September 2023

We are all so grateful to you. You get it: you understand—and cherish—the value of a magazine that shares gardening’s heart. It is a joy for me to help Mequoda Publishing Network create this little gardening gem for you. Thank you for making this possible.  READ MORE

Barbara Kodner: A longtime writer, St.-Louis-based Barbara wrote a book of stories about octogenarians who had lived in the same country farmhouse as their parents. Her work appeared in GreenPrints Issue 130. Ramona Scarborough: Hailing from Salem, Oregon, Ramona gardens and writes with her father as a guiding force. With six published books, she has won writing (and gardening) contests—and her work has been published in magazines.  READ MORE

What could be in this big box?” asked Beth, my adult daughter, as she started to open it. “It’s not my birthday or anything.” “I know,” I replied. “but it’s just the perfect time for it.”  READ MORE

Raising five kids, my father never had much green stuff in his wallet, but he had a green thumb on his hand and “went green” in the 50’s—long before it was the in thing to do.  READ MORE

My dad grew a vegetable garden in our backyard—a tiny one in a rocky, almost hidden corner behind the garage. He spent a lot of hours alone down there, digging, planting, weeding. Once in a while, there’d be a few, maybe small, ears of fresh corn on the dinner table, Dad smiling as he served them, as proud of them as his shot-filled quail or dove.  READ MORE

Those of us who have achieved a certain age remember Summer and Fall in ways that no longer exist: Collecting empty soda (pop) bottles to take back to the store for the deposit. (Two cents for a regular empty; a nickel for a quart size: two of them and you could buy a comic book!)   READ MORE

oday, I met our new next-door neighbors. It did not go well. I live in Upland, California, which is considered part of the Inland Empire. Like most of California, our region boasts crowded freeways, coffee shops, grilled fish taco stands, and more than our fair share of crazy and offbeat people, a category which—as the…  READ MORE

Six decades ago, as a preteen, I marveled at how a sunflower came to dominate my parents’ small garden. Then one decade ago, I had a flashback when my wife, Margaret, asked a simple gardening question. We had moved into an Alexandria, Virginia, townhouse with a parking side street, separated from the main street by a 10-foot-wide grassy median.   READ MORE

My mother is a Master Gardener: she received her certification from Michigan’s Wayne State University when I was a young girl. I remember the garden being her retreat from a stressful job as a nightshift ER nurse and a failing marriage. Whenever she had free time, you’d find her weeding, watering, or tending to whatever else the gardens needed.  READ MORE

In Spring, Summer, and early Fall, half of the yard behind our small bungalow on Detroit’s East Side was a vegetable garden. I often sat at the foot of my bed looking out the small window that faced the yard.  READ MORE