garden-visits · The Lead
The Medicinal Garden at Cluain na bPlandaí
On a half-acre in west Clare, an Irish herbalist tends a garden of three hundred medicinal plants, most of them native, in beds laid out by traditional use.
In this issue
The Codling Moth Pheromone Trap on a Small Orchard
Tristan Aoki spends a year monitoring three apple trees in southern Kyoto with a single five-dollar pheromone trap, and reports what he learned about timing his only spray.
Two Rows of Corn and the Distance Between Them
On a small farm in southern Vermont, the experiment of saving open-pollinated dent corn seed when the neighbour's field is half a mile downwind.
Companion Planting a 20-Foot Perennial Bed in Zone 5
Octavia Bryne profiles a small Vermont border where pest pressure has fallen sharply through deliberate plant pairing rather than spray.
The Perennial Trial Beds at Bressingham
In a working corner of the Bressingham Gardens in Norfolk, the family that ran Britain's most influential perennial nursery for half a century still trials new cultivars, quietly.
From the editor
"Seeds, beds, weather, and the years they take."
— Rowena Bell · Editor in chief
The Kneeler, the Mat, and the Question of the Knees
A close look at the unglamorous tools that keep a gardener's lower joints in working order across a thirty-year garden life, and the small case for the right pad under the knee.
The Aphid on the Mint: An Integrated Account
A small infestation in a Wellington herb garden, three weeks of observation, and the question of when to intervene.
The Glasshouse Floor as a Design Decision
Tristan Aoki compares concrete, gravel, brick, and bare earth as glasshouse floors, and finds that the question is older and more consequential than it appears.
Carrot Fly and the Meter-High Fence
A simple barrier and the careful timing of sowing turn a long-running carrot fly problem into a non-issue on a quarter-acre garden in Norfolk.
An Allotment in Walthamstow
Plot 47A at the South Grove Allotment Society in east London has been worked by the same family since 1973, and is now in the hands of its third gardener.
Seed Drying on a Screen Porch
Why the post-harvest week matters as much as the growing season, and how one grower in upstate New York lost a year of pepper seed to a closed pantry door.
An Autumn Border Planned Around Grasses and Seedheads
Sage Marchetti walks an Iowa border designed for September through January, where the gardener has stopped deadheading entirely.
The Quiet Case for Mulching with Straw
Rowena Bell makes a deliberate, undecorated argument for straw mulch in the home kitchen garden, after twenty-eight years of testing every other option.
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A Japanese Saw for the Home Gardener
A Silky Gomboy 240, carried in a leather scabbard through a season of fruit pruning, brush clearance, and one small carpentry job, and the case for the pull-stroke in the garden.
Growing Shiso in a Vermont Greenhouse
A small lean-to in Brattleboro, four shiso varieties, and a season that begins six weeks earlier than the garden allows.
Wireworms in a New Potato Bed
Rowena Bell on the small orange larvae that turned up in a first-year potato bed converted from old pasture, and the three-year plan to undo the problem.
The Gravel Garden as Drought Response in Southern France
Octavia Bryne reports from a hilltop garden in the Aude where rainfall has dropped 27 percent since 2010 and a gardener has rebuilt from the soil up.
The Monastery Garden at Clonfert
Behind a Cistercian wall in east Galway, three brothers and one lay sister grow a year's worth of vegetables on roughly half an acre, and have done since 1971.
The Dobby Stove in the Walled Garden
Eloise Vinter visits a 1924 cast-iron paraffin heater still in use at a Norfolk walled garden and considers what the old fuels can still do.
The Tea Pea of Coleraine
An Irish heritage pea, nearly lost in the 1980s, kept alive by one family and now back in the seed exchanges of three countries.
The Earthworm as a Soil Indicator
Octavia Bryne explains what a count of earthworms in a forkful of garden soil actually tells the home gardener, and what it does not.
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