Terra Cotta FlowerPot Girl

Marion Brenner

EVERY SUMMER, SOMEONE OF THE AMPHIBIAN PERSUASION sets up housekeeping in the seasonal water gardens by my kitchen door–a pair of big glazed clay troughs I fill with water and floating plants. This year’s renter: a female green frog who’s inclined to wearing something skimpy in green velveteen at poolside.

The guy up top is a dead giveaway: He’s a green frog (I know, he’s all yellow right now, but his species is green frog). The yellow coloration he adopts in mating season can be just underneath, on the chest (with his back staying greenish or brownish), or it can go all-out, as with this ultra-sexy individual. The frog below? It’s a green frog, too–but look at her ear, or tympanum–that flat disc on each side of the head, behind the eye (not the architectural element by the same name).If the tympanum in green frogs (or bullfrogs) is larger than the eye, it’s a male. About the same size as the eye or smaller? A female, and this one’s hiding in the semi-shade of some pondside vegetation, watching the antics of the males who are violently competing for her attentions.In some species (in the tropics, for example) it’s more like it is with many birds: males an

In a series of emails and Skype calls since I began A Way to Garden in 2008, Gayla and I have found so much shared turf:We two longtime organic gardeners can get riled up—over topics ranging from the environment, to chemical companies and the “business” of gardening in general, to dyed mulch and more (her most recent rant on offcolor mulch is way down in this post). We both overdo it—on plants, work, and a major inclination to cart home lots of rusty buckets and other “vintage” metal stuff from tag sales. We both live in the garden offseason crammed into spaces where in many rooms, the plants get a majority of the square footage. (And why not?) In addition to the usual tools, you’ll find us both with a camera in the garden, though Gayla is a professional ph

EVERY TIME I LOOK AT GAYLA TRAIL’s (a.k.a. You Grow Girl’s) latest book, “Easy Growing,” I want to infuse vinegars and oils and liqueurs with garden-fresh tastes, or hang herbs to dry and prep others to freeze for a wintry day when the garden can’t provide.  So I’ve invited the master of all such things—and an expert seed-saver, too, who even packs them in little handmade origami envelopes—to come visit in September and teach me her tricks for saving the harvest, and storing next year’s seed. Want to join us? Win a copy of her book if you can’t make it—or better yet, sign up for the September 8 daylong workshop with Gayla Trail here at my place. Space is very limited!

I confess, I’d become somewhat herb-complacent, always stocked up year-round on garden-grown parsley and garlic and sage and chives, but not very herb-adventurous any longer otherwise.  I have various other herbs in the garden, but mostly ornamental varieties—like gold-leaf creeping oregano (also called marjoram, and a great groundcover), or garlic chives (which I rarely eat, but whose late-summer white flowers the pollinators and I both enjoy very much).After saying goodbye much too soon that Sunday to Gayla, her husband, Davin Risk, and their dog, Molly, all I wanted to do was pulse aromatic things in my food-processor, and I made basil pesto to freeze in cubes, froze whose rosemary twigs, made a parsley log and more of my usual fare–the ways I always freeze herbs. But every time I looked over at the goodies I’d made in class the day before, I thought: more, more, more!Gayla re-awakened the herbalist in me, with “recipes” like these:homemade herb-infused vinegarsWE WARMED a stainless

I’M PULLING THE PEAS today, making room for another planting to reap in fall (forces willing).  With one pound of the shelling types that figure to be in the haul, I’m making a sort of pea pesto to serve on pasta, inspired by Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall’s newest cookbook, “River Cottage Veg,” and his dish called Macaroni Peas.  Get the recipe—and enter to win a copy of the book, proof positive that even a master of meat-centric culinary arts can be swayed to the botanical side of eating, and boasting 200-plus vegetarian recipe (60-plus of them vegan). First, a confession: I don’t own any other Fearnley-Wittingstall books—though I know him as a celebrated television chef; magazine columnist for “The Guardian;” founder of a reknown cooking school and restaurants in and around his base in the South West of England; and the winner of James Beard awards. I’ve been eating low on the food chain for 35 years, so Fearnley-Wittingstall’s biggest hit of all—“The River Cottage Meat Book”—and likewise his acclaimed fish cookbook didn’t match my kitchen style.

Hope Jahren is a geobiologist, a three-time Fulbright award recipient, and a tenured professor at the University of Hawaii. Beyond her scientific distinctions, she is also a lover of leaves, and of trees; in possession of a great gift for writing and a wild and wonderfully alive sense of humor, something, it turns out in the 20ish-years of adventures she takes us on in “Lab Girl,” that it never hurts having with her to fall back on.Read along as you listen to the July 4, 2016 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 ‘lab girl’ hope jahrenQ. Thank you for this exhilarating book, Hope Jahren. I’m not even sure how to say what it’s about without sounding all woo-woo and saying, “It’s about life.

WHEN I SAW on social media the other day that my friend Gayla Trail–a.k.a. You Grow Girl–was planning to self-publish a new book with crowd-sourced funding, I was curious. And then when I clicked over to have a closer look, it turned out that the book Gayla’s writing is actually called: “Grow Curious.”

She doesn’t have greenhouses or even a giant garden, but Toronto-based Gayla has plenty of homegrown leafy greens to eat over a very long season—including some wild varieties I bet you’ve never tried. Last time I checked, Gayla was harvesting basketful Number 50-something of the season (above) with more to come.Learn about being “moreganic” plus her favorite greens and best growing tips and who knows what else, because when Gayla and I get to talking…well, you know.Read along as you listen to the Sept. 3, 2018 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the

When we find a new TikTok trend perfect for our fellow home decor lovers, it's only right that we share. Though the coastal grandmother aesthetic took the cake as last year's favorite lifestyle to replicate (and it's one we still love to this day), TikTok has coined yet another summer aesthetic: the «tomato girl.»

Give your patio or porch a kick with these simple but super cute decopauged terra cotta pots. All you need are pretty napkins with shapes that can be cut out (I used napkins with roses), some mod podge, and a terra cotta pot.