Gardenig in city New York. Tips & Guides

COME AND JUST TAKE A WALK with me. No big plant lesson, nothing to prune or weed or sow.

HARD TO BELIEVE THAT A YEAR HAS PASSED since the first WordCamp New York City, which I was proud to co-sponsor to try to express some of the gratitude for what the blogging platform called WordPress has given me–and by extension to you, too, dear readers, since without WordPress I could not invite you into my garden and communicate with you this way. A Way to Garden is built on WordPress, as is the blog network I started late last year, The Sister Project.

THANK YOU DEB PERELMAN OF SMITTEN KITCHEN, who cooks up a giant food blog from her tiny, 42-square-foot New York City kitchen. Just in time for peak pickling season, Deb unlocked the riddle that had been puzzling her (and me) for years: why recipes come out too salty sometimes and not others. Turns out that not all brands of Kosher salt (shown above, in my Grandma’s glass salt cellar) are created equal. The scoop from Deb (thank you, thank you).WANT TO USE LESS CHEMICALS in and around the home and garden? Who doesn’t? Beyond Pesticides dot org is an essential resource to help in the plight. Just look at this list of factsheets (each a PDF). I love the one on “Reading Your Lawn Weeds,” for instance, a tactic that will really help you think before dumping on some needless toxin; you can find it partway down this page of theirs, at the link

IT’S PROBABLY NO SURPRISE to hear me say I love blogging, and I also love WordPress, the blogging platform this site is firmly rooted upon. I’m a believer.

IWAS MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS HERE WHEN THIS SHOWED UP. And it continues to show up.

MELISSA CLARK IS ONE OF US. The prolific cookbook author and “The New York Times” food columnist has a homegrown Dahlia (her young daughter); knows a rutabaga from a turnip (so many people don’t!), and is intrepid in harvesting year-round farm-and-garden gleanings—if not in her own backyard, then in Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza Farmers’ Market, where she has been a year-round customer for years, come hell or ice age. With her latest, “Cook This Now,” the hard part will be figuring out which of 120 recipes to start with. Win one of two copies I’ve bought to share—and get her recipe for Carroty Mac and Cheese right now.

IT’S ALWAYS NICE TO MEET NEW READERS, which in this digital world often happens when you least expect it–as if someone you barely know plans a surprise party at your house. But the result–unlike that scenario’s–is a lot of fun.

First, the workshop back story: Last year, Bob Hyland and I started teaching together again, something we hadn’t done in more than a decade, not since our “old lives” in New York City, where he was head of horticulture for Brooklyn Botanic Garden. What started as, “Do you want to do a container workshop at Berkshire Botanical Garden together?” turned into another and another over at his nursery. The bug bit us; we remembered how much fun we have working together this way, so this year’s schedule reflects that.The April and September workshops begin here with light breakfast, tours and teaching in the garden, then we all head over to Loomis Creek for two-plus hours more learning. Hope to see you at some of the events.MARCH Sunday, March 7 – Reading at Berkshire Botanical Garden, Stockbridge, MA, with my sister, Marion Roach Smith, to celebrate Paris Press’ publication of its “Sisters” anthology. 2 PM. Free, but must RSVP to in

By choosing seed farmed in conditions like my own–without chemicals, and if possible, in a geographically similar environment–I can contribute less to the pollution caused by conventional seed growing, and also make a happy “match” between the seeds and my garden. Read the “New York Times” story, and if you feel inclined, share it. My latest public-radio show, produced with Robin Hood Radio, digs into the subject, too.Categoriesedible plants from seed organics vegetables.

GALINSOGA is also called quickweed; the Rutgers weed database says that’s because the seeds that follow its tiny, daisy-like yellow and white flowers start to germinate on their way to the ground—no waiting, and quick enough to produce multiple generations each growing season.More than one species are listed in weed books; I have G. quadriradiata, which I actually know as its synonymous name G. ciliata, and I know just where it came from. A friend in New York City shared a desired plant a decade ago, and a gallant soldier was lurking in the pot, a hijacker. (Originally, it’s from South America, but is now widespread in the U.S.)I recommend pulling this one as soon as it emerges–it thankfully comes out easily when young–or using a hoe to dislodge seedlings, being sure never to let it establish and flower. With repeat weeding or cultivating, I have kept it fro

In a series of emails and Skype calls since I began A Way to Garden in 2008, Gayla and I have found so much shared turf:We two longtime organic gardeners can get riled up—over topics ranging from the environment, to chemical companies and the “business” of gardening in general, to dyed mulch and more (her most recent rant on offcolor mulch is way down in this post). We both overdo it—on plants, work, and a major inclination to cart home lots of rusty buckets and other “vintage” metal stuff from tag sales. We both live in the garden offseason crammed into spaces where in many rooms, the plants get a majority of the square footage. (And why not?) In addition to the usual tools, you’ll find us both with a camera in the garden, though Gayla is a professional ph

There was nothing growing there garden-wise when Page arrived 30 years ago at her place, except some very old lilacs (here, too, 25 years back in time).  Now there is too much of many things, too many things over all—and many of those have simply grown too big.“Suddenly,” she writes in the preface, “in a middle-aged garden, we reach a point where we have to take stock, stand back, think about renewal, renovation, hacking back, shrinking, adapting.”“Embroidered Ground” is the story of one garden—Duck Hill, 60 miles north of New York City—but also the story of all gardens.NO, I DON’T KNOW, or grow, roses with Page’s expertise or flourish; I have no formal herb garden, and no flowering meadow in the making (and no dogs!). Maybe you don’t, either. But the me-too connection I felt to Duck

You may recall my previous conversations with Thomas, the co-author with Claudia West of the provocative 2015 book “Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes.” Even though we both have worked around plants for many years, it’s as if Thomas sees them differently from the way I do, in a sort of super-savvy botanical 3-D. He doesn’t see them as mere decorative objects, but astutely reads their body language for clues to who they want to grow with (or not) and how to put them all together successfully.I love how he sees, and thinks, as you can glean from our lively Q&A, where he says things like this:And this:Though not intentionally so, the Times article turns out to be especially timely—and not just because it’s early spring, and we gardeners need to make smarter choices

ON THE EVE OF OPENING ARGUMENTS in Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association, et al. v. Monsanto, which will be heard tomorrow in Federal court in Manhattan and challenges the chemical giant’s patents on genetically modified seed, I asked C.R. Lawn, founder of Fedco Seeds (one of 83 co-plaintiffs in the case) and an organic farmer, market gardener and seedsman for more than 30 years, to help me grasp what’s at stake, and tell me what I—what we—can do as gardeners and consumers to help. This is not an easy subject to explain simply, so besides his answers, I’ve gathered some video clips and links that may help you get better informed. At the very least: Skip to the bulleted “to-do” list near the end and DO THEM!

I HAD A DAYLONG ADVENTURE back to New York City recently, when Debbie Millman, chair of the School of Visual Arts’ master’s program in Branding and creator of the podcast show “Design Matters,” invited me to her studio to record. Though Millman is still very much in the thick of it—not a dropout gardener by any means!—she’d read my recent book, and wanted to talk about a range of things from my history as a serial college dropout, to my love of gardening, my days at Martha Stewart, the importance of stillness—and what my Girl Scout sash still means to me.

And in the last few years there has been a bonus: a heavy crop of beech nuts. When the first one came, littering the ground throughout the canopy and beyond, delighting the squirrels, I wondered why, “suddenly,” it was so productive, and then I read: a European beech, various sources report must be at least 30 years old to start producing a full crop of beechnuts. So my tree is right on schedule.I say “I added” the tree, but that’s not quite true. Even at maybe 5 feet tall, burlap-covered rootball included, the young beech was far too heavy for me to haul uphill myself. Two neighbors helped, and I encircled its trunk with a tube of hardware cloth when we were done, and watered it well, and imagined it a giant someday. The great public gardens I’d grown up visiting near New York City all had giant old European beeches, the fancy of the men who’d made the grand estates th

You can order the plan, a pdf, from Wave Hill’s shop. My pairs were adapted from there–made in cedar, not pine; the arms slightly longer; the wood slightly thicker and so on–and a savvy carpenter can adjust the angle of the seat and back before screwing everything together, to be more upright or less so. Follow the plans to the letter…or have some fun with them. Order the Wave Hill chair plan by calling the Wave Hill Shop at 718.549.3200 x 249, or email jenahb at wavehill dot org.Want them painted? My expert woodworking neighbor recommends using Benjamin Moore Aura exterior on top of an oil-based primer to help stop any tannin bleed (assuming that the material is cedar, which is the best choice if you plant for long life of the chairs, or to leave them outdoors in winter). If there are knots, use oil-based Binz primer on the knots only.You may recall my recent interview

EVERY TIME I LOOK AT GAYLA TRAIL’s (a.k.a. You Grow Girl’s) latest book, “Easy Growing,” I want to infuse vinegars and oils and liqueurs with garden-fresh tastes, or hang herbs to dry and prep others to freeze for a wintry day when the garden can’t provide.  So I’ve invited the master of all such things—and an expert seed-saver, too, who even packs them in little handmade origami envelopes—to come visit in September and teach me her tricks for saving the harvest, and storing next year’s seed. Want to join us? Win a copy of her book if you can’t make it—or better yet, sign up for the September 8 daylong workshop with Gayla Trail here at my place. Space is very limited!

LISTEN IN to my chat with WNYC’s Amy Eddings, on their “Last Chance Foods” segment that aired today. Their whole season of “Last Chance Foods,” part of WNYC’s version of “All Things Considered,” is archived here.tomato junk recipeingredients:olive oil garlic onion 1 teaspoon to 1 ton anything edible left in your garden or at the farmer’s market, including herbs such as parsley and basil tomatoes, equal to at least one-third the total volume of ingredients water salt and pepper to taste Especially good vegetable choices include: summer squash such as zucchini; green beans; brassicas such as kale or broccoli; chard.Trickier choices: cabbage, or beet or mustard greens, and other distinctive-tasting vegetables, including roots such as turnip; hot peppers; or eggplant, that might overtake the flavor or texture of the Junk.Celery and carrots work well in batches that will become soup. Include spicier peppers

The backstory: When I heard the title of a lecture being given nearby by a visiting North Carolina State University zoologist, I had to know more. The talk wasn’t titled “Woodchuck-Proof Your Backyard,” or “Rabbits Be Gone,” which would have attracted me, too, but for more obvious reasons. It sounded far more dramatic:“The Return of Predators to Urban America.”The speaker was Kays, a North Carolina State University zoologist and expert in using new technologies to study free-ranging animals, including the ones that may very well live in your neighborhood and garden. He leads the project called eMammal—a citizen-science animal-counting collaboration with the Smithsonian—and directs the Biodiversity Lab in the Nature Research Center of North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. I invited him to my public-radio pro

It’s a staggering number. That would be a lot of holes to dig, or drill, as the Garden begins to enhance and expand its historic Daffodil Hill display first planted in 1920.What didn’t surprise me was the involvement of Brent Heath, a longtime bulb merchant and daffodil hybridizer himself, who’s acting as an adviser in the ambitious undertaking. Brent, whose grandfather began the family bulb business in 1900, joined me on my public-radio show and podcast from his B

Birds follow the food supply, either staying put, or moving in one of several different styles of migration, including the unexpected occasional one called irruption. (Above, an irruptive pine siskin.)I asked Eric Lind, Director of Audubon New York’s Constitution Marsh Center and Sanctuary in Garrison, New York, about how birds follow the food. We also talked about best practices for supplemental feeding, if you choose to offer seed and suet and such as they do in winter at the Marsh, a 270-acre tidal wetland on the east shore of the Hudson River. The site provides foraging, nesting and resting habitat to more than 200

That the presence of lichens is very good news comes on the authority of lichenologist Dr. James Lendemer, Assistant Curator in New York Botanical Garden’s Institute of Systematic Botany. Lichens, one of the earliest forms of land-dwelling life on earth, should be all around you in a healthy ecosystem: on bark, on mossy areas and other spots where the soil may be thin, on wood, and even defiantly on stones. They play key roles in keeping an environment in balance, too.Read my conversation with James as you listen to the June 8, 2015 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).Read more at the bottom of the page about the new lichen

THANKS ANYWAY, drone engineers, but I don’t really want to live to see the day when drones are used for pollination because we let all the bees die. I know, I know; progress and innovation and all, but… Pollinator drones are not brand-new (the one in the video above, from “Science” magazine in February 2017), but apparently Walmart has applied for a patent on just such a device—perhaps a move to offset Amazon’s increasing entry into the fresh-food market, some industry analysts say.

I talked about watering best practices with New York Botanical Garden instructor Daryl Beyers, author of “The New Gardener’s Handbook” (affiliate link). The popular course that Daryl teaches at NYBG is called Fundamentals of Gardening. And now Daryl, who has more than 25 years’ professional landscaping experience besides his teaching role, has put all the fundamentals into “The New Gardener’s Handbook.”Read along as you listen to the June 29, 2020 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).Plus: Enter to win Daryl’s new book by commenting in the box at the b

In collaboration with Rutgers University medical toxicologist Lewis S. Nelson, MD,Dr. Michael J. Balick, who is Vice President for Botanical Science and Director of the Institute of Economic Botany at the New York Botanical Garden, has written the new third edition of the“Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plants.”I asked him about plant chemistry—why some plants have the toxins they do–and what we’ve learned from, and about, those plants. And how did people figure out which are poisonous in the first place, anyhow?Read along as you listen to the July 27, 2020 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).

WHEN YOU’RE TALKING plants and not people, how do you figure out who lives where? You can’t send census takers door to door to get a head count, but doing so is a critical step in devising conservation strategies in a changing world, among other key goals. A New York Botanical Garden botanist is coordinating such an effort.

Soon my new friend Andre was living in Nebraska with the future Mrs. Andre, and eventually they moved to South Dakota (despite being forewarned that winter never kids around there). A run of the Mount Rushmore State’s doozies has apparently left an impression on Andre, the dimensions of which he has summed up with a series of at once empathic and totally mad doodles–gardening cartoons that I hope you love as much as I do.To mark more than a decade of knowing Andre, I thought it might be fun to reprise some of them–just in time for the day that winter is officially supposed to be dispatched. Happy spring? Well, maybe.winter doodles, by andre jordanBAD WINTER: I miss the migrant birds

Lucinda Scala Quinn has written five cookbooks with inspirations as diverse as Jamaican to rustic Italian, but whatever the culinary tradition she’s writing and cooking in, her approach is always smart can-do meals—ideas developed to feed and please her family of five, including her three mad, hungry sons.Read along as you listen to the Oct. 22, 2018 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).Plus: Enter to win one of Lucinda’s cookbooks, your choice, at the very bottom of the page.cooking with pumpkin, with lucinda scala quinnQ. Welcome, Lucinda. Hello, old friend.

Jenny Elliott of Tiny Hearts Farm in Copake, New York, is a farmer-florist. With partner Luke Franco and their crew, she grows flowers organically, both for the wholesale market, for subscribers to her weekly flower CSA, and also for events, including weddings that she designs and more. (That’s Luke and Jenny in the shop below, where they also hold classes.)Which are the best annuals, I asked–and how do I get the most out of each one? (Hints: making succession sowings is one key, for fresh blooms all growing season, plus pinching young annuals makes for more productive plants, too.) Jenny is my beloved neighbor and friend and also one of my collaborators May 11th and again June 8th, when we join force

In his new book, “The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees” (affiliate link), he makes the case more strongly than ever, with twists and turns and the tales of all the creatures we depend on, who depend on the genus Quercus.Doug Tallamy is well-known to most every gardener as a longtime leading voice speaking in the name of native plants. His 2007 book, “Bringing Nature Home,” was for many of us, an introduction into the entire subject of the unbreakable link between native plants and native wildlife. He followed up wi

Copake, New York-based Jenny is a farmer-florist with partner Luke Franco and their crew, atTiny Hearts Farm. They’re my beloved neighbors and friends, growing flowers organically both for the wholesale market, for subscribers to her weekly flower CSA, and also for events including weddings.Read along as you listen to the April 6, 2020 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).must cutting flowers to grow, with jenny elliottMargaret Roach: Welcome back, Jenny. How are things in bustling downtown Copake, New York?

Even though my own garden is put to bed, the wheels in my gardener brain are still whirring. I’m looking for the seeds of ideas for the year to come, so to that end lately I’ve been rereading a book published just a few months ago, “Nature into Art: The Gardens of Wave Hill,” (Amazon affiliate link) and from it and its current Director of Horticulture, I got some practical inspiration. Louis Bauer is just the third director of horticulture in Wave Hill‘s history, though the garden in the Riverdale section of the Bronx was founded in 1965.He shared tips on upcycling prunings into plant supports; how easy hedges can create serious architecture; how to encourage desirable self-sowns like poppies, larkspur and others to flourish; how repeating shapes (not just colors) ca

“Every day, the world is teaching me what I need to know to be in the world,” she writes.Margaret Renkl—gardener, lifelong student of nature, and writer—lives and gardens in Nashville, Tennessee. Each Monday, her opinion column appears in “The New York Times,” billed under the loose rubric “Flora, fauna, politics and c

Marc Hachadourian, Director of Glasshouse Horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden and I answer “yes” to both of the above. And he joined me to talk houseplants, and which ones make the best longtime companions to grow and even share—and how to match them to your site and meet their needs. Spoiler alert: He wants us all to start growing African violets again, and some of their other Gesneriad cousins.Marc is also Senior Curator of Orchids at the New York Botanical Garden’s 55,000-square-foot Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, and author of the recent book “Orchid Modern,” so no surprise that some of his suggestions today are easy to grow orchids because, after all, he’s @orch

Mobee Weinstein is foreman of gardeners for outdoor gardens at New York Botanical Garden in New York City. She’s taught classes in indoor plants at the State University of New York and at NYBG. And she is also the person who first introduced me to many of what have become my favorite houseplants, back when I was a beginning garden writer, and I’d visit her in the NYBG greenhouses while working on a story—some really special times.Mobee shared her list of top indoor ferns to try (including tuber fern, Nephrolepis cordifolia, seen beside her in the photo below); some fern sources; and even some key fern-care advice, like how to water properly.Read along as you listen to the January 27, 2020 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).Plus: Ente