The Patch Post

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

Woman tending pumpkin vines in a Kansas garden on a late May morning with coffee in hand - illustrated art style

The Garden Is Running Now

The vines crossed the edge of the bed sometime last week. Not by a little. By a good yard, reaching out into the walking path...

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Illustrated woman with auburn hair pressing heirloom seeds into a Kansas garden on Memorial Day morning, golden light, coffee thermos on fence post

When Memorial Day Means Seeds in the Ground

The Chelsea Flower Show wrapped up in London this week. One hundred and sixty-eight thousand visitors over five days, the world's best garden designers, plants...

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Illustrated woman with short auburn hair and round glasses sitting on a garden porch step with a coffee mug, overlooking a lush Kansas pumpkin garden at sunrise, warm storybook art style

The Long Way Home

The coffee was just right this morning. I had it on the back step while the light was still low, watching the garden warm up,...

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Woman kneeling beside blooming pumpkin vines with a bee on an open orange blossom, Kansas garden, morning light

What the Bees Know About Pumpkin Pollination

There's a bee working the squash blossoms this morning. She has been at it since just after sunrise, moving from the wide open orange cups...

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Woman with auburn hair and glasses tending a spring garden at golden hour - pumpkin vines climbing a fence post, coffee in hand

The Show Garden You Don't Need a Ticket For

Somewhere in London right now, a garden designer is standing back and looking at a flower installation the size of a small building. The Royal...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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