herb jam and quick pickles, with sarah owens (cookbook giveaway)

Culinary herbs are both easy and inexpensive to grow. A fresh, home-grown supply of basil, parsley or thyme will cost much less than shrink-wrapped packs from the supermarket and when harvested just before use will likely have a higher nutritional value, too.

On Saturday, June 8, join me and Adam Wheeler of Broken Arrow Nursery in my garden for tours and a giant plant sale, and select from among an entire day of plant-themed offerings celebrating both herbs and flowers in nearby Hillsdale: herb cooking and flower arranging and growing.Plus, learn to be a better birder in a morning talk and guided walk/workshop, with Kathryn Schneider, past president of the NY State Ornithological Association and author of “Birding the Hudson Valley.” Don

THINGS HAVE NEVER BEEN THE SAME HERE SINCE the oldest hoe went missing, and the long-handled shovel with just the right weight to it split (as in the handle cracked in half, not that it up and walked away). There are no more good tools, not like my old tools, and so I grieve (and curse at how heavy and unbalanced the modern equivalents really are).

To enter to win a copy, simply scroll down to the comments and tell us how you like your spears. Type a whole recipe right into the comment box, or just a link to a recipe on your blog or another’s, or perhaps a tip instead about what you like asparagus served with (Anna says dill and lemon come to mind, for starters).The backstory: I met Anna Thomas when “Love Soup” came out last fall, and promptly stocked my freezer with double batches of several of her recipes made from my winter squash and sweet potatoes and kale and the like, and stocked up on copies to give as holiday gifts. Now a whole new season of homegrown vegetables has begun, and I’m working my way through “Chapter 9: First Tastes of Spring,” and on to “Chapter 10: Green and Greener.” Heaven. Vats of Asparagus Bisque, here I come.Thismust-have cookbook features 160 vegetarian recipes for soups and all the extras, from b

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.

Adam and I talked about not just the Japanese types, but also other garden-sized maples for adding interest in every season and garden situation–in pots or the high shade of woodland gardens, to full-sun locations.my maple q&a with adam wheelerQ. When I was at Broken Arrow recently, there were many choice things to look at—but I kept noticing the maples you offer, particularly. How many do you grow?A. In the collection at the nursery, I suspect we have 150 or 200 different maples, and really that’s the tip of the iceberg with this genus.Q. There are a lot of native A

THE HARVEST IS FINALLY ACCELERATING, which got me thinking about a tool that’s as critical to success right about now as my mower and spade: the perfect canning jar. One morning this week, over a cup of tea on Skype with my friend Gayla Trail a.k.a. You Grow Girl, we ended up having an entire conversation about them, in fact.

But who’s doing that critical, demanding work? To kick off what has become my annual Seed Series on the radio show and website, I interviewed geneticist and longtime plant breeder Dr. John Navazio—former senior scientist with the Organic Seed Alliance and now manager of plant breeding at Johnny’s Selected Seeds—to answer those seedy questions and more. Over the years, I have learned so much from John–including how to grow carrots (one of his breeding specialties). Read along as you listen to the Nov. 18, 2013 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).my q&a with dr. john navazioQ. First, John: What does the Organic Seed Alliance, which was founded in 2003, do? A.

While browsing the seed catalogs, I fell into a motherlode at Adaptive Seeds out in Sweet Home, Oregon, plus a comprehensive how-to article on the topic, by Adaptive’s co-founder Sarah Kleeger, all the way down to an analysis on a farm scale of how much it cost in manpower hours and supplies to grow them.Last year I intentionally grew dry beans for the first time in any semi-serious way, and it was so rewarding that this year the garden plan calls for more, more, more. Maybe you’ve been an accidental dry-bean grower like I had till then, leaving a tower of ‘Scarlet Runner’ standing until the big fat seeds spill

Sometimes entertaining–or even cooking a family meal–stresses the “ta-da” over the togetherness at the expense of the cook’s mental health. Sara Kate, whom I have never seen without her brilliant smile on full display, says that’s just not the point.“When I first started to work on this book, knowing it was in the entertaining category, I thought long and hard about what entertaining meant,” Sara Kate wrote recently on her blog.  “In my mind, entertaining as a word applied to my work is a bit of a silly notion; because this thing we do with food feels so much more deep than other forms of entertainment in our culture. The act of cooking is really about feeding the bellies and souls of the people we love, and I take it very seriously.”“Good Food to Share: Recipes for Entertaining With Family and Friends” will nourish on every level through all the

Los Angeles-based Shulman is not a vegetarian, she says, but finds herself eating that way a lot–which may sound familiar to others, especially with the farm market and garden harvest season just getting into high gear.“I realized that people have problems with the concept of the vegetarian main dish. There’s really no lexicon for it. If you eat meat, you can ask, ‘What’s for dinner?’ and you can say, ‘Chicken,’ and that’s a good enough answer.“In my house, I do have one-word answers. When my son says, ‘What’s for dinner?’ I can say, ‘Frittata,’ or ‘Gratin,’ or ‘Pasta,’ and his only question will be, ‘With what?’ And

Confession: Despite all my years at “Martha Stewart Living,” Gayla is far more adventurous in making things than I am. We both cook, and can, like mad—but she goes further. After purchasing a small copper still, Gayla spent her summer making hydrosols (floral waters—such as rose water), and just bought a set of wood-carving tools to try her hand at spoons and other implements. Impressive.And she can sew—to make the oversized muslin packets for herbed bath “tea” bags, for instance. (My last attempt, in junior high school sewing class, resulted in the project becoming stitched to the lap of my dress.  The bell rang before I realized what I’d done, so I had to wear it, like a lopsided fabric collage, to my next class. Nice.)GAYLA’S RELATIONSHIP to the garden so intimate that every bit of it seems to make its way into the rest of her life, and into the lives of lucky friends who are recipients of her many giftable goodies, such as:Bundles of twiggy herbs fr