recipe: power green soup, by rebecca katz

The harvest video was on Hudson Valley Seed’s Instagram account, and one of that New York-based organic seed company’s co-founders, K Greene, talked with me about growing shallots and their more commonly grown cousin, garlic. He also shared some other ideas for succession sowing of edibles whose planting time still lies ahead—whether for fall harvest or to over-winter and enjoying in the year ahead. Read along as you listen to the Aug. 7, 2023 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) o

The two best complimentary colours are Red and Green.  There are many ways this is demonstrated in the spring garden and they will be sure to draw compliments. The Peonies are just opening under a bit of shelter and shade.

Shrubs rule the roost in August and apart from some Hebe there is not much other than green and a bit of leaf colour. Roll on the second flush of roses.

I recently had a call from a South Carolina resident who lost power for more than 24 hours and wanted to know whether the foods in her freezer would be safe to eat. This is a very common problem in South Carolina winters and could easily affect you in the coming months.

Smilax vines go by the common names greenbrier or catbrier due to the thorns covering their stems. There are 300 to 350 smilax species worldwide. Approximately twenty-four species are native to North America, with fifteen species growing in South Carolina. Smilax grows well in moist shade and is an important food source and habitat for wildlife, including birds, rabbits, and deer.

First, of course, you want to make sure the crop you’re considering saving seed from is open-pollinated, not a hybrid. Hybrids won’t “come true” from saved seed one generation to the next.“Start with the super-easy things,” said Ken, “like anything with a perfect flower and a pod—beans, and peas, for instance.” Perfect flowers contain both male and female parts, or stamens and pistils, such as lettuce, tomatoes, brassicas, beans; in imperfect ones, such as on squash and cucumbers, there are separate male and female flowers.“Before you even transplant your first seedling, you can start thinking about seed saving,” Ken said, and also wrote in a new article on the Seed Library blog.For beginning seed-

IHATE SPENDING $1.49 OR EVEN 99 cents for a bunch of herbs, when all I ever need is a few springs at a time. And so I try to strive for herbal self-sufficiency, using simple tactics of growing and storing all the herbs I want all year—mostly in one of two basic frozen forms.You can make a “pesto” (as in: a sauce of crushed herbs) with many of your green garden flavors. Not just parsley (above), but sage, basil, rosemary, chives and garlic scapes will work—and probably more, using a little water or oil to semi-liquefy the harvest. I’m putting up some cilantro and dill, using both the ice-cube and rolled “log” tactics below, as a test this year, too.The recipes and how-to’s:Garlicky Green Ice Cubes. (How I make and freeze 365 days of basil pesto, and other herb pestos, too.) Will the Real Oregano Please Stand Up? (What a confusing herb this is! If your homegrown oregano tastes

LESPEDEZA THUNBERGII: A 6-by-6 fountain of late-summer into fall purple glory. Easy, too.HAKONECHLOA ‘ALL GOLD’: The Japanese forest grass turns my shady garden areas golden tones from May into winter.HELLEBORE HYBRIDS: Dry shade? No problem. Forgiving, beautiful, extra-early blooming perennials with evergreen foliage to boot.SEDUM ‘MATRONA’: Maybe my favorite of the taller sedums, all blue-green and pinkish in that sedum-y way.GERANIUM PHAEUM ‘SAMOBOR’: Perennial geraniums are a must; this one’s perhaps the mustest, showy and cooperative.LATHYRUS VERNUS: A little perennial pea of early spring (above) that’s delicate and durable; one of my sprin

Now I have a third way to put up my annual bounty of parsley (the first two are here): three “bunches” will go into each batch of “Parsley Soup” that Thomas says is like “a rustic leek and potato soup that’s been taken over by a gang of parsley, but in the nicest way.”A double batch of “Green Soup With Sweet Potatoes and Sage” (top photo, in the bowl on the right) is already in my freezer; a whole section of “green soups” (using leafy greens as a key ingredient) is a particular delight, since I seem to have mastered their growing this year and have more than I thought I could ever otherwise use.T

This year, I’m late, late, late—and I’m conveniently blaming circumstances beyond my control. After frozen ground in April, no rain for three-plus weeks in May, and a June of incredible deluges, some of my best-laid plans aren’t looking so swell. Maybe you’re in the same situation. With all the upside-down spring weather that made headlines around the nation, I suspect it’s not just me who fell “behind.” There’s still time for a positive outcome.Ken (below, saving tomato seed), founder of Hudson Valley Seed Library catalog and an organic seed farmer, joined me on the public-radio show and podcast to talk about planting for late summer into late fall harvest (think: pea-shoot salad, a succulent fresh batch of basil and more), and about seed saving.Read along as you listen to the July 13, 201

Joseph and I are two peas in a pod, you see, but also apples and oranges. Joseph, who gardens in Michigan, and I are both seed-catalog madpeople—but we’re mostly mad about different catalogs, and different items.Back on the first of December, I wrote to Joseph, author of “Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener,” to ask him if in, say, a month he’d be ready to talk about the latest catalogs.Silly me.“I just finished puttin

WHEN I CAME UPON THIS IMAGE BY CHANCE the other day in the Library of Congress online photo archives, it stopped me still.