Text and photos by Sol Weiner At the North Carolina State Fair, a 100-pound watermelon is not just a 100-pound watermelon, nor is the first-prize pumpkin pie just a dessert. Like The Treachery of Images by René Magritte, which famously declared “This is not a pipe” below an image of that very object, food on… Read More →
The Great Pumpkin Diaries, Pt. III
Text by Frances Dowell, photos by Randi Byrd And then there were two. When we last visited Randi Byrd’s pumpkin patch, she was down to three plants, having lost one to stem damage (assailant unknown) and another to survival of the fittest (i.e. Randi plucked that sucker right out of the ground to make room… Read More →
The Great Pumpkin Diaries, Pt. II
Text by Frances Dowell Photos by Randi Byrd The last month in Randi Byrd’s pumpkin patch has been a nail biter. In May it was all good news—the seedlings bursting forth in their little seed cups, tiny leaves unfurling and then almost immediately entering into a gangly, adolescent stage. Mid-May, five plants were transplanted into… Read More →
My Grandmother’s Garden
by Malinda Dunlap Fillingim It’s a shame I have such clean hands. I really miss them being dirty, real dirty, so dirty I have to wash them with the garden hose even before going inside to wash them again and again until my fingernails are discovered under layers of dirt. Dirty hands came easily as… Read More →