When I was a child, every playground had a merry-go-round. Some of them were divided into pie slices of various colors with a metal bar in between each section. Once every daring child jumped on, someone strong would push the merry-go-round and keep us spinning until we were all dizzy.

It’s that time of year when the kitchen is ripe with the sweetness of cooking jam, the boldness of simmering tomato sauce or the freshness of a just picked basil. I feel wealthy with this abundance because nature’s gifts remind me of the wonder of the earth.

In this part of the world, the heat, humidity and lack of rain have been a constant for the past month. If you’re experiencing the same thing, you might read “preservation season” and think about hours inside a comfortably air-conditioned house that keep your energy and health preserved and protected

“Everything I launch into the world doesn’t produce immediate payoff. Some things take time.”
That’s so true for everything in the gardening life, and in life in general. I wrote that in February in regard to my new bird feeder. I wasn’t sure if the birds would ever come.

Spring is a season of creation at our house. The soft sun invites me outside where I cannot resist digging up weeds here, removing dead leaves there, hoeing the soil to prepare for vegetable seeds and flowering plants.

I spent most of the first two weekends in May in my

One thing that gets me through the transition from late winter to early spring is visions of shiny, plump, red tomatoes. I get those beauties started with planting the seeds.

It’s rejuvenating to put hope into a tiny seed and watch for it to break through the surface of the