TOTIPOTENT — NOT WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE
I take a few cells (actually, short lengths of stem) from some pear trees for cloning into whole new trees. And then, on the other side of the farmden. Arnold’s Promise surprises me with blossoms — again!
Entries by Lee Reich
GREENING UP
Early spring greens are coming out in full force — in the greenhouse — without any help from me. Most abundant is claytonia but there’s plenty of mâche, my favorite, and too much chickweed, which I don’t eat, but could.
DOING SOMETHING ABOUT (MICRO)CLIMATE CHANGE
I decide to do something about the climate, the microclimate, to prevent fruit plants from blossoming too early. In the cool basement, a potted ‘Pakistan’ mulberry is the first of the subtropicals to act like winter’s over.
LITTLE ITALY IN THE HUDSON VALLEY
Once cured, my New York olive harvest was delectable, spurring me on to prepare the potted tree for a bigger harvest this year. Figs, in basement, still sleep, thankfully so.
MYSTERY OF THE UNDEAD ROSE
I come to appreciate death as a sign of life — in flower longevity. Not so happy with aging in the greenhouse, though; new seedings will, with spring-like weather in there, soon offer fresh, young lettuce, arugula, and other salad greenery.
OF MITES & MOISTURE
It Mite be a Pest Mites! Eek! A new pest in town (for me). Actually, the mites, which showed up on some newly rooted Meyer lemon cuttings, don’t really scare me, nothing like the scale insects that regularly turn up on some of my citrus. Chigger mites, scabies mites, dust mites, itch mites — […]
OLIVE HARVEST IN FULL SWING HERE
What To Do With This Year’s Harvest? Olive harvest will begin — and end — here this week. Yes, it’s late. After all, the harvest in Italy was in full swing weeks ago, back in autumn. But this is the Hudson Valley, in New York. What do you expect? I’m talking about harvesting real olives, […]
CHERRIES JUBILEE (I HOPE)
More Plants?!?!?! You’d think, after decades of gardening in the same place, that I by now would have planted every tree, shrub, and vine I could ever want or have space for. Not so! Every year I make up a “Plants to order” list, unfortunately before I hone down just where I’ll sink my […]
WINTER ‘SHROOMS, SUMMER DREAMS, & A WINNER
Mushrooms Think It’s Autumn Again The 15 oak logs sitting in the shade of my giant Norway spruce tree more than earned their keep last year. Seven of them got inoculated with plugs of shiitake mushroom spawn in the spring of 2013; eight of the were inoculated in the spring of 2014. With little […]
TO SAVE OR NOT TO SAVE, & A FREE BOOK!
New Seeds Needed? “Ring out the old, ring in the new.” But not all the “old,” when it comes to seeds for this year’s garden. I’m flipping through my plastic shoeboxes (I think that’s what the boxes are meant for) of vegetable and flower seeds, assessing what old seeds are worth keeping and what […]
