the age of asparagus, and a 5-cookbook giveaway!

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Every year, Better Homes & Gardens celebrates the movers and shakers, authors and bakers, designers and makers who push the design envelope in ever-beautiful ways. They're called Stylemakers, and this year we're highlighting nearly 40 of our favorite creative thinkers, dreamers, and doers. Here, you'll find a bit about each 2023 Stylemaker, plus their current projects and passions.

Even green thumbs think it’s an uphill battle to say which one is a pansy and which one is a viola. That’s what happens when people emphasize classifications rather than plants. Everything gets all complicated and confusing.

As the country begins taking stock of the damage caused by hurricane Ophelia and works to restore power to much of Scotland and Northern England, gardeners throughout the country are lamenting the destruction of their gardens.

An unusual tree with even more unusual fruit.

For something a bit different this book on botanic art covers some of the unusual colours from black flowers, plants and seaweed like strange green, blue and puce pink.

They go by many common names, including horsemint and bergamot, but the common name I like the most for the plants in the genus Monarda is “Bee Balm.” Just as the name suggests, this group of plants is highly attractive to many types of bees and other pollinators and is a fantastic addition to any pollinator garden, providing an attractive flower display and nectar source through the hot summer months.

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

Called “the mystery plant of the herb world” by The Rodale Herb Book, “oregano” is the common name for a small multitude of plants that are mostly useless in the kitchen. Among them are many true oreganos, in the genus Origanum, and also many plants that aren’t. Mexican oregano (Lippia graveolens) is a relative of lemon verbena, not oregano. Cuban oregano (Coleus amboinicus) is a succulent that tastes and smells somewhat like oregano and makes a good houseplant. It is used like oregano in Cuban cuisine. Italian oregano thyme, a member of the genus Thymus, also has the familiar oregano scent.Among the true oreganos there are choices for great beauty, like O. vulgare ‘Aureum,’ a golden-leaved form. (My sorry plant was probably just plain O. vulgare—not even pretty like the golden kind.) Sweet marjoram, a kind of oregano known as O. majorana, is more the stuff of French cuisine, and an excellent culinary herb. Pot marjoram, O. onites, is also savory-flavored.But if you want to cook with the classic oregano taste, you want to try Greek oregano, O. heracleoticum, which is a pungent

LIKE THE GARDEN ITSELF, THE FORUM KEEPS GROWING. Thanks to many of you for joining in! Among my favorite threads of conversation this week: a discussion of favorite tomato varieties (won’t you share yours?), started by member Megansgreen, and another (posted by  Sailorgirl) on the p’s and q’s of botanical Latin (a subject I always adore).

DOES THAT IMAGE ABOVE LOOK FAMILIAR? It was the latest gift that blogging friends have been showering me with as I approach the Wednesday publication date of my book, “And I Shall Have Some Peace There.” In thousands of infinitesimal bits of recycled paper and fabric and who knows what, the collage depicts my little world here in astonishing detail, thanks to artist Mel Kolstad. It was commissioned by the inspirational Pam Kueber of Retro Renovation–both of them corporate dropouts like I am, by the way.

Sometimes entertaining–or even cooking a family meal–stresses the “ta-da” over the togetherness at the expense of the cook’s mental health. Sara Kate, whom I have never seen without her brilliant smile on full display, says that’s just not the point.“When I first started to work on this book, knowing it was in the entertaining category, I thought long and hard about what entertaining meant,” Sara Kate wrote recently on her blog.  “In my mind, entertaining as a word applied to my work is a bit of a silly notion; because this thing we do with food feels so much more deep than other forms of entertainment in our culture. The act of cooking is really about feeding the bellies and souls of the people we love, and I take it very seriously.”“Good Food to Share: Recipes for Entertaining With Family and Friends” will nourish on every level through all the