Category: organic gardening

If there were to be a contest for the most sorely neglected culinary herb, lovage would certainly rank among the top five candidates. I first encountered this member of the parsley family two decades ago, not so much because I’d heard tales of its tastiness, but because I was curious to learn how a plant [...]

Sometimes I feel as if the lawn is the one calling the shots in my yard, not the other way round. That’s particularly true when I am pushing a mower in 95º heat, or paying an exorbitant electricity bill after a season of lawn irrigation. (Electricity, as I pump irrigation water from our old, 1852 [...]

One of the things I find odd about garden writing is that while there is generally more than ample advice about sowing and planting food crops, there is comparatively little information about harvesting, which, after all, is the entire point of the exercise. And often times, proper technique is critical. Take garlic for instance. Garlic [...]

Well, it’s almost solstice, and the annual garlic harvest has once again come to a head. (I know, I know – I couldn’t resist.)  But seriously: the individual cloves I planted last November have overwintered, sprouted, and have now formed 2′ tall plants, ready to flower. These blossoms, twisty floral spikes called  “necks” in the [...]

For those of you who garden in a large swath from Georgia to Maine, you may remember last year as the season without tomatoes. Late blight, a ruthless mold disease eliminated every plant in my garden – and in the garden of everyone else I knew.  Rumored to have begun in a shipment of tomatos [...]

If you’re at my house for brunch, chances are scrambled eggs will be on the menu. Most of my guests accept a spoonful or two, anticipating a pleasant accompaniment to sausages, waffles, or blue berry pancakes. Then they take a bite. The conversation usually goes like this: “Wow! These eggs are fantastic. What’s in them?! [...]

Every spring, I marvel at the crowds of people buying flats and flats of expensive annual and vegetable seedlings at nurseries and box stores. For expediency’s sake, that’s fine; but for better economy, and for better gardening, you can save a tremendous amount of money, and grow a much wider variety of plants, if you [...]

A number of years back, I was asked to bring something for one of our end-season crew parties, so I decided to make a chili recipe that I had inherited from my mother, though with a few twists. For years, mom made us what she called “thin chili”, which received this moniker because  the dish [...]

OK, so we’ve all been there: enticed by those luscious catalogs glowing with glossies of ripe and redolent vegetables, we’ve rushed out, bought large quantities of seeds, and then stuck the packets in a drawer, only to remember them again in June, far too late in the game. Well, thanks to our friends at John [...]

One of the nicest things about gardening is that it’s a hobby easy to share, and around the world there are folks with fabulous landscapes just waiting for someone to ask: may I see your lovely garden? That request, golden to any proud gardener’s ear, will open almost every door, if asked politely, and can [...]