‘wild plant culture:’ edible and medicinal natives, with jared rosenbaum

Everyone loves falafel—it’s a year-round staple, and the frozen options at Trader Joe’s make it incredibly easy to prepare. But today, you should probably rid your freezer shelves of any Trader Joe’s falafel: In the company’s third food recall this week, on July 28 Trader Joe’s recalled its fan-favorite Fully Cooked Falafel after being informed by the supplier that rocks were found in the food.

The spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) (SLF) is the latest non-native species to take hold in the U.S. This planthopper is large (about a half-inch long) and originally from several countries in the Far East. It was first found in Pennsylvania in 2014, and active infestations are now established in Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and as of just last week, North Carolina. SLF has not been detected in South Carolina, but it is an insect for which we need to be on the lookout.

I’ll be roaming the Northeast in the early going, in places as close to home as the Berkshires of Massachusetts and the Hudson Valley of New York, but also across Massachusetts and as far as New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey and coastal Connecticut. Events here in the garden will begin again in April; stay tuned for a fuller schedule of those, with just the first couple mentioned below.What’s planned already:Saturday, February 19, 2 PM: Lecture to benefit Berkshire Botanical Garden, Monument Mountain Regional High School, Great Barrington, MA.Thursday, March 3, 7 PM: R.J. Ju

Michael Wojtech of Know Your Trees dot com and author of “Bark: A Field Guide to Trees of the Northeast” (Amazon affiliate link) can answer those questions, plus this one: Can you actually learn to identify trees by their bark (an especially useful skill now through spring, when many are leafless)? Hint: The answer is yes.Michael left a 15-year business career to pursue his love of natural history and writing, and earned his Master’s in Conservation Biology from Antioch University New England. His thesis, on tree bark, became the basis for the field guide. Though the book’s plant ID section covers trees of the Northeast, much of the ma

I PROMISED I WOULDN’T ADD EVEN AN EXTRA TRIP TO THE CURB WITH THE TRASH to my schedule, with all the mowing I have to do, but (big surprise) I layered on a couple of events, and I want to make sure you know about them, in case you are in the Hudson Valley/Berkshires vicinity this summer. Another container-gardening class, a 365-day garden lecture with an extra focus on water gardening and the frogboys, and a tour here in August (that last one you already might know about). Details, details:Sunday July 12, Containing Exuberance, container-gardening workshop, with Bob Hyland at Loomis Creek Nursery, near Hudson, New York, 11 AM to 1 PM, $5.

Like a carefully crafted sentence, the garden needs proper punctuation to read well, and clearly convey what’s going on. On the November 28, 2016 edition of my public-radio show and podcast, Ken and I discussed design challenges that these tall and narrow things answer; the technical difference between the columnar and fastigiate plants; and some of his favorites.Read along as you listen to the Nov. 28, 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).columnar tree and shrub q&a with ken druseQ. You got me thinking on our phone call the other morning—we were talking about earthworms and all these other crazy things…A. [Laughter.]Q. …and then you started talking abo

The new edition comes two-dozen years after the first, and includes 11 species not previously included.“The book itself really is a framework,” says Dunne. “It’s the ante that gets you into the game.” Bird identification, he says, “is really just a matter of learning a new acquaintance’s name–once you get past that that’s where the real fun begins, and you can start to get to know the person.” Er, or bird.It’s not just physical field markings, says Dunne—memorizing who has how many wing bars or what tail size and shape—any more than getting to know any of us is about our mere eye color or hair length.Important insights come from noticing what birds do, and where they do it. When speaking of habitat, and what clues it can offer, Dunne uses the analogy of going to a concert hall versus a football stadium: you expect to hear music in one, and watch a game in anot

Dan Long–proprietor of Brushwood Nursery aka gardenvines.com–is celebrating 15 years of selling an impressive assortment of hundreds of vining and climbing plants. He joined me from Athens, Georgia, on the latest radio show and podcast, to give us a tour through some upwardly mobile choices in the world of scented things. (Details on how to listen and subscribe free to the program are at the bottom of the page.)my fragrant-vine q&a with dan longQ. I mentioned the recent headlines of new fragrant Clematis–so maybe let’s start there before we talk jasmines and honeysuckles and even some passion flowers and climbing roses, among the many delicious possibilities. When I think fragrant clematis I think of C. mo

Kelly is a Pollinator Conservation Specialist for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, an international nonprofit organization that protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitat. In her dual role, she is also a partner biologist, based in New Jersey, with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.Kelly, who took her Masters in Entomology at Iowa State, provides technical support for planning, installing, and managing pollinator habitat across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States. She also conducts research aimed at the development of best practices for conserving beneficial insects in agricultural landscapes.Our Q&A follows, from the latest edition of my weekly public-radio program (details on how t

“I’m off to pick the overflow crop of ground cherries that I planted, because of a letter that Ma Ingalls wrote to her daughter. Ground cherry preserves anyone?”Well, the Ma Ingalls in that reply is none other than the mother of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the belove

It would be easy visiting or even looking at photos of a place where very large, old trees grow, to see nothing else, but Maloof’s book shines a light on all the life in the complex and interconnected community that is such a forest, from lichens to salamanders, snails to beetles, birds and more.Joan Maloof, a professor emeritus at Salisbury University in Maryland, founded the Old-Growth Forest Network to preserve, protect and promote the country’s few remaining stands of old-growth forest. She intr

My annual Seed Series continues with this seed source that is all new to me, including many unusual varieties available nowhere else but Experimental Farm Network dot org, the nonprofit cooperative whose co-founder, Nate Kleinman, was my latest radio/podcast guest. We talked about the EFN mission and the fascinating assortment of goodies they offer, including a whole stash of perennial edibles in their 2020 online catalog.A core belief at EFN: that agriculture can and should be used to help build a better world, not help destroy it. Co-founders Nate Kleinman (in New Jersey) and Dusty Hinz (in Minnesota) grow most of EFN’s seeds. Each year they’re adding more growers to their roster, including inspiring plant breeders who often wor