Winter Melons: Selection

Pumpkins and squash have been grown in North America for thousands of years. Native Americans ate pumpkins roasted, boiled and stewed, and they roasted the seeds for food as well. Most pumpkins now are used for jack-o-lanterns or pumpkin pie. There are many different cultivars of pumpkins (Cucurbita cultivars) grown in South Carolina.Barbara H. Smith, ©2015 HGIC, Clemson Extension Winter squash and pumpkins are closely related. The commonly grown types of winter squash

Summer just wouldn’t be the same without picnics and cooking outdoors. And what’s a picnic without watermelon?! Maybe you get that melon from the supermarket, or if you’re lucky, a roadside stand. Maybe it’s local, but more likely, it comes in from one of the Southern states or California on a semitrailer piled high with melons. It never fails: That “good one” is always at the bottom of the bin. Now, imagine serving up your own homegrown melon at the next La

I have seen the enemy, and it is — a bug. Well, a plant hopper, really, a big one. It’s the Spotted Lanternfly, and it’s pretty well entrenched in Southeast Pennsylvania by now. They were first reported in 2014, in Berks County, not very far from my home. The best guess is they hitchhiked into the country as eggs on a skid of landscaping stone. The PA Dept. of Ag is doing its best to stop them, enforcing a quarantine area of two or three townships in Berks County. Today,

Ever since I can remember, our kitchen has been decorated in apple décor. When we re-modeled the kitchen a few years ago our grandson Wyatt asked if I was going to change the theme. “Absolutely not!” I said. He then said, “You have to be tired of apples, what about grapes, cherries or tomatoes and peppers?” I was firm, “Nope, nope, and no!” Somehow decorating with apples just says “country.” It brings a cozy, rustic and simple ambience to