She’s quite the lady.  Strong and productive, even when adversity strikes.  Also, she has one of the biggest hearts around.  Miss Lucy is her name.  Well, it’s not her real name, but since the man who introduced her to me calls her Miss Lucy, I do the same.  Although she is a relative ...

People often ask, What is the easiest plant to grow?  Although every plant brings unique challenges and joys, for my garden, the answer to this question is “garlic.”  Of course, the garlic at Heart & Sole Gardens is not like garlic one buys from a supermarket bin or grows as an annual ...

Tater Tunnel: Two words that struck fear in the hearts of my brother, Dale, and me when we were children.  When Dale was six and I was ten years old, my father bought an old home place in the northwest corner of our county, a stone’s throw from Blue Ridge Mountain peaks.  Fruit trees, ...

Canadian poet, novelist and environmental activist Margaret Atwood said, “Gardening is not a rational act.”    Few tasks are as humbling as gardening.  After that leap-of-faith act, when a Human drops seed in soil, then cultivates growing plants and anticipates a successful harvest, ...

Looking over our Across-the-Creek field at Heart & Sole Gardens, it was obvious there was much work to be done before seed potatoes could thrive there.  Johnson grass, my arch nemesis weed, took advantage of the space, fallow for two years, and grew with abandon, leaving tall dried stalks ...

For gardeners lucky enough to live in seasonal growing climates, Winter fields offer respite from intense cultivating and singular beauty that echoes growers’ time of reflection and renewal.  In my neck of the Western North Carolina woods, January is not typically a productive gardening ...