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Home gardeners should take wheel hoes for a spin in their back yards
About this time in the summer, the vegetable garden could well use an Elizabeth Arden spa day. Busy days whir by as fast as sprouting pigweed, and all I can give my plot is a quick manicure. So I reach for the wheel hoe.
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Oregano, basil and other members of the mint family dominate the herb garden
In the herb garden, the mint family pretty much runs the neighborhood. Looking out my kitchen window, I can see oregano, marjoram, lavender, summer savory, basil, perilla, sage, rosemary, anise hyssop, thyme and lemon balm. All these are members of a family botanists call the Lamiaceae, or Labiatae, a huge aggregation of some 7,000 species.
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In the heat of summer, try a raw fennel salad
Cooking from the garden in summer is all about finding ways not to cook at all. Tossed salads, sliced tomatoes, cucumbers dressed with yogurt or sour cream: These are the seasonal dishes you reach for on a day when you simply can't face the stove. The garden, overflowing with vegetables, is your larder, and any tip that adds to your raw-food repertoire gets a gold star.
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The sex lives of squashes? Relax, it's just lunch!
A good man was hard to find this morning in the zucchini patch.
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Lovage: A big plant with an even bigger flavor
When the herb garden starts to wake up in spring, the bright green shoots of lovage are among the first signs of life. Lovage is a hardy perennial, able to take care of itself. Nothing bothers it, except for larvae of the beautiful swallowtail butterflies, which might nibble a few leaves but do little harm. In early to midsummer, bees flock to the greenish-yellow flowers -- rounded umbels a bit like those of dill, but less dainty. In fact, "dainty" is a word you would never apply to lovage. Imagine a celery the size of a Christmas tree.
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How to get motivated about fall crops despite the summer heat
It's easy to get into the swing of spring gardening when there's an empty brown canvas waiting to be painted green. On muddy knees you worship the strengthening sun, cheering on the sprouted peas as you would a baby's first steps.
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How to avoid insect bites in the garden
My friend Aubrey and I are weeding the carrot beds, and the Deerfly Air Force has found us. By now, the tiny black flies of spring are on the wane. Big, noisy horseflies are yet to arrive. Meanwhile, the deerflies are doing their best to ruin our day.
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Tips for using, buying wheelbarrows
A lot of the work in gardening is getting stuff from one place to another, and the larger or more distant the garden, the more moving around. Tools, plants, weeds, compost, bark mulch, bags of soil amendments, rocks, bricks, gravel, firewood, buckets of water, UPS packages, jugs of cider and giant zucchinis are all things I have trundled about with my trusty metal contractor's wheelbarrow.
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Kansas City relaxes ban on front-yard 'row crops'
Primaries in 12 states held the nation's attention in early June, but all I could think about was the close race in Kansas City, Mo. Would the Planning and Zoning Committee's ban on "row crops" in front yards be overruled by the City Council? Which would win, corn or pachysandra? I was betting on corn.
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A Cook's Garden: How my sweet peppers turned hot
Seeds are like jewels in spring, tiny genetic packages dropped into moist soil, then lovingly tended. After that, the focus is on plant growth: the height of stem, the greenness of leaf, the sweetness of fruit. If you are a reader of plant catalogues, you might even get the impression that seeds are a form of plant debris that interferes with the pleasure of eating grapes, watermelons and cucumbers.
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