giveaway, and a new friend: katrina kenison’s ‘gift’

Ask a gardener of any skill level what the hardest part of having a garden is and they will all tell you the same thing – getting rid of weeds.

As the year passes, and as each new season settles upon us, we are blessed with abundant and various seasonal crops and produce. While in most mainstream grocery stores, we can now find our favorite foods all year round; however, many prefer to eat what is being grown specifically in that season. Here in South Carolina, entities such as Certified SC Grown is just one example of an organization that is working to bridge the gap between field and plate, making finding local, seasonal fruits and vegetables more attainable.

A PPARENTLY THE VOICE OF JACK THE DEMON CAT, who lives in a shed of his own here, can be heard all the way in Nebraska by doodling Andre. Isn’t that what this illustration is about: my nocturnal killer cat who entertains who knows what out there all night long? Or am I missing something? Wait, Jack doesn’t usually say “bloody” (though things get that way when he’s on the prowl: weasel tails, anyone?).

THE PATH TO FULLTIME LIFE IN THE GARDEN–to a little more peace than my former city corporate life included–keeps offering up unexpected extras, especially in the form of new friends. This week’s book giveaway–the biggest yet, with chances to win four copies of my upcoming book and four of “The Gift of an Ordinary Day” author Katrina Kenison’s, too–is a collaborative cross-blog effort with a kindred spirit that you won’t want to miss.

I N A GOOD SPRING, BELOVED PLANTS COME BACK. Not everybody, of course; some just can’t find their way home.

Easy does it: You don’t need a flat of cherry tomato plants; one or two is plenty for most households. Give the majority of space to paste tomatoes for making sauce, and others for eating fresh in salads and sliced.Hybrids or heirlooms? A mix is better, probably, as hybrids sometimes fare better under duress than heirlooms, which don’t have the benefit of bred-in disease resistance. (That’s‘Juliet,’ a delicious and prolific hybrid small plum, up top, for instance.)At planting-out time, rotate the crop to minimize the chance of soil-borne troubles. A th

I PROMISED I WOULDN’T ADD EVEN AN EXTRA TRIP TO THE CURB WITH THE TRASH to my schedule, with all the mowing I have to do, but (big surprise) I layered on a couple of events, and I want to make sure you know about them, in case you are in the Hudson Valley/Berkshires vicinity this summer. Another container-gardening class, a 365-day garden lecture with an extra focus on water gardening and the frogboys, and a tour here in August (that last one you already might know about). Details, details:Sunday July 12, Containing Exuberance, container-gardening workshop, with Bob Hyland at Loomis Creek Nursery, near Hudson, New York, 11 AM to 1 PM, $5.

I guessed out loud to a friend that we’d see 500 entries. Not a bad guess, Margaret: After 519 (minus my own 3 welcome messages embracing hundreds of first-time commenters) we finished out at 516 eligible comments before midnight my time Friday.  Using the random-number generator on Random.org, the winners are:Number 50, Mary from Minneapolis, and, Number 513, Tracey, who lost limbs from her apple tree, as I did, in recent storms. Congratulations to you both.Most of all, though, let me repeat my sincere thanks to all of you who came out of the background and commented for the first time. It was great to meet you, finally (all you lurkers!).Because it was the second birthday week of the blog, it was especially sweet to hear from you at this time. As a result of the outpouring, we also passed the 10,000-comment mark during this contest, too, so it all felt like a giant celebrati

I paid a visit this summer to historic Beekman 1802, the rural residence of my ex-Martha Stewart colleague Brent Ridge and his partner Josh Kilmer-Purcell, also known as “The Fabulous Beekman Boys” from the Planet Green reality show and from the popular memoir “The Bucolic Plague” that Josh published last year about their city-to-country transition.For the Beekman Boys’ latest project (do theyever stop?), the cookbook team included another old friend, Sandy Gluck, former food editor of Martha’s “Everyday Food” magazine and one of the smartest cooks I know. The result: a happy combination of fresh-from-the-garden ingredients, including many heirlooms, that Brent and Josh grow at their Sharon Springs, New York, farm or purchase nearby, combined into well-written, practical recipes that invite me to try them. No crazy-long lists of ingredients; no daunting step-by-steps, thank you.

There is also an Open Day in nearby Litchfield County, Connecticut that day and in Dutchess County, New York (the other adjacent area to me). Be sure to check for those listings, too, and make a day of it.Can’t make it? How about coming June 2, or August 18? (Or come back; always something different going on.) On the August date, Broken Arrow will be here again doing a sale in time for fall planting, and garden writer and old friend Ken Druse will deliver a morning lecture on plant combinations and do a smaller afternoon workshop on propagation.All the details on those other days, including links to follow for the Ken Druse events, are on my events page.  Ken’s talk and workshop require prior

Katrina and I have celebrated our similarities and differences since we met a couple of years ago at a book-industry trade show(read the whole story on her website). We both have corporate-publishing backgrounds, but then chose country, not city, as backdrops for our “second half” of life. Our differences aren’t really so different, we learned when reading the manuscripts last year to each other’s new books-to-be, “Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment,” and“The Backyard Parables: Lessons on Gardening, and Life.”Katrina has been nurturing a husband and two sons for 25 years, the same time I’ve been mothering a sometimes-unruly gaggle of plants. (Yes, the garden has proven to be as worthy and complicated a life partner as any human mate.) Her new book isn’t about gardening, like mine is; it’s about finding herself with an empty nest. But we both explore themes like impermanence, adaptability, and the “what’s next” question we all find ourselves facing over and again—in the seasons of a garden, or a human life.Maybe owing to decades of cooking for her three hungry guys, Katrina is the kind of guest who always arrives