Summer 2015

At The Gate

I always love working on the Summer Issue. For one thing, I get to make it in Spring. (I’m writing this on April 27th—Becky’s birthday!) I don’t know about you, but I treasure Spring.  READ MORE

Contributors

Typing on a laptop in a garden

Harvey Silverman: From Manchester, NH: “I am a retired physician and write primarily for my own enjoyment.”

Bob McCray: Evanston, IL’s Bob teaches writing and has had more than 400 articles and stories published, several on gardening.  READ MORE

Stories

Picking Corn

One of the things I miss most about my dad is his wonderful and slightly quirky sense of humor. I often think of my dad when I eat sweet corn.  READ MORE

Fauna in the Flora

A while back, I decided I needed one area of my life where I could take a break from technology, one area where I could remain a beginner. As Proust said, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”  READ MORE

Scaping Lessons

One morning last summer I was soundly schooled, by an elderly Chinese lady, on the proper way to harvest garlic. It was the best lesson I’d had in years.  READ MORE

Battered Zucchini

I grew up in a fishing village in Newfoundland, on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. My parents eked out a meager crop of potatoes, cabbage, turnips, and carrots, but that was all they ever grew at our cold and rocky home.  READ MORE

Fair Play

It’s been 40 years since I first loaded a horse into a rickety borrowed stock trailer and headed to Hamilton, Ohio for the Butler County Fair.  READ MORE

Gnomes

Both were fine gardeners, but my mother and my step-mother could not have been more different. My mother was impetuous, untidy, and passionate.  READ MORE

A Hosta for Mrs. Malloy

I came to my senses in the nick of time, deciding not to throw out an old galvanized watering can that leaked. Instead, I pounded a 40-penny nail into the side of it, then hung it on the garden shed.  READ MORE

Saved by the Arugula

Back when I was the editor of Organic Gardening magazine (which was back when there was an Organic Gardening magazine to edit [boo hoo]), many of my editorial columns were a personal “garden report,” which in the hands of a real gardener would have recounted inspiring celebrations ...  READ MORE

Lawns

I love Downton Abbey. I’m willing to put up with all its foibles—the lackluster Lady Edith; the snippy Lady Mary; the continual arrests of one or the other of the Bateses; Thomas, the conniving footman—just so I can get a glimpse of aristocratic British country life in the early 20th century.  READ MORE

Summer on a Dime

Our California backyard is nearly an acre, but all the sunshine we get can be focused on a dime, between 3:00 and 3:02 on the afternoon of the summer solstice. That is, last summer’s solstice. This year even that will be gone.  READ MORE

Who Would Talk to the Plants?

After his retirement from the bank, Mr. Kumar moved in with his son Ravi, who lived on the 17th floor of a condominium at the corner of Mumbai’s Nepean Sea Road.  READ MORE

Growing Up with GREENPRINTS, Part III

As part of our special 25th anniversary year, each issue in 2015 will contain a piece by one of our four offspring about “Growing Up with GreenPrints.” So far, we’ve heard from the two oldest, Nate and Jesse. This go-round, it’s 28-year-old Sammy’s turn!  READ MORE

From Pea to Pod

I grew up in a family where emotion was held close. Displays of affection were few. Folks didn’t hug and kiss as they do today—but they did care. Yes, they cared. My grandmother, Lena, lived many miles away, so we didn’t see her very often.  READ MORE

Buds

I Know in My Heart it is June

Take Care of a Weed

Poems

Meadow Keep

Cuttings

A Prayer in Motion

Broken Trowel

Three Dog Nights

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