'more than just gardening:' book giveaway, events, and an online chat

2018 has been a remarkable year for tree books and the publishing trade has done a good job listing new and older titles. There is now a forest of books to acquire and collect and I hope they have been printed on paper from sustainable sources.

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.

You can win one of two, three-book sets that I’ve purchased to share as prizes—no, not my old food-splattered copies, above, but new ones. Promise! All you have to do to have a chance in the truly random drawing (I’ll use the tool at random [dot] org to pick a winner) is comment below, and be a subscriber to my email newsletter. All the details are at the end of this post.Your comment should simply tell us what you like to put up for later from your garden or the farmer’s market—and it can be as simple as a sentence or include a recipe or a link to one; up to you.Tips and Tricks:Immediate ideas and tips on coping with the harvest can be had from these articles:What’s in My Freezer at Harvest Time: a Roundup of Ideas Making Pesto: Garlicky Green Ice Cubes Growing and Storing a Year of Parsley (good for many other green herbs, too) Dan Koshansky’s Hand-Me-Down Refrigerator Pickles Vegetable Curry-in-a-Hurry ‘Love Apple

Just jump in (down below in the comments) and tell me a tip, trick or insight you have to share about saving some kind of food for later use (or simply say hello; I’ll count your entry anyhow). Here’s mine:I’m using Mason or Ball jars for freezing this year, gradually phasing out most of my plastic food-storage containers. That’s a frozen test jar up top of my first 2010-vintage tomato sauce (popped out of the freezer for a moment for its portrait).Why this change?I keep reading more all the time about food and their reactions to contact with various plastics. Apparently “p

Last month’s giveaway, my first ever on the blog, was such a hit that I promised a monthly event (though in April we might just have a surprise “extra” edition, so stay tuned).  As a garden writer, it seems fitting that I should give away not just my own book (as I did last month, and promise to again) but also books by those who’ve taught me. I have been stockpiling some goodies from the used-book dealers the last few weeks.Crockett’s Victory Garden James Underwood Crockett (first published, 1977) The star of the PBS series “The Victory Garden” was also the author of a series of books on how to garden, and this is my favorite of his. It was my first garden book ever, given to me by my sister, so maybe that’s why, but I think its value far exceeds the sentiment attached. Dated (meaning chemic

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

From the first time I landed on her popular blog Posie Gets Cozy, I knew there would be a connection—again, though I was the hopeless (and embarrassed) girl who hemmed her junior high school dressmaking project right onto the lap of the skirt she was wearing, and when the bell rang for next period had to go there “wearing” both.Alicia (self-portrait, left) welcomed me into her sewing circle, anyhow, charming me in the funniest Alicia-style ways. I mean, what’s not to like about a woman you don’t even know who says, “I want to be a gardener. Like Margaret.”A woman who emails you—though you are still total strangers, really—and asks you about the potato she has planted in a smallish flower pot, and how to care for it? (Answer: Get it out of the confines of that pot, a.k.a., my curriculum of How Not to Grow a Potato 101.)A woman who sends you link

FOR THREE YEARS, I’VE BEEN BLOGGING on A Way to Garden, and for three years, I’ve been watching as Gretchen Rubin—until three weeks ago a stranger to me—manifested her own online community, The Happiness Project, from scratch.  From the start, I thought, “this person is on to something,” and sure enough, a Number 1 book of the same name came to be. Just weeks before my own book launched, we finally met, and here’s what happened (with a chance to win one of three copies of Gretchen’s new paperback edition that I bought to help celebrate her success):

Each of her 150 recipes is delightfully prefaced with what amounts to its provenance: a juicy and sometimes hilarious back story that Clark tells in as simple yet deft a fashion as the style of the dish that follows. I sat right down to chapters like “Better Fried” and “It Tastes Like Chicken” and “My Mother’s Sandwich Theory of Life,” the perfect mix of a good read and a good meal.For me—a flavor-fearing kid who rinsed most of her entrees off at the sink conveniently positioned halfway between the Garland range and the family dinner table—Clark’s childhood tales are positively hair-raising: Summer vacations were spent touring France with her psychiatrist parents, gourmands determined to eat at every Michelin-starred restaurant there. Worse yet (or to Clark, more thrilling): Th

CHECKING OFF MY TO-DO’S HERE AS I APPROACH the March relaunch of A Way to Garden, with nifty new improvements, and this was on the list: “Make fan page for garden blog.” And so I did, though “fan page” sounds a lot less appealing than “friends page” or “group page,” which is what we used to have quite happily. According to Facebook’s Rules of Order, so to speak, things like blogs have “fans,” though.

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

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