EASY EDAMAME
Soy Simple
I’m not going to ramble on and on in praise of the many health benefits of soybeans, their high quality protein, their healthful oil, and so on. Nor will I go on and on about how this plant, cultivated for thousands of years in Asia, has found its way into the manufacture of plastics and other hardgoods. Henry Ford was an early devotee of this plant, so much so that in the 1930s each Ford automobile ate up a bushel of soybeans in one form or another. I’ll also keep quiet about the gustatory alchemy that has been wrought on this bean to transform it into tofu and tempeh as well as ersatz meats, milk, and ice cream. 
What I won’t do, though, is restrain my praise of the simplest form of soybean (edamame), the fresh green bean Read more
PLANT SMALL, THINK BIG
Chillax
If delayed gratification sometimes seems to be too much a part of gardening, it does teach us to appreciate the means to an end as much as the end itself. Especially with planting trees. Your vision might call for a towering maple or spreading beech in a corner of your front yard, but you can do no more than plant one, care for it, and wait.
Not that full-sized trees cannot be — and sometimes are — moved for instant effect. Read more
THE POWER OF TOUCH
Too Tall and Too Thin
I hope that I’ve caught you in time, before your seedlings have stretched out too long and too thin. That’s a problem this time of year. Tomato, zinnia, and broccoli plants — they’re all growing up on sunny windowsills. It’s the combination of a bit too much warmth and a bit too little light that causes that stretching.
The easiest way around this problem would be to just wait until the weather warmed up enough to sow seeds directly outside. There, abundant sunlight, cooler temperatures, and buffeting by wind would make sturdy, stocky seedlings. Of course, do this and you won’t eat your first broccoli bud until the end of June, and you’ll have to wait until early September to admire your first zinnia flower or bite into your first tomato.
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