A bitter cucumber is one of August’s sharper disappointments. The vine looks vigorous. The fruit is firm, green, and cool in the hand. Then the first slice tastes less like summer and more like warning. The flavor can seem mysterious because the fruit may look perfectly healthy. There is no rot, no obvious disease, no insect tunnel, no sunken scar.…
By August, a garden begins to show its small machines. Bean pods dry and tighten. Poppy capsules rattle. Grass heads turn from green brushwork to brittle combs. And in the low, often overlooked places, a stork’s-bill or filaree may be preparing a trick so precise that it looks less like seed dispersal and more like a tiny hand tool. The…
Read more about The seeds that drill themselves into the soil
A split tomato has a disappointing kind of drama. Yesterday it was almost perfect, heavy on the vine and beginning to color. Then a night of rain passes through, the garden smells rich and washed, and the tomato is suddenly open along one side, its skin pulled apart like a seam that could not hold. It can feel like rot,…
Powdery mildew often arrives looking almost harmless. A squash leaf that was green yesterday appears dusted with flour. A phlox stem has a pale bloom on its upper leaves. The cucumber patch still looks productive, the zinnias are still bright, and yet the garden has acquired a strange white weather of its own. The first instinct is usually to blame…
A June strawberry looks wonderfully straightforward until you look at it too closely. It is red. It is sweet. It fits between two fingers and leaves a little shine on the thumb. The plant itself sprawls low in the mulch, all trifoliate leaves, white flowers, green fruits, red fruits, and wandering runners that seem to be making private plans for…
Read more about Why strawberries wear their seeds on the outside
A spring shade bed can look as if it has learned to blush and cool at the same time. Lungwort opens with little pink bells, then the older flowers nearby settle into violet and blue. The spotted leaves are pretty enough on their own, but the flowers make the plant look like a small calendar. One cluster can hold yesterday,…
Read more about Why some flowers change color after pollination
April violets have a way of appearing in the parts of a garden where management loosens its grip. They collect under hedges, soften the edge of a path, settle into damp lawn, and rise between last year’s leaves before the taller perennials have fully remembered themselves. From a distance they read as color: small purple flags in the green. Up…
Most garden seeds are satisfied with ordinary invitations: water, air, a workable temperature, and enough contact with soil to feel that the season has turned. Beans swell. Lettuce stirs near the surface. A tomato seed, given warmth and moisture, behaves as if the world has made its intentions clear. Then there are seeds that seem to be waiting for a…
A pea seedling looks simple when it first breaks the soil. Two pale halves of a seed have done their work below, a green shoot has hooked upward, and the first tendrils begin searching for something to hold. From above, it is all freshness and appetite. From below, if you lift the plant carefully a few weeks later, there may…
In an eastern North American woodland, a mild day in March or April can make the forest floor seem to wake before the trees have heard the news. The canopy is still a gray net overhead. Last year’s leaves are flattened and wet. Then, almost at ankle height, small flowers begin taking possession of the light: bloodroot opening like white…
Read more about The spring flowers that borrow light from bare trees
