It’s been hot on the east coast. Like really, really hot. A week or two ago I started to see blossoms on my cherry tomato plants. Then I saw the flowers fall off leaving nothing in their wake. Blossom drop is apparently associated with a few different things, including excessive heat or overwatering. I’m pretty […]
Blog
The Long Earth
The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett My rating: 4 of 5 stars The basic conceit behind The Long Earth is simple: There are parallel universes and one day human beings discover they can “step” from one to the next quite easily. But while most parallel universe stories would use this as a stepping stone to […]
Turn of the season: Out with the snow peas, in with the beans
It’s late May and the temperatures have been unseasonably warm in Philadelphia for this time of year. There’s also been a lot of rain. In the rooftop garden that’s meant the snow peas came in a little earlier this year than last, and the plants offered up a lot of peas. But over the past few […]
Garbology
America is full of junk. Like, a lot of junk. Like we generate more trash per capita than any other nation in the world… an average of 102 tons per person over the course of a lifetime. When Edward Humes started out to write a book about America’s trash legacy he thought the number was […]
Harvesting peas
It’s official. I’m not going to be buying snow peas from the farmers market again this spring. Last weekend I was a bit annoyed to notice that one of my favorite farm stands had boxes and boxes of snow peas to sell while I only had two pods growing in my garden. A few days […]
The snow peas arrive
Snow peas grow fast. It was just over a month ago that tiny stalks and little leaves started to shoot up. Now some of the plants are nearly three feet tall. A few days ago I spotted the first flowers, and today the first two pea pods arrived. I’m growing snow peas in four containers, […]
Spinach… it’s what’s for lunch
Spinach wasn’t exactly a bumper crop in my 2011 rooftop garden. I managed to harvest a few tiny leaves by the time the weather started getting warm and killing off my plants. 2012 is turning out to be a much better year. I’d like to take credit for the difference — but I think more […]
Watching the garden (and the gnats) grow
There’s been a lot of activity on the rooftop over the past few weeks. The snow peas are growing fast, the garlic is having a party, and the spinach is actually starting to look edible. I also received a belated birthday present of five locally sourced strawberry plants recently. I only had four planters, but […]
Signs of life among the garlic chives
It’s been about five days since I planted garlic chive, pepper, and tomato seeds in some indoor planters. Today the first signs of life started showing up in the garlic chive pot. If the little green bits look small in that photo, try the macro view on for size. <img border="0" src="https://i1 vente de viagra […]
Rooftop Garden update (4-04-2012)
It’s been a busy week up on rooftop garden, where all the garlic is strong, the snow peas are good looking and the spinach is… well, a bit below average. When I planted the first cool-weather crops in mid-March, it was unseasonably warm in Philadelphia and I think some of the little guys got a […]
Winter/Spring rooftop garden 2012
It’s been unseasonably warm in Philadelphia for the past few weeks, so my rooftop garden is already off to a pretty great start. About two weeks ago I soaked some snow peas for a few days to get them ready for planting, and a week and a half ago I turned the soil in the […]
Book review: Visit Sunny Chernobyl
It sounds like a silly idea at first: visiting seven of the most polluted places on the planet and treating them as vacation spots. But from the moment he hits the ground in Chernobyl and as we follow him to Canada, Texas, the Pacific Garbage Patch, Brazil, China, and India, Blackwell is an engaging story […]
This is why we don’t spend much money on cat toys
This week I picked up a few items from IKEA and assembled a new standing desk for my office. As you might imagine, there was a bit of cardboard packaging left over. Fortunately, it hasn’t gone to waste. Puck and Ollie have been making good use of the cardbaord as a kitten tunnel for hiding, […]
My new standing desk workstation
For the past few years I’ve spent a lot of time sitting in a chair staring at a computer. When I was younger I worked in retail and stood behind a cash register or roamed a sales floor for 8 hours a day. When I worked as a full time radio news reporter, I spent my […]