Call for Recipes About 30 years ago I wrote a book about fruits that were uncommon yet were uncommonly delicious and uncommonly easy to grow. That book has since gone out of print. It will soon be back in print, updated with additional “uncommon” fruits and, this time around, recipes. The fruits I wrote about […]
Note: If you live in a very hot summer climate, skip Part A and proceed to Part B. Part A. Perfect for Ambulant Consumption Part A. It’s about time that gooseberries got some respect. The plants are easy to grow, they tolerate shade, are usually ignored by deer and birds, except my ducks, and they […]
Makes a Lot of Scents Many years ago, at this time of the year, I was hiking in the nearby Shawangunk Mountains, in Minnewaska State Park, when a most delectable, spicy-sweet aroma wafted past my nose. I followed my nose off the trail and into the woods. After stepping over and around fallen stumps in […]
After about twenty years of waiting, I happened to look at the ground and see a pine cone. The only pine tree nearby is a Korean pine (Pinus koreanensis) that I planted that many years ago, a tree that liked its new home and has soared, in that time, to fifty feet in height. My […]
Roses, Oh Yes I bake really good bread, but “man can’t live by bread alone.” Sometimes, you’ve got to “stop to smell the roses.” Enough with the quotations! But back to the roses. A love of roses has crept up on me over the years, due mostly to changes in kinds of roses available. Up […]
“WEEDLESS GARDENING” webinar Are you interested in having a weedless garden this season? Yes? Learn how at my upcoming WEEDLESS GARDENING webinar. The system I’ll describe does more that just deal with weeds. It also lets your garden use water more efficiently, conserves valuable soil organic matter, lets you plant earlier in spring, and does […]
First Good-Tasting Berries of the Season Strawberries, the aptly named variety Earliglow, are ripe, which means it’s time to start crawling for fruit. That’s one thing I don’t like about strawberries. Another thing I don’t like about strawberries is that, although they’re perennial plants, a bed needs replanting after about 5 years. By then, viruses, […]
As Good As It Gets You might think that writing about good weather would tempt the fates. I’ll thumb my nose at the fates and go ahead and write that this spring is the best spring, gardenwise, ever in all the decades since I’ve been gardening. The flowers have been more vibrant with color and, […]
Lee Reich’s 13TH (?) ANNUAL PLANT SALE (of mostly lesser grown but delectable fruits) Because of covid, the sale is now online, with scheduled pickups here at the farmden in New Paltz, NY. Limited quantities of plants are still available (September Sun female kiwiberry, various varieties of fig, Blue Sunset lowbush blueberry, and Pineapple Crush […]
To Haul or Not to Haul Hauling manure hardly seems to make sense these days, considering that lugging 500 pounds of horse manure gives plants about the same amount of food as a 50 pound bag of 10-10-10. And the latter for only about ten bucks! But whereas 10-10-10 supplies only food (and only three […]
