Only for Gray-Haired Ladies? I’m coming out. Today. Let me explain. Decades ago, when just starting getting my hands in the dirt, I — perhaps other people, perhaps it was even true — thought it was only gray-haired ladies who grew African violets. As it turns out, a number of years after I had started […]
Asexual Propagation One of my great enjoyments in gardening is propagating plants. So many ways to do it! You can take stem cuttings or root cuttings, or you can serpentine layer, tip layer, or stool layer. And then there’s grafting, of which, as with layering and cuttage, many, many variations exist. Whole books have been […]
So Much From Which to Choose Of all the common tree fruits, pears are the easiest to grow — and not just here in New York’s Hudson Valley. My site is admittedly poor for tree fruits, the flat lowland acting like a reservoir into which cold, damp air flows, leading to increased threats from diseases […]
Biochar vs. Wood Chips People are funny. Take, for instance, a fellow gardener who, a couple of months ago, shared with me her excitement about a biochar workshop she had attended. “I can’t wait to get back into my garden and start making and using biochar,” she said. Biochar, one of gardening’s relatively new wunderkind, […]
Winter Games Trying to identify leafless trees this time of year is a nice game I like to play alone or with a companion as we walk about enjoying the brisk winter air. I like this game because it forces me to take a close look at the more subtle details of plants, in so […]
The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Supporting Artists?! I’ve been thumbing through my latest book, Fruit: From the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection. Most of the book is illustrations of many kinds and varieties of fruits painted by 20 artists over the years from 1892 to 1946. Most obvious is the beauty of the paintings. Less obvious […]
Spreading Limestone! Visiting Clyde (not his real name), a farmer friend, one summer day a few years ago, I came upon him sprinkling some white powder along a row in preparation for planting. In response to my wondering what he was doing, he said he was spreading limestone. I was surprised. In much of the […]
Fishing, Gardening “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” How true, also in gardening. Not to mention the emotional and intellectual gratification, the “companionship with gently growing things . . . [and] exercise which soothes the spirit and […]
Popcorn Traditions I was surprised at the different colors of my ears this fall — popcorn ears, that is. ‘Pink Pearl’ popcorn lived up to its name, yielding short ears with shiny, pink kernels. Peeling back each dry husk of ‘Pennsylvania Dutch Butter Flavored’ popcorn revealed rows of creamy white kernels. The surprise came from […]
Potted Figs, but First a “Haircut” Temperatures here have dipped into the lower 20s a few nights and still dip readily to around freezing, which might lead some of you to believe I have been neglectful of my fig trees, which are still outdoors. Not so! They are subtropical plants that can take temperatures down […]
