A New Word is Introduced I’d like to introduce the words farmden and farmdener into the English language. I wonder if there are any other farmdeners out there. What is a farmden? It’s more than a garden, less than a farm. That’s my definition, but it also could be described as a site with more […]
Green, Green, Green, and Flowers! After delivering a couple of lectures about gardening in North Carolina, I set off on a very short, whirlwind tour of the southeast, specifically North Carolina and Georgia, and ending with a stay in Charleston. How different from my spot here in New York’s Hudson Valley! For all Charleston’s uniqueness, […]
Celery Volunteers for Me I’m always on the lookout for volunteers in my garden, whether they’re people, fungi, plants, or any other organisms. The relationship is usually symbiotic. Human volunteers gain some knowledge and experience; I get some help in my ever-growing farmden. Fungal volunteers work with my plants, drinking in some of the sugars […]
Totipotentiality (Is This a Word?) I was so excited one day a few years back to receive a box full of leafless sticks by mail. The exciting thing about those sticks was that each one of them could grow into a whole new plant from whose branches would eventually hang luscious apples and grapes. […]
The Sap is Flowing In past years, now is when we would always hope to make enough maple syrup to last until the following year at about this time. Maple syrup consumption has dropped dramatically, leaving me with quite a backlog of the stuff. So trees haven’t been tapped for the past few years. Not […]
Houseplant Envy I wonder why my houseplants look so unattractive, at least compared to some other people’s houseplants. I was recently awed by the lushness and beauty of a friend’s orchid cactii, begonias, and ferns. I also grow orchid cactii and ferns, so what’s with mine? Perhaps the difference is that other’s houseplants have a […]
Snow Outside but Color Inside A day like this, a gray sky and six inches of fluffy, fresh snow laid gently atop the white already resting on the ground, hardly turns my mind to gardening or plants. Even the greenhouse, usually a cheery horticultural retreat in winter, is dark and cold. Snow on the roof […]
Water Freezes. Why Don’t Plants? (The following is adapted from my book, The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden, available wherever fine books are sold, and my website.) Not being able to don gloves and a scarf, or shiver, to keep warm, it’s a wonder that trees and […]
Cured! It’s finally time to get crackin’. Literally. Black walnuts are ready for shelling. This nutty story goes back to early this past autumn as black walnut trees were shedding their nuts. The nuts fall in their husks, the whole package looking like green tennis balls. Lots of people curse the trees for littering lawns, […]
An outdoor temperature of 8.2 degrees Fahrenheit this morning highlighted what a great time winter is for NOT gardening, but for reading about gardening. A lot of gardening books, new and old, end up on my bookshelves, and I’d like to note a few favorites new to my shelves last year. (Disclaimer: I had a […]
