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By feral, on June 24th, 2011%
 What a perfect day for a virtual feral garden tour!
Last week my dad came to visit us upstate, equipped with his new Nikon D90 camera and gardening expertise. In just 2 days he delivered such a load of constructive criticism that my garden probably won’t need any fertilizing in the nearest future… In addition to prolific advice, he helped immensely with many of my projects and took hundreds of photos. Today, I would like to borrow some of them to show you around.
Some of you have tasted the feral produce but today I’ll take you behind the scenes. The kitchen behind the kitchen, so to speak… That’s why I chose to greet you with this portrait — if you were one of my vegetables, the photo on the left would be a much more familiar image than the one below.
 But enough about me, let’s get moving.
Here's how the garden looks from below these days.
![]( "garden from above june <span style=") . . . CONTINUE READING → feral garden 3.0 — a virtual tour
By feral, on June 2nd, 2011%
How does one end up with 69 tomato plants and what do you call such a person? This is not a rhetorical question.
After I counted them, two associations freely emerged. First, Nena’s song 99 Luftballons began playing in my head with appropriately altered lyrics. And, almost simultaneously, I saw myself as the crazy cat lady from the recent “Shouts & Murmurs” by Amy Ozols. If you have missed it, read it right here, right now. (I meant it as a link, not as a command, by the way, but once you’re done reading it, you’ll see that many, if not all, bets are off. Plus, you might recognize some of the newer additions to my phraseology. And, it’s one of the funniest “Shouts & Murmurs” I’ve ever read.)
Anyway. Welcome to my garden. Can I take your coat? Make yourself at home…
 Can you spot a tomato in this photo? If you could to zoom in on certain parts (fortunately, you cannot), you would make out about 50 of them. Where are the remaining 19 then? I’d tell you but… Does it really matter?
Let me . . . CONTINUE READING → 69 tomato plants (and some other memorable Memorial Day labors)
By feral, on May 22nd, 2011%
 And it’s time to push out some content after an extended blogger’s block!
Last couple of weeks all of my energy was consumed by the grading marathon and other end-of-semester matters but now I’m officially ready for the summer. Whenever it decides to arrive.
While we’re waiting, let’s reflect on what I’ve done so far. This list has no particular order.
Peas — I planted most of them around St. Patrick’s Day. Thought I’d never see them again but they surprised me several weeks ago with some confident and strong shoots. I had to quickly improvise some trellises. To protect the young shoots from my resident rodents, I placed some plastic bottles, cut off on both ends, around them. Onions — planted in April and already sporting some nice green shoots. James’ rhubarb is already pretty enormous. Last weekend we had to remove its giant flower stalks to ensure it doesn’t throw all of its energy into seeds. When spring is as cold as this year, rhubarb tends to bolt (go to flower -> seeds) early, which stops the growth of its edible (stalks) and poisonous (leaves) parts. . . . CONTINUE READING → grades are in, peas are up!
By feral, on March 19th, 2011%
Yesterday morning we saw a large porcupine wobbling slowly up the hill and across the road. Was it visiting the garden? Who knows… First I got excited because I thought that porcupines were related to hedgehogs, and hedgehogs are very good friends of the gardener because they eat slugs. It turns out that porcupines are not at all related to cute little hedgehogs, and what’s even worse — they are rodents!!!! Seriously, I don’t need more rodents in my zoo. Have I mentioned that the voles are already up and at ‘em? I just saw two peaking out from underneath the shed, looking like they’re in it to win it.
However, today’s trivial pursuit is not about the belligerent Rodentia Order. It is about all the things that have already started to grow. Unbelievable: only 3 days ago the garden was still completely covered with a pretty thick blanket of snow, and yesterday almost all of it had melted away. Not only that — the special Russian garlic (my dad found it for me somewhere) I planted in the fall is shooting through the mulch. You might not see it at first but keep looking: there are 4-5 . . . CONTINUE READING → mid-March trivia
By feral, on July 15th, 2010%
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The fog was so thick this morning that you couldn’t see the lake from the window. On my morning walk-through, wrapped in a magic foggy mist, I noticed the first sunflower! — as if the sun made a cameo to make up for its absence. Cheered up, I performed a few sunflower salutations with my camera.
A new lily opened its petals in the fog but you can’t see it from everywhere under the yellow umbrellas of dill flowers that grew wide and tall around it in the last couple of days.
It rained and drizzled all morning and early afternoon, so Barbara and I used the rain break for a long-planned trip to Zema’s nursery in Stephentown — where I’ve never been before — to pick out some new plants. It has a pretty large selection, and I, as expected, had to 
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