Summer 2018

Soooo…several months ago, I received a very interesting proposition from Nicole Tamarin. (Nicole, by the way, has created wonderful art for GREENPRINTS for years. The lovely Welcome banner I’m standing next to here was based on her cover art for our Winter, 2014-15 issue.  READ MORE

Barbara Baker: From Saratoga Springs, NY: “On my 70th birthday, I escaped from NYC and moved to upstate New York, where I have had the satisfaction of turning a piece of land into a garden.”

Lindsey Stell: Alas, I can find no information on this author, whose story I bought 13 years ago! My apologies!  READ MORE

I have become a lover of watering cans. And of rain barrels. As the dawn begins to creep through the drawn curtains, I resist the urge to snuggle under the covers for a few more minutes of early-morning dreaming.  READ MORE

One day, my neighbor’s four-year-old daughter checked a picture book out of the library. The book told a story of how a simple seed turned into a beautiful flower.  READ MORE

Back in 1973, I lived in Oregon. It was hard times. The state had been in a deep recession for several years. My husband was out of work, and I, too, had been laid off. We had two children, ages 4 and 8.  READ MORE

My dad loved to garden. He tried to grow everything that he could find in a seed packet. He planted the usual green beans, peas, corn, radishes, carrots, tomatoes, and lettuce.  READ MORE

I started gardening soon after my first miscarriage, though I didn’t understand it was a miscarriage until I had my second one, and I didn’t understand the timing of my early gardening life until pregnancy and miscarriages were far in my past.  READ MORE

As I get older I remember my great-aunt, Auntie. All my other great-aunts were Aunt So-and-so, but she was always Auntie. She was, as she called it, “a maiden lady,” and her family didn’t have much by today’s standards.  READ MORE

My son Jack is the tallest kid in his class—by quite a bit. He has an arm on him a few coaches say they’ve never seen. I first realized his strength when he was two. We were in a crowded grocery store the day before Thanksgiving.   READ MORE

Boy—I’m showing my age with the classic duo in that headline, eh? Hey, kids—go ask your parents (please God, don’t make them have to go ask their grandparents, oh please, please! I’m still a kid! Really—I’m just a little old for my age!) who Mutt & Jeff were and get back here.  READ MORE

Standing next to my compost heap, I wondered if I was the only person on the planet who would find calm and healing in emptying out white plastic bags of leftovers onto my compost pile.  READ MORE

I grew up on a large dairy farm, the sixth of seven children, and the fourth girl. My time with Dad usually occurred working in the fields. The first time I skipped school to help, I was about 10 years old.  READ MORE

What is it with seeds? Why are lettuce and carrot seeds so ridiculously teeny that the instructions on the package (“plant three to four inches apart in rows”) make no sense unless you’ve got fingers like a leprechaun?  READ MORE

After my husband left, I was forced to take over his one chore—mowing. I figured, if he can do it, how hard can it be? We had just bought $800 worth of Bahia sod and, by golly, I wasn’t about to let that investment wither and die.  READ MORE

I'd like to offer a warning about the myth of a “quick mulch job.” I should know that mulching is never as easy as I expect (isn’t this a universal law for every project?), but I recently proved it—yet again.  READ MORE

When after almost a year away, I climbed back into my own bed, I immediately felt a sense of homecoming. My bed was, in the words of Goldilocks, “just right.” We spend about a third of our lives in bed. We are (usually) born in bed and die in bed. No wonder that we love our beds.  READ MORE

I am an inveterate salvager. When I married in 1950, I learned that a person could buy for next to nothing century-old furniture that would last another century or so.  READ MORE