sowing seeds, growing vegetables, with lee reich

I have found a new commitment to growing and eating Brussels sprouts. From 3 or 4 plants last year I ate several hearty meals including a socially distanced Christmas (not because of any sprout side effects).

Lee’s tips for growing pawpaw or American persimmon couldn’t make it sound more appealing, or simple:“Plant it, water it, and keep weeds and deer away for a couple of years, and then do nothing,” he says. No fancy pruning (like those apples crave), no particular pests–and a big, juicy harvest. More details on how to choose which variety to grow are included in the highlights from the April 29, 2013 edition of my public-radio show and podcast, transcribed below. To hear the entire interview, use the streaming player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).growing ame

Like all of Ken’s 18 books (!!!), “Making More Plants: The Science, Art and Joy of Propagation” is rich in instruction, but also visually arresting, since he’s an award-winning photographer, too.  It covers the botany of propagation—the why’s behind how you can make more plants of a particular species sexually or asexually or both—because as Ken says:“It is not essential to learn about botany to garden well; it’s inevitable.”Then in words and intimate pictures he covers virtually every tactic for doing so, from seed-sowing to leaf and root cuttings, to layering, grafting, division and more.  The photos are so beautiful, and Ken’s obvious enthusiasm so evident on every page, that I want to try everything. (Just what I nee

I invited my favorite fruit expert, Lee Reich, author of many exceptional garden books, including “Grow Fruit Naturally” and “Weedless Gardening” and “The Pruning Book,” to come talk figs on my public-radio show and podcast. (I’m giving away a copy of “Grow Fruit Naturally;” enter by commenting in the box at the very bottom of the page.)I often refer to Lee as “the unusual fruit guy,” because one of his first books I read was “Uncommon Fruits Worthy of Attention.” Lee lives with blueberries and paw paws and medlars and kiwis and of course figs and more not far from me, across the Hudson in New Paltz, New York, on what he calls his farm-den (as in half-farm, half-garden) loaded with unusual fruits.Learn wh

YES, IN THE BEST-CASE SCENARIO, preparing to save seeds starts with decisions about what variety to plant in the first place, and rouging out weak and then “off types” that don’t measure up, or conform to the desired traits of that particular tomato or squash or zinnia. Inferior or atypical? Out you go!It’s a process that is repeated throughout the life cycle. For instance, you might pull the lettuce seedlings that are slowest to germinate from your row or cellpack; later pull and eat any with off-type foliage, and perhaps even rogue a third time if some individuals prove more inclined toward disease than others. Only let the best and brightest go to seed and provide the genetics for next year.Want to guard against inadvertent cross-pollination? A chart in the OSA’s guide clarifies what crops are vulnerable (and what close cousins they can cross with—such as carrots with wild Queen Anne’s lace, or that many brassicas, such as Brussels sprouts and kale

WEDNESDAY’S SNOW IS TURNING MY HILLY WORLD TO ICE; the day was so short as to be unforgivable; the forecast calls for 11 degrees F tonight, the second such low in a row. No matter, though, because in my imagination, at least, I’m having grilled tomatoes with a wildly handsome red fox, thanks to Hudson Valley Seed Library’s killer seed packets, like the one above. Got anybody who could use a smile in their holiday stocking? Take a peek at a few more:

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

BY LUMPING THE CROPS I SOW INDOORS in spring into three simple groups with similar time needs, I streamline my seed-starting. You’ll need to memorize only one fact to use my “lumped-together” countdown formula, and that’s your local date of average final frost (mine isn’t until close to June).The brassicas, like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower and kohlrabi, all have the same requirements: a month to six weeks indoors under lights before they go outside, which is safe about a month before final frost. This group therefore gets its start between March 15 and April 1 in my household. (Note with Brussels sprouts: many resources say sow them later, like May 1 or so, so they stand well into frost, when they achieve their best flavor. Today there are varieties requiring as few as 82ish days to maturity and as many as 100-plus, so take into consideration which you’re growing when you plan when to sow.)Tomatoes, peppers and eggplants make up my second group, each getting si

John, whose dramatic and delicious purple ‘Dragon’ carrot is bright orange inside, was reassuring as ever. First, don’t feel bad, he said. “Carrots are one of the harder vegetables to grow,” confirms John (with flowering carrots in an OSA photo, above), and for a few reasons:They’re such small plants when they first sprout (the seed isn’t too big, either; I like to use pelleted, shown below, and there are now pelleted ones that meet organic certification requirements).To get really good quality you need “unchecked growth”—no obstacles either literal (like rocky or otherwise tough soil) or meteorological (extremes of heat, cold or especially dryness). “Succulence and flavor wi

Whether you get technical or go generic with your terminology, it’s time to tuck tubers and corms and tuberous roots and rhizomes and yes, even some true bulbs into the soil for years of enjoyment. But which ones, and how?With help from horticulturist Jonathan Wright of Chanticleer Garden, who joined me on my public radio show and podcast, we’ll learn some less-than-expected uses of bulbs, like massed in lawns [photo below, at Chanticleer], and layered in containers. Plus: tips such as which bulbs are more animal-proof tha

HERE’S ANOTHER RECIPE that doesn’t require a recipe—you know, like my “baked pears,” when the dish’s name itself tells you the whole story. Instead of baking pears, I’m making roasted vegetables this weekend, as I do most every week in giant batches.  But I suppose there are always questions, such as: peel first, or not, or how hot should the oven be, and what do I dress the vegetables with first?

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