margaret on wnyc radio: making 'tomato junk,' a 'last chance food'

With all that in mind, I made my annual frantic call with some urgent tomato questions to today’s guest, Craig LeHoullier in North Carolina, the NC Tomato Man as he’s known on social media, author of the classic book, “Epic Tomatoes” (affiliate link). Craig knows more about these cherished fruits than almost anyone I’ve ever met. He even shares that in live sessions each week on his Instagram account where you can ask your questions and get solid answers. I asked Craig how he’s doing and what we should all be doing to bolster a bountiful harvest and also about which fruits to save next year’s seed from anyhow and other tomato questions. Read along a

Yes, you read that right – snowman hands. When I started teaching food safety practices to children I wondered how to teach them about proper hand washing. We all know how important it is to thoroughly wash our hands before preparing food, after touching raw meat and poultry or any other potentially contaminated surface. We can easily explain to children (and adults!) that singing happy birthday twice, while scrubbing hands, equals the prescribed 10 to 15 seconds that we should do while washing. However, how do you explain how much soap to use to create a good lather?? The answer: snowman hands! Use enough soap that your hands look like a snowman’s hands after rubbing them together! I have found great success with this tip while teaching children (and now my own children) to wash their hands properly. And guess what – it takes a good 10 to 15 seconds of scrubbing soapy hands together to create those snowman hands! Bonus to the singing of happy birthday while washing hands! So next time you are washing your hands, use enough soap to create snowman hands. This will help prevent the spread of food-borne illness (and those nasty cold and flu bugs too!).

MY UPCOMING DROPOUT MEMOIR (“And I Shall Have Some Peace There,” February 2011, Grand Central Publishing) is no longer a private matter—not some secret document whose life plays out on my dining table and my editor’s desk. Recently it pulled itself together into what’s called an Advance Reading Copy, resembling a paperback version of the book-to-be, and showed off at BookExpo America, a trade fair at the Javits Center in New York City.

FOR THOSE OF YOU IN THE AREA, meaning the Hudson Valley of New York State or thereabouts, these spring events here in the garden and elsewhere may be of interest: Saturday March 14, Spring Garden Day, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Rensselaer County. (518) 272-4210. This popular, day-long annual event in Troy, New York, includes a choice of classes, from growing orchids at home to successful vegetable gardening.

GARDENING WITH SKUNKS isn’t a phrase that rolls off the tongue, the way “…with deer,” or “…with rabbits” might. But here at A Way to Garden, outsmarting awakening skunks is one of spring’s first challenges.

CO-HOST AND GARDEN DESIGNER CARMEN DEVITO really got me going on the popular weekly “We Dig Plants” show on Heritage Radio Network the other day, when she asked me to think back–now four-plus years–about my journey from the city life of my past to the here-and-now of living in the garden. Apparently I shared such wisdoms as: “With things that you treasure, whether it’s a person, a thing or plant, sometimes you can hold it a little too close and suffocate it.

M AY IS MADNESS. I have already said that in the monthly chores column. But it’s madness otherwise, too: garden tours to prep for; workshops I’m giving with friends; a garden contest I’m judging (as in, free prizes!); a sister in the news to brag about…and oh, I need your help with the Urgent Garden Question Forums here, too.

HAS YOUR COMPOST HEAP swallowed up any of your tools, jewelry, other personal possessions? A week after my “good pair” of glasses went missing, I found them in the pile the other day, miraculously, just a second before I dumped another load of compost-to-be on top. Ever lost anything in your heap, only to find it a season later (or never)? Tell us.

IT FEELS LIKE TOMATO-HARVEST SEASON here, what with 85 degrees dipping to a chilly 60 at night, but in fact we’re just coming up on tomato-sowing season (I do it April 15 here). Tricks for tomato sowing and growing, including what to do to prevent diseases this year, formed the topic for this week’s A Way to Garden radio podcast on Robin Hood Radio (WHDD-Sharon, Connecticut).

SOMETIMES the weather is rainy, sometimes it’s dry. The way to get the best production from your vegetable or fruit plants (or pots, or ornamentals…) is with timely watering, and the best way to water is with drip irrigation. Learn from Lee Reich to design and install a drip-irrigation system, in a hands-on workshop at the garden of Margaret Roach in Copake Falls, NY.Learn the benefits (saves water, bigger yields, healthier plants–and save time since it’s easily automated!) Learn to design and install a system Participate in a hands-on installation Longtime nationally known gardener and garden writer Lee Reich demonstrates hands-on installation with your assistance–so learn by doing, following a short classroom session on design principles and best materials.Drip also saves water, makes for healthier plants and fewer weeds, and is easily automated. Learn why drip irrigation works so w

It Ain’t What It Used to Be Though corn is rightly labeled native to the Americas, the original plant from which today’s corn derives, called Teosinte (technically in the genus Zea), had a long and winding journey from its roots in Southern Mexico.  Talk about the domestication of a wild thing!The original grass had far fewer, tiny kernels, and not in anything so orderly an arrangement as today’s tightly packed heads that we call ears of corn. Have a look at these images (especially the macro ones) to see how heroic a job has been accomplished.Starting more than 7,000 years ago, careful cultivation and selection by native peoples of the Americas and much more recently by farmers in wider reaches have yielded corn for

THE FROGBOYS REPORT THAT THEIR MOTHER, who does not say “Urp,” or “Glug,” or “Rivet” or anything else very interesting or endearing like they do, was nevertheless the subject of a 3-part interview with Alan Chartock on Northeast Public Radio network last week.