Beefy boy jumped the fence. 1/

Cool stuff. A freeze last night made a zinnia burst. The ice crystals look like snow. I've heard people call this phenomenon "frost flowers" but that's usually the more aesthetic instances. 🌱

If you're interested in learning about Winter Sowing in a hands on workshop environment, it's prime time for those in the US to look up your county extension office Master Gardener program and check your local libraries for Winter Sowing events in the next couple of months. #nativeplants

I harvested the last of the carrots and a large amount of Syrian Oregano, parsley, and cilantro in advance of the freeze that was forecast. The carrots always do very well for me in 30 gallon grow bags. Most are long and straight. These are a Nantes type. 🌱 #vegetablegardening #organicgardening

Do you spend the autumn evenings before morning trash pickup driving slowly and suspiciously through the night darkened streets of your neighborhood looking to rescue bags of leaves destined for the landfill or are you normal? 🌱

Started the once per year "dealing with the compost" process. I sift it and then fill up all of my raised beds. I got two beds filled today. 🌱 #vegetablegarden #organicgarden

It's soup season. I save vegetable cores, tops and tails, herb and mushroom stems, garlic too small to peel, and other off cuts of vegetables in the freezer. I use this to make broth. I add dried herbs and salt to taste. It's free and it tastes vastly better than anything in a cube or box.

Happy National Cat Day from Roast Beef, Feline Intern Gardener, who is lounging in his cat sized tent. #catsofbluesky

Seeds. Scarlet Runner Beans and Blue Sesame after the first rough winnow. It's the season to squirrel away resources. 🌱 #vegetablegarden #organocgardening

Anyone thinking of donating to a food bank, here are things mine always needs: no salt added, low sodium, no sugar added canned vegetables, tomato products, fruit, beans, and meat. They need nut butters, oil, whole grain crackers/rusks, cereal and oatmeal, rice, pasta, shelf stable milk.

Over the past few weeks, across three painting sessions, I've repainted the garden shed. It's crisp, shiny, fresh, protected from the weather, and will hopefully not be something I need to do again for a few years. 😅 I think I done a good job! 🌱

Happy Caturday! It's a lovely afternoon. Roast Beef, Feline Intern Gardener is slacking on the job. The Purple Poppy Mallows are enjoying an autumn resurgence. 🌱 #cats #nativeplants

Pawpaw, Winterberry, Oakleaf Hydrangea, and Threadleaf Bluestar are trying on their autumn clothes. 🌱 #nativeplants

Everything feels like a hot mess over here. Half painted shed, interrupted by rain, preserving food harvested in a final glean before the first frost that didn't happen. Tour of the garden tomorrow evening, a garden, that hasn't seen my shadow except for harvesting in months. 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️ 🌱 #vegetablegarden

Unexpectedly early frost this morning. I managed to spend my lunch break yesterday gleaning what I could. I'll miss the figs and Roselle Hibiscus. I covered the Wiri Wiri peppers, hoping to get more peppers for pepper sauce. 🌱 #vegetablegardening #organicgardening

Carolina Mantis mating in the Philly Burbs, and me, with my intrusive phone, took lots of photos from multiple angles. 🙈🌱 #bugsky #insects

Two quarts of delicious Chicago Hardy Figs transformed into 9 pints of delicious jam. Food preservation season chugging along. 🌱 #vegetablegardening #organicgardening

Yesterday I made my version of Sorrel Drink with the Roselle Hibiscus harvest. Usually the calyxes are dried and purchased from the local International grocery store. I love to make my favorite things with ingredients grown in my own garden. 🌱 #vegetablegardening #organicgardening

Today's Harvest: Bell Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes, Slicing Tomatoes, Jimmy Nardello Peppers, Green Beans, Zucchini, Eggplant, Butternut Squash, Carrots, Jalapeno Peppers, Hatch Peppers, Shishito Peppers. I also harvested two quarts of figs and lots of herbs. 🌱 #vegetablegarden #organicgardening

The summer crops are still coming in like this every day. An entire slow cooker filled to the top with nothing but raw tomatoes is turned into sauce once or twice per week. Pounds of green beans for the freezer. Zucchini for the freezer. Spice peppers for the dehydrator. Eggplant for the freezer. 😅🌱

I think this is an Orange Sulphur? I'd be happy for a correct ID. How golden and beautiful, no matter their species! 🌱 #insects #bugsky

It's always a delight to see the ones that make it to a chrysalis eclose and fly off. Good luck, travelers. I hope you enjoyed my garden bed and breakfast. 🌱 #insects #nativeplants

The Roselle Hibiscus has started to flower, finally, since the days are growing shorter. This is a short day plant; it grows and flowers best when the day length is shorter than the long summer days in Pennsylvania. That's why it grows well closer to the equator. I'll harvest the calyxes for tea. 🌱

23 full sized eggplant in one week from 8 plants. Somebody come and save me from this abundance. I think they're going to try and smother me in the night. 🌱 #vegetablegardening #organicgardening

Misty autumn garden views this morning after 1/3" of rain last night. 🌱 #nativeplants #organicgardening #vegetablegardening

Carolina Mantis, Stagmomantis carolina. Our native, East Coast, United States Mantis. She's much, much, smaller than the ubiquitous female Chinese Mantis, and still a voracious predator. Too small, perhaps, to catch hummingbirds and large butterflies, unlike the Chinese Mantis. 🌱 #insects #bugsky

This is my reality right now. Food preservation does not end. One overflowing ripe tray of Aleppo Peppers into the dehydrator, harvest another tray of almost ripe peppers to put in the dehydrator in a few days. 🔁🌱 #vegetablegardening #organicgardening