The Patch Post

Prairie stories, growing tips, and reflections from our Kansas garden. Follow the seasons with Autumn Prairie Pumpkins.

Woman examining heirloom seeds at a farmhouse table, illustrated storybook style - Autumn Prairie Pumpkins

The Quiet Work of Keeping Seeds Alive

Today is National Endangered Species Day. The observation snuck up on me the way May always does, with the garden already demanding attention before I've...

Read more →
Woman with auburn hair and round glasses kneeling beside young pumpkin seedlings in a Kansas garden, May morning light, illustrated style

The May When Everyone Started Growing Something

This May feels different on the patch. Harder to explain than point at, but it is there in the small things: the neighbor two blocks...

Read more →
Illustrated woman with auburn hair and round glasses inspecting a pumpkin leaf in a garden at golden hour - plant health morning routine - Kansas garden

The Plants Are Telling You Something: Learning to Read Your Garden in May

Something has changed in the squash beds. You sense it before you name it. A leaf at a slight angle it wasn't at yesterday. A...

Read more →
Illustrated woman in her mid-thirties with short auburn hair and round glasses tending a pumpkin patch in an unmowed May lawn with bumblebees

What No Mow May Knows About Your Pumpkin Patch

There is a dandelion at the edge of the patch right now that I have been letting go on purpose. It went to seed last...

Read more →
Illustrated woman with auburn hair and glasses in a May garden with warblers

What the Warblers Know About Your Garden in May

Every May, something quietly extraordinary happens over Kansas gardens. The warblers move through. Yellow-rumped warblers, common yellowthroats, yellow warblers -- little flashes of color working...

Read more →
Young pumpkin seedlings on a sunny farmhouse kitchen windowsill, reaching toward the light — heirloom seeds passed down through generations

She Kept the Seeds

Every May, people start searching for gardening gifts for mom. I understand the impulse completely. Something about this time of year, the soil warming after...

Read more →
A pumpkin seed resting in dark Kansas prairie soil at dawn, golden May morning light, first day of planting season

What the First of May Asks of You

The smell of warming soil is different from the smell of cold soil. You probably know this without ever having put words to it. Cold...

Read more →
Person tending a spring pumpkin garden on the Kansas prairie - Autumn Prairie Pumpkins

The Week Everyone Went Outside

The last week of April, millions of people went outside on purpose. Not to commute, not to run errands, not to get somewhere. Just to...

Read more →
Saved pumpkin seeds on a wooden table with kraft paper envelopes and a coffee mug - seed saving for beginners

The Small Act of Saving a Seed

There is a moment, late in the season, when a butternut squash on the vine starts to look more like a lantern than a vegetable....

Read more →
Young tree sapling beside a kitchen garden at dawn on a Kansas prairie farmstead, Arbor Day planting

The Same Kind of Hope: Arbor Day and the Kitchen Garden

A neighbor planted an oak tree before breakfast, knowing she would never sit in its shade. That kind of long thinking is what the kitchen...

Read more →
Moringa seed pod split open on dark soil, golden late-afternoon light, What the Moringa Seed Knows

What the Moringa Seed Knows

Moringa has fed people for four thousand years, growing in roadside lots and kitchen gardens in places where the soil is thin and the heat...

Read more →
Native squash bee Peponapis pruinosa inside a yellow cucurbita pumpkin blossom at dawn - Kansas prairie garden

The Squash Bees Were Already at Work

The squash bees were already in the patch before the vines even started. A reminder that the garden is never just yours. It belongs to...

Read more →
« Previous 1 … 3 4 5 6 Next »