Welcome To the Hughes' Page

Back when me and mia spousa TLD were young and good looking, ok better looking, we used to take the family vacation on Cape Cod. In Sandwich there's a Thornton Burgess museum - he wrote the Peter Rabbit stories - called the Greenbrier Nature Center. Among the things they have is a jam and jelly kitchen and they used to specialize in "sun cooking" certain fruits like cherries and peaches. We always picked up a couple of jars and felt the taste was better than normal preserves. In fact I recently… Continue

The next great veggie event in my garden after Sugar Snap Day if First Tomato Day. And that was today. In early March I resurrected the Wall-O-Water system and went to Renfrows for a wee Early Girl hybrid. I had tried the water wall thing before with poor results and read that it works best with small seedlings. I was pleased with this years result. This is the earliest I've ever gotten a full sized tomato in my garden.

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It happened today. We've been waiting. Patiently waiting. Today the first Monarch Butterfly appeared in our garden.

Now why is this such a big deal? Two reasons I guess. We're all becoming citizen scientists these days. There are Back Yard Bird Counts, we stretch the limits of recycl… Continue

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of a garden...But tho an old man, I am but a young gardener.
So wrote Thomas Jefferson on a summer's day in 1811 from his retreat at Poplar Forest. Not all of my garden summer experiences actually take place in my garden and it's great summer fun to go visiting.

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There are only a few days on the calendar better than the one in mid spring when the Sugar Snaps go into the ground. One of those better days was yesterday when the first harvest came in. I have a very small kitchen garden, about 70 square feet, so my harvests are measured in pints. I picked one pint yesterday.

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