Organic Gardening Adventures

Secrets to a Great Fall Harvest

2011-10-23T11:43:00.000-04:00

Written By: Tom DiGangi, Jr.

Photos By: Laura Knott & Tom DiGangi, Jr.

Each autumn, friends and family respond with quizzical looks and surprised comment when we report on the garden’s output in October, November and – yes, sometimes – December. When most folks are raking leaves and tossing rotting jack-o-lanterns, we are harvesting greens, peppers, root vegetables, and an assortment of herbs.

What then is the secret to a great fall harvest, you may ask? Actually, it’s at least three secrets.

First, the gardener must be lazy or preoccupied, and fail to harvest in summer. See previous blog posts, such as this post , which shall serve as testimony to the truism about us being lazy or preoccupied. This year, we simply didn’t harvest our fennel bulbs when they were ready in July – preoccupied I suppose. Maybe we were too busy watching the Philadelphia Phillies magical 102 win regular season. Then nature took its course. The large stalks began to die in the heat of summer, and all hope was lost for a harvest. Yet we let the dying plants just stay in place – lazy I suppose. Don’t repeat this to the kids, but our inaction was ultimately rewarded. Now, young bright green fennel plants are emerging around the brown and brittle stalks.

Unfortunately, this is not metaphor for the Phillies season, as they failed to sprout anew in the playoffs, instead just dying-off after the regular season. But, at least I have fennel for football season. Sunday football will feature whey-fed pork sausage sandwiches (from our friends at Bobolink farm) with sautéed fennel. I can taste it already. That sandwich could benefit from some peppers. But, peppers - you say - are summer fruits. They can’t join the party. This brings us to secret number two.

Invest in a fabric “greenhouse” or plastic “coldframe” to keep your summer plants going into winter. The theory is that a transparent cover over your planting beds allows sunlight in to warm the soil during the day and traps warm air throughout the night. If the greenhouse is too great an investment, then pick-up some cheap cloth row covers that you use to literally cover your crops (i.e., a sleeping bag for plants). You can remove them in the morning to allow direct sunlight and replace them in the evening to keep off the frost. They won’t work too long into the cold months, but will definitely extend the growing season. With row covers on, chances are the pepper plants, like the Giant Marconi seen here,

will last longer than my beloved Philadelphia Eagles will remain in the NFL playoff hunt. However, defeat in sports is much easier to digest when followed by a sausage, fennel and pepper sandwich.

Let’s say that you don’t have the patience for row cover management, or you're just not that into peppers. Then, focus on secret number three... next year.

Plant a garden that produces more than just summer season favorites like tomatoes, eggplant or cucumbers. Add in cool weather crops like celery root, fennel, horseradish, leeks, peppers, pumpkins, spinach, swiss chard and turnips. In our garden, these are all still going strong this fall. Some of these crops can be planted in spring for an early summer harvest, and may produce a second harvest in the fall. The fennel and swiss chard did just that for us this year. The multi-season life of chard is evident in this photo.

New crisp leaves appear from the tops of the roots, now revealed from the snipping of leaves from those roots all year long.

Come to think of it, that swiss chard sautéed in a bit of garlic and olive oil would go really well with the sausage, fennel and peppers. Now, if we could figure out how to grow beer, then we would really have something to make us feel better about Philadelphia sports this autumn.

A Beginner's Cut Flower Garden - First Steps

2011-05-12T21:49:00.254-04:00

An ideal day for a cut flower article would have been Mother's Day, but I am running severely behind schedule (as usual) and haven't gotten to it. I normally celebrate Mother's Day with a reprint of my favorite blog entry ever, known as Joyce's Mother's Day Heist. Alas, even that little bit of nostalgia got passed over this year in the May melee of summer garden prep.

You see, we last left off in the fall with the semi-completion of what I fondly call "The Great Wall of Tommy" (hereafter known as GWOT). All of the remaining grass inside our fence was tilled up and turned into a two-tiered vegetable garden with about 17 raised beds, plus the plantings all around the fence perimeter. In total it's about 3600 square feet of delicious full sun exposure resulting in (FINALLY!) enough room for a cut flower garden.

I've always wanted cut flowers but felt that every square inch of sun needed to be reserved for tomatoes and peppers. That would not have been a problem if only I lived in Vermont somewhere in the proximity of Waitsfield. If I did, I would just buy a share of Amy's Organic Cut Flowers and let her do all the work. A $100 share gets you 10 fresh bouquets - one per week for ten weeks. That is an amazing deal, considering you would pay about the same amount for non-organic, non-local, and not-long-for-this-world flowers from your grocery store. I really wish I lived closer and could do this, but without an expensive relocation on the horizon, I figured the next best thing would be too start digging and then check in with Amy Todisco herself for some advice.

The two beds I chose flank the GWOT, and will hopefully make a lovely first impression upon entry to the veggies. The bed on the left had been empty and mulched last fall, and was not too bad when April rolled around. However, the bed on the right had some token fall plantings and no mulch. The result? Well, let's see. Or let's talk about what you DON'T see here: some lovely varieties of stonecrop slowly choking to death , a series of unimpressed rose of sharon saplings, overwintered ornamental cabbages, depressed mums, buried lamb's ears, a high-maintenance diva rosebush crying into her martini, and my lonely little buddha (though enlightened and non-attached, still secretly wishing to be back safely on the shelf at the Christmas Tree Shoppe with his other identical buddha friends). What you DO see is an obnoxious little white flowered creeper called chickweed, which spreads by running along the ground and dropping seeds to come up next year. The bed on the left had a total of about four of these plants and took minutes to weed. But weeding that other bed resulted in scenes both dirty and graphic, involving filth, sweat, and various and sundry four letter words. Let's take this time to look away, and check in with Amy about some important first steps.

I asked Amy for advice about starting a cut flower garden for the first time. What follows is Amy's handy to-do list.

1. Choose a full sun location (at least 8 hours per day).
2. Soil should drain well.
3. I would recommend getting a soil test to see what kind of fertility it has and what it might need. Usually the agricultural extension office in each state can provide this for gardeners.
4. Choose flowers. Probably planting seedlings versus seeds is the easier route for the first garden. Seeds take a long time and it's more satisfying for the new gardener to see something already in the ground.
5. Ideally, grow organically (which means using compost as opposed to Miracle Gro, as well as liquid seaweed and/or fish emulsion for fertilizer, and no pesticides.)
6. Water, weed, and watch as the flowers grow, attracting butterflies and bees, and impressed onlookers.

Wonderful! Now here's the part where I admit that I asked Amy's advice after already choosing the site, buying plants, and digging. As luck would have it, I did pretty well except for the soil test part. I always mean to get one of those! One of these days ...

Soon after I started, my beds looked more like this:

I managed to rescue the lamb's ears from the right and move them to the left bed, as seen above. The mums and rose of sharon trees were relocated, and the cabbages put in a pot until their inevitable death due to the heat of summer. Most of the stonecrop survived, and I transplanted some creeping thyme between the stones in the path. The diva rose stayed put, shooting me dirty looks and talking on her tiny cell phone the whole time (she's named "Bella Donna" so I should've known she'd be a pain). The buddha breathed a sigh of relief and I gave him a nice wild portulacca plant to hold in his cupped hands. Done.

And now for the real fun. I had already done the shopping for plants, doing a lot of googling to find recommendations. I was planning on mixing perennials with annual plants, annual seeds and even vegetables, space permitting. Here's my current inventory:

Perennials - Foxglove, Delphinium, Liatris, Thrift, English Daisy, Sea Holly, Yarrow, Blanket Flower, Salvia, Peony, Lupine

Annuals - Zinnia, Osteospermum, Dahlia, Snapdragon, Cosmos

Seeds - Zinnia, Sunflowers, Sweet Peas

Veg - Malabar Spinach, Grapevine (to grow over the deck)

Of course, I had to ask Amy about her favorites as well: "Let's see, my favorite cut flowers at this point, and I may change my mind after this season growing some new ones, are zinnias, sweet peas and snapdragons. I also like the perennial peonies-the more fragrant the better. And, I love lavender-the flowers, the essential oil, you name it." That means Amy can jump off the turnpike the next time she's cutting through Jersey to get someplace else and will still be able to find her favorite flowers in my yard!

And there you have it. My cut flower garden is on it's way, but not completed. The plants are in, seeds are sprouting, soaker hoses are laid out, but the mulch isn't in place. I'd like to have my "after" picture with some big beautiful flowers in it, so give me another month for the fascinating conclusion of my cut flower adventure! Thanks again to Amy Todisco for indulging my requests for input, and best of luck to her and her cut flower garden CSA. Please check out her websites, especially the cool products she offers on her website www.greenlivingnow.com.

Thanks for reading, and see you soon!

Wild Foods Of Spring: Fresh Trout and Twin Crustini

2011-04-22T22:10:00.000-04:00

by Tom DiGangi, Jr.

I set out to create a meal constructed fundamentally of wild ingredients. This endeavor has become something of a rite of spring in recent years. It sounds like a big project - making a meal without a trip to the store - but in all honesty, it’s pretty easy.

The project began at six o’clock on a drizzlely Tuesday evening, after the standard vehicular combat along Interstate 78 that some people would call “commuting.” A quick change of clothes – from blue suit, red tie and winged-tip shoes to wading pants, fishing vest and Indiana Jones-inspired hat – and I was soon casting a fly into the Pohatcong Creek that borders our property. A dozen or so casts later, and the main ingredient was procured and dispatched, streamside.

SOAPBOX WARNING (If you are uninterested in conservation, skip this paragraph.)

Now, it is rare that I keep a fish to eat. Years of informal fishing education have gotten at least one important concept to stick in the chowder that passes for my brain. That is…we can’t just treat our planet like everything in it is ours for the taking. We humans have to conserve the gifts of nature, not screw around with them, or worse, not recognize them as gifts at all. I suppose that’s why Laura and I take so much pleasure in gardening. You plant something. You care for that thing. That thing and the other things around it support each other (e.g. bees and fruiting plants). Finally, that thing feeds you, and you start the cycle all over, again. So, when I kept a single trout for dinner on that Tuesday evening, it was with great humility and respect, and promises to release the next dozen fish I catch and to support a Trout Unlimited stream restoration project next weekend.

ALL CLEAR (It is now safe to keep reading.)

Cleaned trout in hand, I proceeded to the garden, along the way, pulling some dandelion greens from the lawn. In the garden, I snipped some chives and harvested some over-wintered spring onions.

Here is what I did with the ingredients, including some of our previously harvested and stored garlic, locally produced honey and unfiltered apple cider vinegar. Laura makes her own bread. So the only products not self-produced or local were the salt, pepper and olive oil. Not bad.

Pan-Seared Wild Trout with Dandelion and Spring Onion Crustini (Serves Two)

Ingredients

1 Whole Wild Trout (gutted, head and fins removed)

4 Spring Onions or Scallions (roots removed)

4 Slices of Crusty French Bread (½-inch think slices)

1 Garlic Clove

3C Dandelion Greens (roots, stems and flowers removed)

½C Chives

1T Wild Flower Honey (local, if possible)

7T Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1T Apple Cider Vinegar

Black Pepper (freshly cracked)

Salt to taste (sea, grey or kosher)

Procedure

To make the Crustini… Toast the bread slices until golden brown. Rub each slice with the whole garlic clove to transfer the essence of garlic to the bread. Drizzle 1 teaspoon of olive oil over each slice (4 teaspoons in total) and set-aside.

To make the Fish… Season the whole, cleaned fish inside and out with salt and pepper. Add 1 tablespoon of the oil to a non-stick pan and place over medium heat. When the oil starts to shimmer, add the fish and the spring onions to the pan. Cook for 5-7 minutes depending on the size of the fish. Flip the fish and cook an additional 5-7 minutes. The onions should finish in the same time as the fish. Remove the fish and onions from the pan. With a sharp knife, remove the fillets from the fish by making an incision along the back (dorsal) of the fish and gently separating the fillets from the bones. Set-aside.

To make the Salad… In a non-reactive bowl, make the dressing by whisking the honey, vinegar, salt and pepper to combine. Slowly add 3 tablespoons of the oil while whisking to create an emulsion. Add the dandelion greens and chives to the bowl with the dressing and toss gently to coat.

To plate the dish… place a fillet in the center of each of the two plates, and a slice of crustini on both sides of each fillet. Top one crustino with the green onions and the other crustino with the dandelion and chive salad. Duplicate with the other plate. Drizzle both plates with the remaining oil, and serve with a white wine such as Riesling Trocken.

Gourmet Weed Primer - Dandelions, Part II

2011-04-21T14:08:00.004-04:00

Dandelion Pappardelle with Chicken Ragu (Serves 4) - Tom DiGangi Jr.

Here are a few things to know about this recipe. First, pappardelle is a ribbon-shaped pasta about five inches long and one inch wide. Second, if you don’t have duck fat lying around the house like we do, just use a little extra olive oil or bacon fat. Third, please do not use chicken breast meat, as it will be dry and tasteless in this dish. Finally, stirring-in the ricotta cheese with the heat off is critical to making a creamy sauce. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Pasta:

3 Eggs

2 ½C (300g) All-purpose flour

1C Blanched and squeezed-dry dandelion greens

4 Chicken thighs (bones and skin removed)

1T Extra virgin olive oil

Sauce:

3T Extra virgin olive oil

1T Duck fat

1 Yellow Onion, diced

1 Carrot, diced

2 Celery Stalks, diced

2 Garlic Cloves, crushed

1t Red pepper flakes

2t Dried sage

1C Red wine

8oz Canned Plum tomatoes with packing juice

½C frozen peas

2T Fresh garlic chives, minced

2T Ricotta cheese

2T Grated parmigano reggiano cheese

Salt to taste

Procedure

To make the pappardelle, squeeze all of the water out of the dandelion greens and process to a fine paste in a food processor. Add the eggs and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, and process until well incorporated. Next, add the flour and process until a ball of dough is formed. Remove the dough and kneed for a few minutes on a lightly floured surface to form a smooth, not sticky, ball. Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest in the refrigerator for at least a ½ hour. Roll out the pasta into thin sheets, using extra flour to keep the dough workable. Using a pasta roller attachment for an electric mixer is a good way to make the rolling process easier and the end product more consistent. Then cut the sheets into 1-inch wide ribbons to form the pappardelle.

To make the ragu, heat the duck fat and 2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large dutch oven over medium heat. Brown the chicken thighs for a few minutes on one side. Turn the chicken over and add the onion, carrot, celery, garlic, red pepper flakes and sage. Sauté the chicken, vegetables and spices for a few minutes more, then add the tomatoes (crushing them in your hand as you go) and red wine. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and let simmer for 40 minutes. Add the peas and continue simmering for another 10 minutes.

To finish the dish, boil the pasta in a gallon of salted water for just a couple minutes. Add the pasta to the ragu. Remove the ragu from the heat. Stir in the chives and cheeses. Adjust the seasoning and serve immediately with a hearty red wine, like Dolcetto.

Think we're done with dandelion? Nope. Stay tuned for Tom's next wild foods meal and his recipe for Pan-Seared Wild Trout with Dandelion and Spring Onion Crustini.

Gourmet Weed Primer - Dandelions, Part I

2011-04-19T20:21:00.006-04:00

I mean it! It's dandelion week in our yard, house and blog, and Tom is fired up about it. I harvested a smidgen of a fraction of those onerous weeds cropping up in our garden beds, and Tom has been blanching, sauteing, kneading and pulverizing these things into new recipes. Even NPR caught the vibe of his enthusiasm this week with an interview of wild greens forager Sam Thayer. If you're not sure WHY you should be eating dandelions, check out the NPR interview or visit my blog entry from last year - The Easiest Way To Remove Dandelion Weeds From Your Garden. But if you want to know WHAT you should be doing with the dandelions once harvested, TommyD is your man.

Dandelions – My Port in a Storm

Tom DiGangi Jr.

In all honesty, I don’t love dandelion greens. Most of the time, I just like them. Arugula, chard and spinach are the greens I would marry. Dandelions deserve a couple of dates, and then… move on. But, that’s just fine with me.

As winter wanes, my desire for fresh greens waxes. So, each spring, dandelions and I have a nice dinner, maybe take-in a movie, you know… get reacquainted. Then, we lose touch for the rest of the year, until winter creates that longing, once again. It’s a great relationship. And, after a harsh winter like this one, I’m fired up about spending some time in my port in a cold and snowy storm.

The dandelion is bitter and intense. Yet, it is enticing because it is the first produce from our yard. The trick is to find ways to tame the intensity of dandelions. Here are two recipes to mellow the personality of this spring spark plug. They both employ a technique called “blanching,” which reduces the bitter flavor and sets the bright green color of the greens. The recipes also utilize my other favorite harbinger of spring – garlic chives – highlighting the adage “what grows together, goes together.”

Thai Dandelion and Carrot Soup (Serves 2)

Ingredients

1 Quart Asian-inspired stock (see below)

1 Carrot, quarter inch dice

1 Quart freshly harvested dandelion greens (no roots or flowers, please)

1T fresh garlic chives, minced

2T soy sauce

Salt to taste

Procedure

Blanch the dandelion greens by placing them in a large pot of salted and vigorously boiling water for two minutes. Remove the greens and “shock” them in a large bowl of ice water, mixing the greens until they are cool. Then drain the greens, and set-aside.

Combine a quart of the stock and the diced carrots in a small pot. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and let simmer until the carrots are almost cooked through (about 10 minutes). Chop the blanched dandelion greens into bite-sized pieces and add to the pot to simmer for a few minutes. Turn off the heat and stir-in the chives and soy sauce. Adjust the salt to taste and slurp up the liquid health.

Asian-inspired stock

Ingredients

Handful of leftover chicken and/or pork bones

1 Onion

1 Carrot

3-4 Fennel stems

3T Fresh cilantro

3 Dried Thai chiles

1 Star anise

3T sun dried tomatoes

3 Garlic cloves

3 Fresh quarter inch thick ginger slices

3 Quarts of water

Procedure

To make the stock, combine all ingredients in a 4-quart (or larger) pot and simmer, mostly covered, for at least 2 hours. Skim the foam off the top of the stock occasionally while simmering. Pass the stock though a sieve. Discard the solids. Let your imagination and the contents of your pantry and fridge create variations on this list. Ultimately, you are just looking for a homemade, healthy and flavorful stock, with some classic Asian dimensions.

Come back tomorrow for Tom's recipe for Dandelion Pappardelle With Chicken Ragu!

Seed Starting Update: The Analysis of Failure

2011-03-13T20:58:00.006-04:00

Once again, it's been a month since a post even after I swore I'd be doing weekly garden journal updates. Although my first crop of seeds fared mostly well, I had a few large exceptions. What better way to learn from mistake than by a thorough self-deprecating analysis, right?

TWO RULES FOR SUCCESSFULLY STARTING SEEDS:

1.) Don't accidentally delete your business website, or undertake a kitchen renovation, or pick up a completely consuming fiction trilogy (damn you, Lisbeth Salander!) or anything else that might cause you to totally forget to water your seeds. News flash: seeds need to be kept evenly moist. Duh .... loser! (C.Sheen)

2.) Don't decide that all seeds generally follow that same rules for soil, temperature, and lighting needs. Well, actually, you can, and get fairly good results. But you will have failures and will wind up disappointed. Here's my real life example.

My seed mix consists of 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 perlite. Once sown, I water seeds from the bottom, mist spray the top, and then cover with plastic to create a warm humid environment. They are placed under fluorescent lights which are on all the time. The seeds vary in age, depending on when I bought them. I put a heating pad under the peppers, husk cherry, epazote and culantro to keep the soil temp at about 70 degrees.

This method worked just fine for my tomatoes, epazote, chervil, and fennel. But not all my planted seeds worked as well, and here are my seed failure reasons.

Inconsistent Watering: Once again, don't underwater. You will kill your stuff, or diminish germination rates. While we're on the topic, don't overwater either. Overwatering rots seeds, and can lead to fungus and disease trouble. Although my fennel and chervil germinated fine, the both perished the weekend we went to the Philadelphia Flower Show. The show was great, but my seeds did not appreciate my neglect.
Old Seeds: My peppers barely germinated, and the parsley and the sage didn't germinate even a bit. One possible reason is seed age. I have ten year old tomato seeds which are still growing up every year, but pepper seeds only last a year or two. All seeds have the production year stamped on them, so pay attention or you're wasting your time.
Soil Needs: I took a whirl at culantro (also called "false cilantro") seeds having no idea how they were going to work. Not surprisingly, they didn't work at all. Some brief googling revealed that culatro seeds are not only sensitive age-wise (they need to be used within months of purchase) but they prefer a pure peat moss starting mix with no seed burial. They also take some extra time. I'm going to retry these and see what happens.
Seed Treatment: Certain seeds need to be tricked into thinking they are in their natural habitat and growing conditions in the real world. "Stratification" is the art of bringing seeds out of dormancy by applying levels of cold and moisture to imitate winter conditions. One way to do that is by keeping seeds between moist paper towels in the refridgerator. Another way is to just direct sow the seeds where you want them instead of starting them inside. This is another potential reason why my poor parsley failed.

I started two more flats this past week and for the most part, I will probably not learn from my mistakes. So stay tuned!

If It's For Free, It's For Me: Garden Resources To Get Organized

2011-02-08T14:23:00.018-05:00

Picture this: it's three months from now, and time to transplant those meticulously grown tomato and pepper plants (multiple varieties of each, of course). That means it's also time to direct sow beans, and of course, I can't just grow one kind. I take my trusty (beat-up, dirty, and badly organized) garden tool bag, my garden journal (also a mess), my seed packet pile, and my hopefully-still-properly-labeled transplants.

Then I start to wonder which plants will go where and in what order. I start jotting down some scribbly notes which make perfect sense at the time but won't make any sense in a month when stuff starts growing. At the exact moment I realize my plant tags have faded in the sun and I can't tell hot vs. sweet peppers, I will also remember that I never made a proper map of the layout. Problem. The beans don't look happy either. Were they bush beans or pole beans? Were they shelling beans or fillet beans? Suddenly, meal times become a dangerous game of Russian roulette. "Here Tom, I sauteed some Italian frying peppers" "Are they hot or sweet?" "Erm, not sure" [watches as Tom pops one into his mouth, pauses, then makes The Face] "Yes, then those would be the hot ones."

I always garden like I am being chased by a live tiger, when the tiger is in fact made out of a giant to-do list shaped like a tiger and given tiger-like properties by my active imagination. Obviously, rushing around leads to an inattention to detail that produces some crappy results. Can I be saved from myself? Who knows. But with a stubborn two feet of snow still on the ground, now is the time to get some organization skills in place. Google, take me away!

Seed Starting Chart: Organic Gardening Magazine kept a seed starting chart housed on its website for years, and now that I need a fresh copy, it is nowhere to be found. Basically, it consisted of a list of common garden veggies, how long they take to grow from seed, and how many weeks before or after your last frost date that they should be planted. I always printed the sheets and kept two calculations - one for my "early" crops that would go out under protection from the cold (April 1st), and my "late" crops that would go out on time (May 15th). Once I decided my two planting dates, I would go backward from there and calculate when precisely to start the seeds which was an elaborate pain.

But hark! Having been forced to look for an alternative chart to share on my blog, in no time at all I found this wonderful excel spreadsheet that does the math for you. Check out the "lazy gardener's seed starting chart" at You Grow Girl. All you have to do is download it, and enter the date for your time zone. It even provides a link to the Farmers' Almanac list of frost free dates by region. This is already a huge improvement over my pencil scribble list.

Online Garden Planners: I still love my pencil/graph paper/college rule notebook. I do. But my vegetable garden has grown exponentially over the years, and I can't keep my paper templates in order. I don't have enough room to view the entire garden on one page per season as an aerial map overview, and it's really hard to keep track of crop rotations. I think my solution is to get some helpful software.

This will be my first computer-oriented gardening year thanks to Mother Earth News and their online vegetable garden planner. Although it does not belong in this article since it's only free for the first month, you can practice on the demo to see how it works and decide ahead of time whether it's worthwhile for purchase. I did the 30 day trial so I could actually start putting in my garden dimensions, and I'm finding it pretty user friendly. The demo videos show you exactly how to input your garden bed layout with its exact dimension. Once I get the bed layout put into the online map, I can click and drag various fruits and vegetables from the menu into their potential new homes. The software automatically calculates how many can fit in the space I have (which in itself is vastly useful to me since I am a pathological over-planter). Then it will help me use all this information to calculate crop rotations and succession planting. The downside to this is the yearly $24 subscription fee, and the fact that it doesn't SEEM to allow for integrating exact varieties of annual and perennial flowers among the vegetables. It has a placeholder called "flower" but that isn't the level of detail I need. But maybe I just haven't figured out how to do that party yet. If you have a small garden, I believe this application is really over kill, and probably not worth the investment. This year I will have about 18 raised garden beds of various shapes and sizes, so this might be really helpful for me, which saving Tom some unnecessary food-induced pain.

I've run into another great website with some truly free garden resources. Myfolia found me on the Twitter account that I can't seem to learn how to properly operate. It appears to be a hybrid garden planner and social networking site for gardeners. A free account let's you set your profile with your plant hardiness zone, which then links you to other gardeners in your area. It has easy connections to Twitter and Facebook, along with Flikr and other photo accounts. Aside from the community garden feel, the account lets you input and track your plantings, add journal entries, make task lists, organize your seed stash, and even arrange seed swaps with other members. This application seems more list oriented than map oriented, so it could be a good addition to the Mother Earth planner. They even have a mobile app so you can update your info FROM YOUR GARDEN! I don't know if I would use it, since I much prefer to write stuff down on random pieces of paper and lose it. Finally, wouldn't it be super neat-o to find other garden nerds in my area besides the only other one I know!?! (That would be you, Dina).

While we're working the free theme.....

Free Seeds: Oh no! This offer ends tomorrow, but I just heard about it. Click the link to the blog for Your Small Kitchen Garden and follow the instructions for getting your own free squash and tomato seeds. Move yourself up higher on the waiting list by sharing the info on Twitter or Facebook! But the generous gardener at this blog stops taking names tomorrow, so get moving.

Ed Hume Seeds will send you a seed packet in the hope that you will donate some of your veggie proceeds to the worthwhile program Plant a Row For the Hungry.

The Dinner Garden has designated national site for picking up your free seed offerings. If you don't have one nearby, you can submit your information via email for delivery via mail.

I'm stopping here, because there seem to be quite a few free seed offers once you start looking around. Also, I have given my self A LOT of homework to do as a result of this article. I need to follow my own advice and get organized.

JOURNAL NOTE: Day 7 of the tomato/pepper/herb seed under lights, and all is quiet. Hopefully by next weekend, I'll have some germination. Talk to you later!

I'm With Fergie. Let's Get It Started!

2011-02-06T04:00:00.000-05:00

Even though I'm from Pennsylvania, I'm not referring to the single most important Sunday event in winter. Nor am I referring to the famous burrowing rodent from the western part of the state who pretends to be a psychic. No. Neither of these events leave me with any optimism or hopefulness after this beastly Northeastern winter we've had (and will likely continue to have, regardless of what the garden-gobbling varmint claims). My only source of hope lies in my dingy basement, since it is officially time to start early tomato, pepper and herb seedlings!

Seed starting is the official beginning of my personal spring, which is also the beginning of this year's grand garden schemes and resolutions. To hold myself accountable, 2011's garden resolutions are as follows:

1.) The meticulously chopped and bagged leaves from last fall will be placed on the garden for mulch AS the plants go in, as opposed to AFTER all weedy hell has broken loose.

2.) Trellises will be built and installed AS the plants go in, as opposed to AFTER the plants have hit that gawky teenager growth spurt that leaves them as impossible to manage as human teenagers.

3.) The blog will be ACTUALLY UPDATED and used regularly as a place to record relevant information, instead of being a high school creative writing project. Wherever she may be, Mrs. Timms is not likely reading this and recording my grade in that giant green ledger teachers used in the 80's.

4.) Thanks to this handy online garden planner, I swear to actually document what I plant and where I planted it, abandoning my previous habit of jotting stuff on random pieces of paper, losing it, and having no idea which variety of vegetable I am harvesting.

5.) Lastly, "Laura's Organic Gardening Adventures" will now just be "Organic Gardening Adventures" since Chef Tommy is doing more than his fair share of writing, cooking and hauling stones around. Time to give credit where credit is due.

I mean it, people. I really do. And where I would normally spend the next hour concocting a creative, funny and interesting last paragraph, I will now proceed to resolution #3. Let it be known that on this date, seeds were started in my homemade potting mix (equal parts compost, perlite and peat moss), packaged into plastic grape tomato containers saved from the grocery store, and placed under 4' fluorescent bulbs in my hideously ugly seed starting shelving unit shown here.

Seeds started today ..........

Tomatoes: Garden Peach, Sugar Snacker, Husk Cherry, Beaverlodge, San Marzano

Artichoke: Imperial Star

Fennel: Fino

Peppers: Ring-O-Fire Cayenne, Piquillo

Herbs: Common Sage, Italian Parsley, Chervil, Epazote, Culantro

I put the peppers, epazote, culantro, and artichokes on top of a heating pad, since they seem to need a little more heat to germinate. I have no idea whether the sage will germinate since it's a perennial, and those are usually tricky to start from seed. I'm just going to wing it and see what happens. The rest should be no big deal.

I'm most proud of the San Marzano seeds, since I filched them from Sicily (SSSSHHHHHHH!) in 2003 and the original seeds are still germinating well. I find this variety to be smaller and denser than other San Marzano seeds I've purchased elsewhere. Hopefully I'll get a good crop and save some of the seeds so I can get some fresh stock. I'm equally proud of the Sugar Snacker. I bought this as a plant from a big box store6 or 7 years ago and have never seen it since as a plant or seed. I save the seeds every year. The fruits are tiny, bright orange, and the sweetest cherry tomato you will ever taste. The vines themselves are monstrous, uncontrollable, and produce like crazy. These jerks topple every trellis I've ever made, but they are always worth it.

I usually consider these tomatoes and peppers my "early" plants because they will be put out under protective coverings called Wall-o-waters about two months earlier than is appropriate for my area. The goal, of course, is home grown tomatoes in June. The Beaverlodge variety is an early maturing hybrid with only 55 days to harvest according to the seed packet. So IF I do everything exactly the way I'm supposed to do it (not likely) tomatoes in June should be a cinch this year. Of course, hybrids with that early a maturity date were bred for speed, not flavor, so they probably won't be the most fantastic tasting tomatoes ever. But that first tomato from the garden tastes great every year, no matter what.

That's my story for today folks! By now the game should we winding down, marking yet another winter milestone. And even though I was out today trying to shovel through ice so the mail lady could drive to the mailbox to deliver me her goods, I was using Grandpa Knott's rusty old garden spade to do it. Let the 2011 garden season begin!

Welcome Back to the Autumnal Gourds

2010-11-23T14:22:00.000-05:00

Tom DiGangi, Jr.

One great thing about living in a part of the world that experiences seasons is that there is always something different to eat. Each fall, we enjoy the transition from the fresh fruits and crisp salads of summer to the more mellow flavors and softer textures of slow-cooked hearty vegetables that fit with the cooler weather. The earthy sweetness of onions, leeks, chards and especially the wide range of gourds, from acorn squash to pumpkins, are perfectly appropriate for cooking in this autumnal style. Butternut squash is a favorite as it is easy to find at markets - if you aren’t growing your own - and it tastes great.

Risotto with Butternut Squash and Smoked Mozzarella Cheese

On a trip to Italy a few years back, Laura and I discovered that Italians don’t make a big deal about varieties of squash. For the most part, it is all just “Zucca.” We learned this from a gregarious and rotund chef at a small osteria in Campania. Due to the wine involved in the dinner, I remember very little about the place. In fact, I only remember the chef was gregarious and rotund because of a photo – embarrassingly enough – of Laura and me seated on his lap (rotund), while he sang songs (gregarious). In addition to being our chef and host, he was essentially our gondola and gondolier, all in one enormous package. It’s weird, I know, but true.

The other thing I remember was the “Risotto di Zucca con Scamorza” or “Pumpkin Rice with Smoked Mozzarella Cheese.” It was November, and the season for zucca was in swing, so we had to try it. It was fabulously creamy and a lit bit smoky. Scamorza is a lightly smoked cheese, traditionally made by hanging balls of mozzarella over a hearth for a short time. I have had versions of this cheese in the States, and they are usually too smoky for my taste. So, for this recipe I combine smoked and fresh mozzarella to keep the flavor subtle. Butternut squash plays the role of zucca.

Ingredients

1 ½ Cups Arborio Rice

1 Small Butternut Squash (seeds removed, shredded on the large side of a box grater)

1 Medium White Onion (finely diced)

6 Leaves Fresh Sage

¼ t. Freshly Grated Nutmeg

3T. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

6T. Butter

1 Cup White Wine (not cooking wine)

6 Cups Chicken or Vegetable Stock (hot)

4oz. Fresh Mozzarella Cheese (shredded on the large side of a box grater)

4oz. Smoked Mozzarella Cheese (skin removed, shredded on the large side of a box grater)

¼ Cup Grated Parmigano Reggiano Cheese

¼ Cup Finely Diced Flat Leaf Parsley

Black Pepper (freshly cracked)

Salt to taste (sea, grey or kosher)

Procedure

In a large slope-sided pot, melt only 2 T. of the butter with the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, squash, sage, nutmeg, and two heavy pinches of salt, and cook slowly for a few minutes until the onion and squash soften a bit and the onion begins to turn translucent. Add the rice, and cook for a few minutes until the rice changes color a bit. Add the wine and turn up the heat to medium high. Cook the mixture while stirring, until the wine evaporates. Add a ladle-full of stock and cook while stirring, until the stock is absorbed. Repeat adding stock, a ladle-full at a time, until the rice reaches the desired consistency. I like risotto prepared “al dente” or “to the tooth.” The rice should be creamy, not soupy, and each grain should have a bit of resistance when bitten.

Remove from the heat, add the three cheeses, parsley and remaining 4 T. of butter. Adjust the seasoning with salt and black pepper. Stir to incorporate.

Serve immediately, with a subtle white wine. Old world white wines such as Chablis, Soave or Frascati are ideal. New world versions of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc are often too heavy and too grassy, respectively.

An Afternoon Snack - Scented Geranium Cake

2010-10-18T12:18:00.000-04:00

Tom DiGangi, Jr.

An afternoon snack - Geranium Cake

Who needs afternoon tea and biscuits when you can have espresso and geranium cake? I sure don’t. And, it is all because of Laura’s over-exuberance for herb planting. Let me explain. No, let me sum-up, for all you “Princess Bride” fans.

To my surprise, some varieties of geranium are actually edible. And, this year, Laura produced more edible geranium than anyone could possibly use. To make the excess even more excessive, the plants just won’t die. It is mid-October and Laura’s “Old Fashioned Rose Scented Geranium” is going strong. She has already put its intense combination of rose and citrus fragrances to use as potpourri, to make teas, and even to spice-up a mixed drink. Just ask her about a recent concoction of vodka, lemon, lemoncello, simple syrup and seltzer, finished with geranium. But, I digress.

In a sheer act of desperation to reduce the mountain of geranium accumulating on our counter top, I experimented. What follows is a twist on the barely sweet cakes that often represent the Italian equivalent to the baked goods served with English afternoon tea. It is roughly based on a recipe from Mario Batali for rosemary cake, which is excellent and can be found in “The Babbo Cookbook.”

Geranium, Lemon and Olive Oil Cake

Ingredients

4 Eggs
1/2 C. Sugar
1/4 C. Light Brown Sugar
2/3 C. Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
2 T. finely chopped fresh geranium leaves
1 Lemon (zest and juice)
1 1/2 C. All Purpose Flour
1 T. Baking Powder
1/2 t. Kosher Salt

Procedure

Preheat oven to 340 F.

In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Set-aside.

Using an electric mixer with the whisk attachment, beat the eggs and both sugars until the mixture thickens, and turns foamy and pale. With the mixer running, gradually drizzle in the olive oil, and then add the geranium, lemon juice and lemon zest. Finally, add the flour, baking powder, and salt mixture, with the mixer on low speed. Scrape the sides of the bowl and finish combining.

Pour the now combined contents of the mixing bowl into an oiled 10-inch loaf pan, and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Let cool for a few minutes, then remove from the pan to finish cooling on a rack.

Serve a slice as an afternoon snack, ideally with a topping of fresh whipped cream, sorbet or a fruit jam. Espresso, “corrected” with a bit of Sambuca, would be a fine accompaniment. If coffee isn’t your thing, consider vermouth, port or vin santo as excellent alternative beverage choices.

Cooking With Corn

2010-09-10T22:29:00.000-04:00

It’s September and our garden is finished producing corn, or “maize” if you want to get all technical about it. The problem is I am not finished consuming corn. I love the stuff - on the cob, in a soup, as a muffin; you name it and corn works with it. Frankly, our garden just can’t keep up with our demand.

Thankfully, living in semi-rural northwestern New Jersey, there is no shortage of part-time farmers growing the miraculous maize plant. So, the other day I stopped by “Crazy Cooter’s” to pick-up a few ears of the good stuff. Crazy Cooter’s is the unofficial name of the junkyard / auto repair shop / farmer’s market just down the road from our home. Only in this barely-tolerant-of–the-law corner of the state would a business trifecta like Crazy Cooter’s be permitted to exist, let alone flourish. Yet, we are unaffected by the sight of oil stains and the sound of air compressors in such close proximity to our fresh produce. Where the unexposed suburbanite might frown on this establishment, those of us who have become accustomed to it say, “Bring on the corn, Cooter.”

Here are two ways to feed four people with – dare I say – only three ears of fresh corn, and some other garden goodness.

Pan-Roasted Corn, Cucumber, Tomato and Mozzarella Salad

This Italy-inspired salad is only as good as the ingredients and demands the freshest produce. It is critical to cook the corn as soon as possible. Don’t take it home and store it in the fridge for a day or two. If you are not going to eat the salad the day you pick or buy the corn, then cook the corn immediately and store the cooked corn in the fridge until you are ready to make the salad.

The recipe calls for “Corno di Toro” peppers. And, yes, I am aware that the pepper in question for the corn salad is called “Corno.” Regardless, the Corno di Toro is a long, Italian heirloom pepper that is both sweet and just a little bit spicy. If you are not growing these, you should be. The plants are easy to cultivate and yield much fruit, which we use in just about everything from omelets to salsa. If you are looking for these peppers in the market, you may need to substitute with any mildly spicy variety, such as anaheim or jalapeno.

Ingredients

3 Ears of Sweet Corn

4 Tomatoes (preferably heirloom, such as Brandywine)

2 Cucumbers

2 Corno di Toro Peppers (seeds removed, thinly sliced)

1 Shallot (thinly sliced)

8oz. Fresh Mozzarella Cheese

5-8 Leaves Fresh Basil (thinly sliced)

4T. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1T. Balsamic Vinegar

Black Pepper (freshly cracked)

Salt to taste (sea, grey or kosher)

Procedure

Peel away the cornhusks, which can be discarded or saved to make tamales. One at a time, stand each ear of corn on a cutting board that is covered by a clean dish towel and run your knife along the cob, scraping off the kernels. Rotate the cob, and repeat until all the kernels are removed. Do the same for each ear of corn. Reserve the cobs for another use, like making stock. Gather-up the corn kernels in the towel for easy transport and set-aside.

Place a large skillet over medium heat. Add 1 T. of the oil, the thinly sliced shallot and peppers, and all of the corn kernels to the pan. Cook the corn, shallot and pepper for about 5 minutes, stirring often. The corn contains a lot of sugar, and stirring will prevent the sugars from burning. Remove the corn, shallot and peppers from the skillet and spread it out on a sheet pan to cool.

Cut the cucumbers in half, length-wise. This will expose the seeds. Using a teaspoon, scrap the seeds from the cucumbers and discard the seeds. Then, cut the cucumbers into ¼ inch thick half-moons. Slice the mozzarella cheese into similar sized half-moon shapes, as well. Cut the tomatoes into wedges. Slice the basil.

Add the cucumbers, mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, and the cooled corn, shallot and pepper mixture to a large serving bowl. Season with salt and black pepper. Dress with remaining 3 T. of oil and balsamic vinegar.

Serve immediately with fresh crusty bread and a crisp white wine, such as Verdicchio, or a light-bodied red, such as Barbera.

Corn, Potato and Broccoli Soup

This soup is the ultimate “waste not, want not” solution for leftover corncobs and broccoli stems. It relies on the starch in the corncobs and potato for its base and body. The uncooked spinach gives the final product a vibrant green color, and the cilantro and lime emphasize the south-of-the-border roots of both corn and potato.

Ingredients

3 Quarts Spring Water

3 Corn Cobs

1 Russet Potato (peeled and roughly chopped)

3 Broccoli stems (peeled and roughly chopped) or 1 Broccoli crown (roughly chopped)

1 Clove Garlic (minced)

1 Cup Fresh Spinach (chopped)

2 T. Cilantro (chopped)

1 Lime (juice)

White Pepper (freshly cracked)

Salt to taste (sea, grey or kosher)

Procedure

In a stockpot, combine the water, corncobs, potato, broccoli and garlic. Add 4 heavy pinches of salt. Bring to a boil, and reduce the heat to a simmer. Let cook for about 30 minutes, or until the potato and broccoli are soft. Remove from the heat and let cool.

When the soup has cooled, remove the corncobs and discard. Add the spinach, cilantro and limejuice. Transfer to a blender and puree until smooth. Adjust the seasoning to taste. Pass the soup through a sieve for a more refined texture, if desired.

This soup can be served cold in a glass with a twist of lime as a hot-weather faux-aperitif. But, we prefer it served warm in a bowl with a dollop of sour cream, alongside cornbread and a lager-style beer.

Play Farmville and Harvest Real Crops! Seriously!

2010-05-17T13:46:00.000-04:00

This looks like more of a mess than a garden, right? I agree. But this weedy bed is going to keep me chock full of tea and spice all winter long, and with very little effort on my part.

What we have here is the result of some mismanaged German chamomile and cilantro. When properly grown and harvested, a chamomile plant will produce white flowers with golden centers that make a lovely relaxing tea either from the dry or fresh flower heads and leaves. I put the leaves of cilantro, one of the earliest spring herbs, in every Mexican dish I make. Both plants are annuals and will not be back next year, unless you play Farmville on Facebook.

It's so simple. All you have to do is diligently plant your chamomile and cilantro plants in spring with the best of intentions. Then, go play Farmville, and get carried away planting imaginary crops and accumulating imaginary livestock. Find others like you, and gift each other limited edition collectibles. Spend all your time begging for parts to build various and sundry outbuildings, while expanding your farm and working yourself up into an absolute frenzy. "Hurry, before time runs out! I only need 3 nails and a wooden board to finish my stable, and if you don't send me more gold pieces I won't be able to trade them for that shamrock castle. Oh God, and then there's the spring eggs! I NEED MORE EGGS!!!!!!!!!!"

Whew! That was intense. You decide to take a breather and step outside only to find that it's three months later, an entire season has passed, and your spouse has taped divorce papers to the seat of your pants hoping that once you pulled your head out of there, that you might notice them. Whatever. Hater. And what about the chamomile and cilantro? The chamomile plant shot up two feet and collapsed onto its side under it's own weight, scattering dried flower heads everywhere. Same goes for the cilantro, except it's topped with clusters of round seeds. (And the seeds of cilantro, by the way, are the spice called "coriander", but you don't know that because there are no options to grow herbs on Farmville, so you buy them from the grocery store for $5 a bottle. That is, of course, when you remember to eat.) Disgusted, you leave them there and return to the house. All that time and work, wasted! Real plants suck. Besides, you need to expand your chicken coop anyway.

In the meantime, Mother Nature and Father Time are texting each other, and making fun of you.

ME: "OMG, I am totally going to screw with Angela! LOL."
FT: "LMAO! I'll help you. Get Brian too."

Sure enough, you pass by your herb patch in October after a day in traffic court - "But I HAD to speed officer! My cranberries were about to wither and I don't have enough Farmville cash to buy the unwither spray!" - and what do you see? Your fallen seeds have formed a fresh crop of baby cilantro and chamomile! Maybe you will have that homemade tea and salsa after all! You go on Facebook (only for a minute!) to update your status about what a great gardener you are, and find out that you are already LAST in your list of friends for collecting limited edition tree ornaments, and Maribeth even has a snowy ground cover already. Oh, no no no. It is ON.

It's a beautiful April morning when you emerge from rehab with only a promise to your sponsor, and a random twitching in your clicker finger that the doctors can't seem to do anything about. Since you're not allowed on Facebook, you'd like to take up real gardening again, but you remember the highs and lows of last year and are hesitant. Remember that time you dug a hole, and put a plant in it, and packed the dirt in around it? The toil and the struggle of it, all in vain? With reluctance, you look at your little herb patch, sure you will see only the animated cartoon version of unplowed land. But instead, you see a scattering of little bits of green. Some are weeds, but some are actual real-life chamomile and cilantro plants! The seeds from last year's mature plants fell to the ground, settled comfortably for the winter, and germinated when conditions were just right. They didn't need you for any part of the process. The symbolism of new beginnings is not lost on you, and you feel invigorated. This time it will be different! All wrongs will be made right! This would make a GREAT blog entry. You run for your camera .....

"LOL, dumbass!" chortles Mother Nature.

Happy gardening to you all, virtual or otherwise!

Laura

[Disclaimer: In the middle of writing this entry, I had to go harvest my grapes before they withered because I'm helping on the "Very Berry Field Trip" co-op job AND I've been saving for the border collie for weeks now! But in my defense, my real life grapes and raspberries also got watered today and my hands currently smell like freshly harvested chamomile flowers. It's the best a gal can do. See you next time!]

The Easiest Way To Organically Remove Dandelion Weeds From Your Garden

2010-04-10T21:57:00.000-04:00

Oh, what to do about the evil lurker known, properly known as Taraxacum Officinale? Never mind that dandelion greens are an amazing source of Vitamin A and beta-carotene, and are also rich in Vitamins B, C, D, calcium, iron and other minerals. Ignore that dandelion roots are used in natural medicine as an appetite stimulant, digestive aid, and diuretic. They are horrible nasty little bits of nature that find their way into every nook and cranny of our lawns and gardens. Have you seen the bright yellow flowers they produce in spring? Disgusting!

I treat these noxious little buggers exactly the way they deserve to be treated. Here's my simple process for dandelion weed management the organic way:

Step 1: Assemble your tools - basket, gloves, and scissors/pruners.
Step 2: Step outside, saying loudly to yourself and any neighbors who may be listening, "I AM GOING TO THE GROCERY STORE NOW!"
Step 3: Pull the dandelion up at the base, getting as much of the root as you can. You won't get it all and it hardly matters. Cut off the root and flower stem for the compost pile. Put the flower tops and leaves in the basket.

Congratulations! You've organically removed dandelions from your lawn, and they are halfway read to be put in a pot. "Not fair!" you say. "They will grow back from the root that's left in the ground!" you say. True indeed, but you missed my point. I promised you information on the easiest way to remove "dandelion weeds" from your garden organically. And the easiest way to do that is to rename them "dandelion greens" and call them dinner. Done and done. However, if that does not satisfy you, I suggest you check out this article by radio garden host guru Mike McGrath consisting of actual lawn management tips for dandelion control.

As for those of you who are still reading, I leave you with Tom's basic dandelion (or any other kind of) greens recipe. Last week he made a homemade ricotta gnocchi in a sauce of dandelion greens, shiitake mushrooms and Parmesan cheese - but didn't write down the recipe. When I can get him to recreate it, I'll do another post. In the meantime, here's another great website. Wildman Steve Brill tours, lectures and writes all about foraging for wild foods. Here are a few more of his dandelion recipes. The very first leaves of spring dandelions can be eaten raw or lightly sauteed, but they get progressively more bitter as they get older. The recipe below includes boiling the greens first, which helps soften the stronger late season flavors. Although I haven't tried them yet, googling the phrase "dandelion fritters" will lead you many recipes for battered and deep fried dandelion flowers. Enjoy!

Dandelion Greens Sauteed in Olive Oil and Garlic

2 C. packed dandelion greens, washed and chopped
1/4 C. olive oil
1 garlic clove, sliced or minced
salt, pepper, red pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of water to boil and add salt. Thoroughly wash and pack dandelion greens. Add to boiling water and simmer for about five minutes until the leaves turn bright green. Immediately move greens to an ice water bath to retain the color and continue rinsing. (The boiling and rinsing helps remove the compounds that cause excessive bitterness, especially in dandelion greens that have already produced a flower). Let rest, and add olive oil to a saute pan turned on medium heat. Add garlic and red pepper and saute for a few minutes to release flavor but before garlic browns. Squeeze water out of the dandelion greens and add to saute pan to continue cooking until completely wilted, about 5 to 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Garden Like MacGyver: Seed Starting On the Cheap

2010-03-11T21:49:00.001-05:00

The answer is "no" to my 80's reference friends who wonder if I will be teaching you how to make a groundhog-killing bomb with duct tape, matches and a q-tip. But why not use Richard Dean Anderson's beloved character as a source of inspiration for taking those garden supply marketers to task? "Buy these exotic seeds to grow under this elaborate and overpriced lighting system! Grow your seeds in these exact containers using expensive supplies that look suspiciously like crap you have sitting around your house!" Would RDA fall for that? Hell, no! He would have solved the problem, got the girl, and started rolling the credits before you could say "additional charges apply due to shipping weight."

I admit, nothing beats the thrill of that first credit card swipe of the season, especially if you are like me and feel that buying said supply is almost the same as completing the project. But all these little doo-dads and accessories add up fast, and many of them are convenient but unnecessary. Here are some of my favorite ways to re-purpose household stuff for use in your early spring gardening projects.

Instead of buying: Ultimate Seed Cart by Territorial Seed Company - $900 + shipping

Build your own from Home Depot supplies:
plastic slotted utility shelving $35
3 4'long fluorescent shop lights plus bulbs $50
twine $3

OK, so mine is uglier. I admit it. But you're growing seeds, not entering a beauty pageant. Plus with the money you save, you could go to the spa ten times and then enter yourself in a beauty pageant. So there.

Instead of: Seed Starting Kits by Jiffy, Burpee, etc. - $10 and up

Use from the recycling bin:
1.) Blueberry and Strawberry plastic domed containers, and aluminum foil baking trays or pie plates OR
2.) replace the berry containers with egg cartons, yogurt cups or last year's seed trays plus plastic wrap

The key to seed starting is creating a warm humid environment, which is why mass produced kits contain a waterproof bottom tray, a perforated seed cell tray, and a clear plastic dome. The same growing conditions can be created with any kind of catch tray on the bottom, and the berry container, which is the seed tray and dome in one. I like these for lettuce mixes and herbs that grow as a patch as opposed to an individual plant. For plants that may need to be transferred to bigger pots before being put in the garden, like tomatoes, use the egg cartons or small yogurt cups with drain holes punched in. This will help protect the root systems during transfer. Cover with the plastic wrap to keep in the moisture until the seeds germinate.

Instead of: Seedling Heat Mat - $20 and up, depending on the size and brand name

Use from around the house: a regular old heating pad

Some seeds, like peppers, need a heat boost to germinate. A heating pad won't have the bells and whistles of a mat made only to germinate seeds, but it will get the job done. And then when you throw your back out planting those peppers, you can watch it all come back full circle. Cool, huh?

Instead of: Adorable Victorian Bell Cloches - $10 to outrageous, depending on size and material

Use from the recycling bin: 2 liter soda bottles with the bottom cut off

Is it ugly? Yes. Is it effective? You betcha! Just like a cloche, the soda bottle makes a mini greenhouse environment and protects the plant from pests. Unscrew the top for air venting. AND when you're done using the soda bottle as a greenhouse, turn it upside down and jam the spout into the dirt at the base of a newly planted perennial or shrub. Fill it water, and let the plant drink the way it wants to - a lot, but slowly. Then, put down the hose, get your own drink, and water yourself at whatever rate and in whatever amounts you choose. Congratulations! You've figured out how to water your plants while doing nothing.

Finally, if you're looking for a way to manage all those seed packets, consider a regular photo album with plastic pockets, like so. With this system, you can alphabetize and organize to your anal retentive heart's content, and still make it fit nicely on a shelf when you're done.
It's possible that the only thing of interest you learned from this entire article is that the carpet in my office is a lovely shade of pink. That's fine. I simply encourage you to do your own MacGyvering the next time you take on a garden project. It can't hurt to save money, save something from a landfill, and save the spirit of his moving theme song from obscurity while you're at it. Thanks, YouTube!

Go Ahead, Anger the Snow Gods - Grow Lemongrass As a Houseplant

2010-03-02T22:32:00.000-05:00

Since just muttering the verb form of the word “garden” seems to result in a massive snow assault hailing from our angsty northeastern skies these days, I’m going to have to go ahead and change the name of that act for the purposes of this article. Instead of covering topics related to doing-that-thing-where-you-put- seeds- in- the- ground, I’m going to discuss safer subjects until St. Patrick’s Day when I can hopefully push the snow aside and behave-in- a- supportive- manner- so- as- to- help- small- plants- get- big. You see, if the angry snow monsters who live in the sky think we have lost all hope of ever seeing green grass again, maybe they will think they have won and will relax long enough to take naps, or play a round of dominoes, or do ANYTHING AT ALL other than cause weather forecasters to invent new and creative words to describe way too damn much snow.

That brings me to one of my favorite winter activities – buying lemongrass from the grocery store or Asian food market, using what you need for your recipe, and turning the rest into a houseplant. Lemongrass is, you guessed it, a grassy full-sun plant that grows in zones 9-11 and is essential to Thai cooking. Although it's a bit exotic for your average grocery store, you can find it sold as a somewhat dried stalk in Asian food markets or specialty stores.

Try to buy the freshest stalks with lots of green color and thick bottoms. Even though it looks a bit dried and dead when you buy it, peeling off the outer grass layers will reveal small growth nodes at the base of the plant. All you have to do is use those outermost layers for cooking, trim down the top of the stalk, pop it in a glass of water for a few weeks and wait until a decent root systems establishes. Move it to a pot with a drain hole and indoor potting soil. That’s it! In our zone 6 weather, you can keep it as a houseplant until summer, and then move it to your deck ... or you can even do-that-thing-where-you-dig-a-whole-and-then-take-the-plant-and-put-it-in-there!

DISCLAIMER: My cats take to lemongrass like a frat boy to a keg of Milwaukee's Best. Unless you feel like cleaning up after a feline that can't hold down his or her own herbal refreshments, I suggest you keep your plant out of harm's way.

Here's my hopeful lemongrass with a backdrop of angry snow monster wrath:

And here's my two year old plant, which got started the same way in winter I moved it outside for the summer when I did- that- thing- that- we- all- know- but- won't- be- discussing, and then moved it back inside for the winter.

So go ahead and turn your groceries into plants. Thanks for reading, and happy you-know-what!

From the Cockamamie Schemes Files: Homemade Avocado Moisture Scrub

2010-01-25T18:52:00.000-05:00

What's a zone 6 gardener to do in the dead of winter? Good gardeners read new plant books, clean and organize tools, and start shopping from the deluge of seed catalogues that start arriving the second the ball drops. I plan on doing all that too. Soon. But January gardening prep for me is generally comprised of cockamamie schemes and elaborate plans; Thanks to nature, I don't actuallly have to DO anything. Why not take advantage of the vacation time, and turn to other topics?

Forever on my to-do list is this line: "Make natural beauty treatments and home remedies." It's always on the list but I never get around to doing it during prime gardening season. This year might be different though, due to a combination of the plants I bought last year at Well Sweep Herb Farm and my subscription to Herb Companion Magazine. Unfortunately, my herb garden is asleep and I want to start my project now. Thanks to Shop Rite and my love of Mexican food, I finally made my first official home beauty treatment with hilarious, disgusting and ultimately positive results.

Avocado Moisture Scrub

(from "The Herbal Home Spa" by Greta Breedlove)

2-3 fresh avocado pits

1 C. water, milk or yogurt

(makes 1 treatment)

I let the pits air dry for a few days, then gave them a few good whacks with a meat mallet. From there I moved them to our regular food processor for a rough grind, and then a spice mill for a finer grind. I think you could go right to the spice mill from the smashing, if you like. Mix the avocado pits with the base of your choice, and you have yourself an exfoliating, moisturizing face and body scrub. Apply, leave on for 10 minutes, and wash off. Those are the basic instructions from the book. But let me tell you exactly how it worked for me, as well as some important lessons learned.

One, unless you like freezing temperatures, let the stuff come up to room temperature before application. Second, please note that this is a gloopy mess, and prepare accordingly. Third, it turns out that, at least for the variety I purchased, avocado pits become orange once pureed. Perhaps you can see where I'm going with this.

I started out applying the scrub as a face mask while over the sink. Not good. Giant orange gloop drops all over the sink. So I threw a towel down and continued, but to no avail. The gloop had migrated beyond the towel and was leaving orange splotches on the rug and floor. I hopped into the tub (where I should have been in the first place) and resumed scrubbing the arms and legs. The entire tub area promptly became a full fledged mess with orange splatters on the floor and wall; The tracks left by my moving feet made it look like someone has been naked wrestling with the Great Pumpkin. However, there was no turning back at this point as I was almost completely orange by then and busy wondering just how long ten minutes actually is. I probably lasted most of the ten minutes, and the shower afterward was a sweet reward ... although that water seemed to be moving down the drain awfully slowly. Ah, yes. One of those plastic drain covers would have been in order PRIOR to the water being run. Time to look on the bright side: the drain was always slow, the bathroom needed to be cleaned anyway, and this is some good blog fodder.

As I observed my orange path of destruction across the bathroom, I came to the following assessment: It was worth it. The scrub was amazingly soft for an exfoliator and putting it on was like getting a lumpy massage. I hate those sugar body scrubs because they feel like they are just scratching the skin. It really really worked as a moisturizer too, and it would probably make a great hair mask. And since I can't find any other use for an avocado pit except sprouting it to make a houseplant, it's a perfect solution for using an unusable item. In the future, I believe I will halve the recipe and use it as a hair/hand/face mask instead of a full body scrub disaster.

Am I daunted by being forced into cleaning a bathroom I had no desire to clean? Am I giving up my DIY pharmacy dreams? No! There's a whole internet full of weirdos just like me dishing out recipes for this kind of stuff. And if you are one of those weirdos and have a homemade concoction for me to try, email me at laurasglassart@verizon.net.

Recipe: Make Your Own Horseradish

2009-12-13T22:21:00.000-05:00

Horseradish… dispense with the jarred stuff

By: Tom DiGangi, Jr.

After my wife walked into the house smiling broadly and displaying an enormous quantity of horseradish from the garden, I was curious. After reading the ingredients on a jar of store bought horseradish in our refrigerator, I was inspired. Why don’t we make our own?

A bit of research and a few minutes later, we were comparing our own homemade horseradish to the stuff from the jar. The difference was remarkable. Ours was, for lack of a better word, pure. The jarred horseradish was eggy and sweet, in an unpleasing way. And, the heat difference was remarkable. The homemade product was hot, a good hot. The kind of hot that makes you want to eat, then eat more, then wipe your brow and when you’re done, blow your nose. That’s worth making your own horseradish.

Horseradish (Basic Preparation)

Ingredients

1 Large Piece of Horseradish (about 5 inches)

3 T. Water

3 T. White Vinegar

Kosher Salt to taste

Procedure

Peel the horseradish with a vegetable peeler, roughly chop and add to a food processor or blender with the water and salt. Puree until smooth. Add the vinegar and puree again. If you want the final product HOT, then wait a few minutes before adding the vinegar because the acidity halts the development of heat.

Adjust the seasoning with salt. Serve immediately or store in the refrigerator for a month or more.

How Not To Grow Horseradish

2009-12-13T21:31:00.000-05:00

I had read quite a bit on the topic by the time I trotted out of the Agway with my sandwich sized paper bag full of small stick-like horseradish roots. The main information I had taken away after skimming through a variety of sources was this: horseradish runs. Put it in the vegetable garden and those delicious underground roots will spread everywhere without concern for the rest of your plants. Some articles suggested growing them in large whiskey barrel buckets, and others suggested pots sunk into the ground. I had both my thinking cap and my smarty pants on (as they say in Sophia's preschool class) when I took three of my sticks and buried one each in various plastic pots and in turn buried the pots in different part of my garden. Therefore, let me share my tried and true knowledge about how (not) to plant horseradish.

1.) Buy horseradish roots for planting in early spring, at the same time that stores are selling seed potatoes and asparagus roots.

2.) Plant horseradish at a 45 degree angle with the growing tip pointing up. The growing tip should be only a few inches below the ground. Plant in a pot with rich garden soil, and then bury the pot in the garden up to the lip.

3.) Ignore it.

4.) The following year, notice that the topgrowth is not very significant and blame the store where you purchased them. Repeat step three.

5.) The year after that, notice that the topgrowth is better and think you ought to re-read about what you're supposed to do about it. Get distracted by brightly colored bug, or diseased crop, or wayward rodent. Remember horseradish, but join Facebook while surfing web for harvest instruction. Stop doing anything useful in life. Repeat step three.

6.) The year after that, notice topgrowth is huge! Dig up pots in late fall after first frost, only to find that horseradish was given ample time for the roots to find their way out of the (probably not deep enough) pot through the drainage holes, and is now either headed for the asparagus bed or to the Earth's core.

7.) Curse. Dig up as much of escaped root as possible, and wonder what spicy hot asparagus will taste like. Cut side shoots for processing, and replant main root in the same pathetic pot, vowing to deal with it in spring. Wonder how difficult horseradish will be to mow. Go back in the house and play Mafia Wars, or Word Twist, or Farmville, or any other stupid thing people are doing on Facebook. Tell husband you are an idiot.

OR, alternatively, you can follow the above instructions except for step 3, and harvest the roots yearly, replanting some of them for next year's crop. You probably should also not join Facebook, or start playing Mafia Wars, but that's more of a marriage counseling tip than a gardening suggestion. Just sayin'.

Recipe: Potato & Leek Soup ... kinda

2009-12-05T21:13:00.000-05:00

by Tom DiGangi, Jr.

After a long absence, we returned home to the garden on the weekend after Thanksgiving. The morning temperature was 31F, the first freeze. Yet, the garden was still doing its thing. We pulled up some leeks, celery and horseradish, which were still doing fine. Then we grabbed some potatoes and garlic that were harvested earlier in the year and stored in the basement. Time for lunch!

If you are interested in traditional potato and leek soup, I highly recommend the recipe by Paul Bocuse presented in French Chefs Cooking. It is great, classic and clean. It is a staple in our house, and we cannot improve upon it. The following recipe is not traditional, but based on the founding premise of the Bocuse classic.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 Leeks, white parts only sliced thin

1 Stalk Celery, white stalk from the heart of the plant sliced thin

2 Yukon Gold Potatoes, peeled and sliced thin

2 T. Butter

1 Quart Turkey or Chicken Stock, enough to cover the vegetables

2 T. Heavy Cream

1 T. Homemade Horseradish (see other entry for recipe)

2 T. Freshly Minced Celery Leaves

Kosher Salt to taste

Procedure:

Melt the butter in a pot and add the sliced leeks and celery stalk. It is important to only use the white parts of the leeks and celery to ensure the soup retains its white color. Sweat the vegetables for a few minutes to soften. Add the sliced potatoes, season well with salt and stir. Add the stock, using enough to cover the vegetables. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and let cook for about 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft.

Puree the soup in a blender or food processor. Press the pureed soup through a sieve. If the soup is too thick for your liking, thin with a little water or milk. If too thin, return it to the pot and reduce over low heat until your desired result is reached. When the consistency is correct, add the heavy cream, horseradish and finely minced celery leaves.

Serve with crostini (toasted bread) that has been rubbed with a clove of garlic and drizzled with melted butter. As for wine, serve with anything you like because butter and potato marry with virtually everything.

The Last Harvest

2009-12-05T16:50:00.000-05:00

Clearly, we spent the fall doing a bit more than blogging. Tom wrote a lovely article about corn that should have been published in September, but I couldn't find a proper corn related picture that I liked, and got distracted. October's article should have been all about the awesome take from our herb garden and the experimental ways we tried to preserve it, including freezing, drying, pureeing with sugar, and potting up entire plants. November? Well, we weren't at home until the end of November, and the garden should have been rife with neglect and littered with destruction by the time we returned. Instead, that early spring labor paid off, and quite a few of our crops were not only producing, but still at their best.

Although the ground was not yet frozen, our zone 6 garden must have had a few frosty nights. The basil was a toasty black color and the summer vines were a twisted mass of decay. Helpful worms had skeletonized my fall cauliflower bed. The parsley was still a beautiful vibrant green, while the leeks, swiss chard and celery were perfectly healthy. The tops of the horseradish had died back which meant it was time for harvesting. Had we planted any kale or mustard greens, those too would be more flavorful after a frost.

Therefore, I think we will spend the cold Northeast winter bragging about our harvest, as absurd as that sounds considering the current layer of icy rain covering the ground. We have some lost time to make up for. We also have the inclination to spend time with our family, stoking the fire, creating meals from our harvest, and idly dreaming about the rebirth of the spring garden. I hope you join us!

Blatant Self-Promotion For a Good Cause

2009-08-28T13:00:00.000-04:00

Remember a long time ago, when I started this blog, and claimed that I was going to talk about gardening as well as my garden inspired painted glassware designs? And remember how I said that and then started writing about everything EXCEPT painting? Well finally, I have a quick bit painting news to share with, as usual, a food related twist!

On September 1st at the Almond Tree Manor in Alpha, NJ, my hand-painted glassware will be featured as part of the Empty Bowls Luncheon. This event takes place every year and arranged by the NORWESCAP Food Bank. The food bank operates as the middle man between food pantries and local businesses and restaurants with excess supplies. The surplus gets donated to the food bank and redistributed to 120 food pantries in Warren, Sussex and Hunterdon Counties. I volunteer here as much as I can, and have donated about 30 hand-painted bowls to be given away at this event.

The Empty Bowls Luncheon is a great big soup, salad and bread buffet, and man, do I love a buffet. Local restaurants and businesses donate all the food, and local artisans donate bowls to be taken home by the patrons. The bowls are usually hand-thrown pottery from local potters and school art classes, so each one is unique. I donated a bunch of bowls in some existing designs and some never seen before designs as well! Last year they had about 6 different soups, an ice cream sundae bar, Rita's Water Ice, breads from Panera and lots of salads from Shop Rite. I'm excited to see who will be there this year!

Check out the above link for more details, and consider attending this fundraiser if you're in the Central Jersey area!

Fishing + Farming = Fabulous Fooding, by Tom DiGangi

2009-06-28T10:20:00.000-04:00

Fishing is just like farming, except there is no weeding to do, you can’t forget to water your seedlings, and you wear funny outfits that connote, “I am a superhero.” If you have ever seen someone in chest waders, this last phrase will make sense. If not, just imagine a grown man in tights with lots of gadgets hanging from a vest. Laura, my wife and host of this blog, particularly enjoys pointing out how ridiculous I look in said outfit. I digress. The point is… you don’t see many farmers in tights.

Now that I really think about it, there are actually very few similarities between fishing and farming. But, they do share one big thing in common. A meal prepared from either the produce just picked from your garden or the fish just caught from your stream is equally delicious.

A few weeks ago, I decided to combine the two when I hooked a rainbow trout in a pocket of fast water on the stream behind our house at 7PM and ate it at 8PM on a bed of organic field greens, paired with a grassy sauvignon blanc. Technically, the one hour from hook to table doesn’t count as a “30 Minute Meal,” but Rachel Ray isn’t gutting fish and harvesting greens during the ½ hour of pain she serves-up 10 times a day on the Food Network. So, one hour to prep and cook is ok by me.

This recipe is ideal for using-up all those cold weather garden products like radishes and greens before they grow too tough and bitter this summer. If you live by the sea, not the stream, the procedure and salad combination works well for striped bass, snapper, and other small saltwater species.

Baked Wild Trout with Field Greens and Radishes

To make the fish…

Ingredients:
1 Whole Wild Trout (extremely fresh, gutted)
2 Garlic Cloves (crushed)
1 Tarragon Sprig (bruised)
2 T. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Lemon
Black Pepper (freshly cracked)
Salt to taste (sea, grey or kosher)

Procedure:
Preheat the oven to 450F. Place the trout on a baking sheet and coat with only 1 tablespoon of the oil. Sprinkle the exterior and the cavity of the fish with a pinch or two of salt, then stuff the cavity with the crushed garlic cloves and tarragon. Bake the fish at 450F for 20 minutes. Remove the fish from the oven and prepare for service by peeling back the skin (on one side of the fish only) to expose the flesh. Use a spoon to gently lift pieces of the flesh away from the bones, and place on a serving plate. When the one side is clean, gently pick-up the tail of the fish, thus pulling the bones in one big creepy skeleton off of the underside. Discard the bones or use them to make fish stock. Then, use the spoon again to pull the newly exposed flesh from the skin, and place on the serving plate. Finish by drizzling the remaining oil over the fish pieces, then add a squeeze of lemon, a touch of pepper and adjust the salt to taste.

To make the salad…

Ingredients:

Mixed Field Greens (about 4 loose cups)
3 Radishes
1/3 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Lemon (juice and zest)
1 T. Dijon Mustard
Black Pepper (freshly cracked)
Salt to taste (sea, grey or kosher)

Procedure:
In a large, non-reactive bowl, make the dressing by whisking the mustard, lemon zest and juice to combine. Slowly add the oil while whisking to create an emulsion. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper, and set aside. Select a mix of field greens. (For my 8PM trout dinner, I chose a combination of romaine, oak leaf, endive and arugula, all from the garden. My father is particularly fond of a mix called, in Italian, “tre colore,” consisting of arugula, radicchio and Belgian endive. But, anything you like is appropriate.) Cut the radishes into matchstick size strips. Add the radishes and greens into the bowl with the dressing and toss gently to coat. Serve immediately.

Useful Weed Primer: Broadleaf Plantain

2009-06-27T18:59:00.000-04:00

If you've been following my blog, you already know about my recurring theme of the trials and tribulations of a lazy gardener. Therefore, it will come as no shock to you that I hate weeding and have not yet found a way to justify not doing it. Not until now.

Think for a bit on the definition of a weed. Really, a weed is just a plant that appears in a place you don't want it. Grass in your raised herb bed is a weed, but herbs in your lawn are weeds too. Speaking of lawns, ours is a disaster by conventional standards. I'm not sure if any of what's growing there is actually grass. I don't care because I sort of hate the concept of a lawn. If I had the time, energy and back strength, I would rip it all out and make a huge showcase garden. Without those factors in my favor however, I need to learn to like both the grass and the weeds. Perhaps if I could find a positive quality about all the weeds in my lawn, I could put to bed some of my weedy lawn angst!

Two gentlemen have arrived on the scene to aid me in my agenda. Cyrus Hyde, an herbalist and owner of Well-Sweep Herb Farm, led lecture tours at their open house event a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, Queen Sophia was in no mood to tolerate herbalists or plant discussions of any sort. If we were not hanging out with the dogs or watching the chickens, she was a crabby crying meanie. Hence, Cyrus' mountain of knowledge about his farm and plants was mostly lost. I did get a chance to learn three things: 1.) horsetail grass can scratch any metal and can sand wood more beautifully than any sandpaper 2.) wild ramps grow in our area and are available for purchase and 2.) most of my lawn is actually a potential first aid cream! Success!

According to Charlie, broadleaf plantain, a common garden & lawn weed, is great for soothing sunburn , treating insect bites and taking the itch out of poison ivy. He prefers to use a match to wilt the leaf and squeeze out the juice onto the affected area, or just slap the wilted leaf on there whole. Without a source of flame, the good old fashioned chew-it-up-and-spit method works too. Either way, you have to abuse the plant a bit to get it to release it’s juice.

I can't begin to explain how happy I was to hear this. We literally have this stuff growing everywhere. I went home to do more research, and easily found a few great websites with lots of plantain facts. Baby leaves are edible in salads and high in vitaminA, B1, C, and K along with riboflavin and calcium. Leaves also contain chemicals such as aucubin (a strong anti-toxin) and allantoin (wound healing and skin regeneration). Plantain has been used medicinally by Europeans for hundreds of years as a cure-all, but modern research is confirming its wound healing and anti-inflammatory properties. In Germany, the commission that regulates herbs and herbal uses also approves plaintain for use soothing coughs and mucuous membrane irritation during colds.

For more information and some homemade healing recipes, check out the following sites:

www.altnature.com
"Medicinal" herb tea: For colds and flu use 1 tbls. dry or fresh whole Plantain (seed, root, and leaves) to 1 cup boiling water, steep 10 min. strain, sweeten. Drink through the day.
Healing salve: In large non-metallic pan place 1lb. of entire Plantain plant chopped, and 1 cup lard, cover, cook down on low heat till all is mushy and green. Strain while hot, cool and use for burns, insect bites, rashes, and all sores. Note: used as night cream for wrinkles.

www.prairielandherbs.com
go to the site for instructions and dosage amounts on plantain tea as a cough treatment, as well as instructions on how to make your own herbally infused oil.

www.botanical.com
this site has a few recipes for treatment of odd ailments and more details about plantain’s uses throughout history.

Of course, after all the chatter, I had to see for myself. I tried it out on the constant case of poison ivy that I get on my forearms from May to October every year. Sure enough, it worked. A week later (and still as of this minute) I got a lovely case of secondary poison ivy over most of my face and eyes, but I've been hesitant to try it there. I might just have to, since the steroid shot is not kicking in yet. Tonight I just might be found hunched over the cauldron (modern day cauldrons go on electric stoves, of course) mixing up a witch's brew of herbal healing.

I am now officially hooked on discovering the beneficial properties of all the volunteer plants growing in my lawn and garden beds. Lucky for me, my enlightening moment at Well-Sweep Herb Farm was quickly followed by a wild foods foray given by Steve “Wildman” Brill. My next article all about Steve and his quirky tour of edible weeds coming soon!

Garlic Scape Original Recipes By Chef Tom

2009-06-21T18:19:00.000-04:00

As covered in my long-winded blog entry from last year at this time called In Defense of the Lazy Gardener, I accidentally discovered that garlic has more than just the bulb to offer up for good eats. At the time, I had earmarked twisty curly Q top of my garlic plants for the compost pile. I knew that the twisty part was actually the forming flower, and that the growing flower would sap energy from my precious garlic bulb. I don't know what made me stop, but a quick google search turned up the knowledge that this part of the plant was actually an edible seasonal delicacy known as the "garlic scape". How did we live before Google? And what exactly do you do with a garlic scape?

This year, we were ready and waiting for the scapes. But more googling for recipes resulted in pesto, pesto and pesto. There had to be something else, but I am no culinary genius. As luck would have it, my husband Tom is also my personal chef, and the following blog entry is written completely by him. Enjoy the recipes, but keep in mind that Tom is Italian which means that he does not believe in actual measurements. You take some of this, a bit of that, and you make it into a great big something else. I forced him into using real numbers for the ingredients list, but feel free to adjust for personal taste.

Intro to the Garlic Scape, by Tom DiGangi

Garlic scapes are the long curly-cue stems that produce the flowers, and ultimately, the seeds in the life cycle of the garlic plant. Most people only eat the cloves that comprise the bulbs of garlic plants. But, the scape is a near-perfect, tender, juicy and green representation of pure garliciness.

For several weeks in June of each year, our family enjoys garlic scapes in virtually everything. If you grow your own garlic, live near someone who does, or have access to a farmer’s market, get a hold of these things. Here are some simple ideas of how you can enjoy them, too.

Garlic Scape & Rucola(Arugula) Pesto

Pesto is usually made with basil, but this early in the season our basil is just thinking about growing. So, we replace the herby pungency of basil with the unmistakable scent and peppery finish of rucola. Rucola is a ubiquitous Mediterranean edible weed that is a cousin to arugula, which is widely cultivated in the USA. Our rucola has been reproducing every year since 2002 when we brought some seeds home from a trip to Sicily. It smells and tastes great, plus it is carefree to grow. We just let it go to seed naturally and every spring and autumn we have a tasty reminder of the Sicilian countryside.

Ingredients:
1/2 C. (about two stems) garlic scape, cut into 1 inch lengths
2 C. Rucola or Arugula
1/4 C. pine nuts, toasted
1/4 C. Parmigano Reggiano cheese, grated
1 lemon, zest and juice
1/2 C. extra virgin olive oil
Salt to taste (sea, grey or kosher salt)

Procedure:
Gently toast the pine nuts in a dry pan over medium heat until the nuts become fragrant and turn just slightly brown – not black! Combine the pine nuts, garlic scape, rucola cheese, lemon zest and juice and salt in a food processor. Process until finely ground. You may have to occasionally stop and scrape the sides of the processor with a spatula. While the processor is running, slowly drizzle in the oil. Taste and adjust the salt. Serve as a dip for crusty bread or hearty vegetables (e.g. roasted onions or potatoes), topping for grilled meats, or as a sauce for pasta.

Garlic Scape Romesco

This is a riff on the classic Spanish sauce/condiment, which usually relies on tomatoes. In the summer, when it seems like everything we make contains tomatoes, this variation using bell peppers is a nice change of pace. The bell peppers replace the color and sweetness, and the vinegar adds the necessary acidity.

While this recipe is more suited to late summer when peppers are producing at their peak, it is no big deal because garlic scapes freeze very well. To freeze the scapes, just cut the stems into 9 inch long pieces, lay them out on a tray and put them in the freezer. In a couple of hours, gather up the frozen scapes and put them in a one gallon-size plastic bag. Return them to the freezer and they will keep for months.

Ingredients:
1/2 C. (about two stems) garlic scapes, cut into about 1 inch lengths
1 red, orange or yellow bell pepper, roasted
1 dried chili pepper (type of chili is up to your heat tolerance – we like chili de arbol)
1/4 C. almonds, slightly toasted
3 T. red wine vinegar
1/2 C. extra virgin olive oil
Salt to taste (sea, grey or kosher salt)

Procedure:
Roast the bell pepper over a burner or in a very hot oven until the skin turns black. Set the blackened bell pepper aside in a bowl and tightly cover with plastic wrap. After 15 minutes, rub the blackened skin from the pepper and remove the seeds and stem, and set the pepper flesh aside. Soak the dried chili in a small cup of boiling water for 10 minutes. Remove the chili from the water, coarsely chop and set aside. Gently toast the almonds in a dry pan over medium heat until the nuts become fragrant. Do not let them burn and turn black! Combine the garlic scape, chili, bell pepper, almonds, red wine vinegar, and salt in a food processor. Process until finely ground. You may have to occasionally stop and scrape the sides of the processor with a spatula. While the processor is running, slowly drizzle in the oil. Taste and adjust the salt. Serve as a dip for crusty bread or hearty vegetables (e.g. roasted onions or potatoes), topping for grilled meats, or as a sauce for pasta.

Chilled Potato, Turnip and Garlic Scape Soup

This is a surprisingly simple, healthy and refreshing idea for the early summer. We often serve the soup out of a thermos into shot glasses with appetizers out on the deck. Doing shots of soup evokes a party atmosphere without the undesirable side effects of embarrassment, shame and a hangover that accompany shots of vodka. Although, if you insist on alcohol, add the vodka, tomato juice and Tabasco to the soup and you’ll have one hell of a Bloody Mary.

This particular recipe is evidence of the “if it grows together, it goes together” school of thought. By the end of spring when garlic scapes are ready for harvest, our Zone 6 garden is turning out beautiful turnips, creamy Yukon gold potatoes and a hedge worth of tarragon. If you’ve got a cow, then you’ve got the heavy cream covered, too, and you are officially living off the land.

Ingredients :
2 medium sized turnips, cut into ¼ inch dice
4 medium Yukon gold potatoes, cut into 1 inch pieces
1/4 C. (1 stem) garlic scape, finely chopped
1 sprig of tarragon, roughly chopped, with a few whole leaves reserved for garnish
Heavy Cream
Water (spring or some other high quality)
Salt to taste (sea, grey or kosher salt)

Procedure:
Place the turnips, potatoes, garlic scape, tarragon and several pinches of salt in a stockpot and cover with the water. The water should cover the solids by about an inch. Bring to a boil, than lower to a simmer and half-cover. Cook until a fork smoothly is inserted and removed from the turnips and potatoes, about 30 minutes. Discard the tarragon sprig and let the soup cool. Puree the cooled soup in a blender or food processor. Press the pureed soup through a sieve. If the soup is too thick for your liking, thin with a little water or milk. If too thin, return it to the pot and reduce over low heat until your desired result is reached. Remember, thinner is better than thicker for a cold soup. When the consistency is correct, add a tablespoon or two of heavy cream, and chill for service. Garnish with finely minced tarragon.

Tom's 2008 garlic scape invention: Long-in-the-tooth pea & garlic scape soup

Make Your Own Hanging Baskets

2009-06-11T16:26:00.000-04:00

Ok, I was inspired to write this blog entry a month or so ago when I was making my own adorable hanging baskets, because I do really get a kick out of planning and arranging them. I took pictures, and made plant list suggestions in my head, and even scoped out what was available at the local Home Depot so that I was recommending readily available varieties. But of course, I didn’t do it, and now it’s the middle of June and supplies are likely waning. My one entry per day challenge is still kicking, so I am writing my delayed advice anyway. I know at least Dina is interested!

Let me first state my disclaimer: I am no landscape architect, and have never taken a single design class. I just read a lot of gardening magazines and have tried stuff out over time. I can’t tell you this is the exact right way to do it, but I can tell you easy rules that I use to design my baskets.

Laura’s no-brainer rules for basket design:

1.) Pick your sun exposure

I always have two types of baskets. The backyard ones see blaring hot full sun all day long, and the front porch ones will never see one shred of direct light for as long as they live unless I take them down and move them into the yard for watering. Those are some extremely different and obvious plant choices. This year I also did some planters on the side of the house with part sun exposure, so that's a little trickier, and I’m not sure how those will do.

2.) Pick your container

The type of planter actually determines your watering needs, and therefore the kinds of plants you should choose. The standard white plastic hanging pot obviously retains moisture the best (although you’ll still need to water frequently during those dog days of summer) and is the most popular. For aesthetics, I like coir & wire baskets the best. I’ve been using the same ones for eight years now, so it’s worth the initial investment. If the coir wears out, it’s easily replaceable, and you can pick these up at your average big box store in spring and early summer. Just about any kind of plant will work in these. If you’re trying to plant in clay or terra cotta though, consider that fact that these pots retain water for all of 48 seconds. You have to commit to watering constantly, or buy plants described as “drought friendly”, “succulent”, or “for rock gardens”. I bought one of those adorable terra cotta strawberry pots with all the pockets and very promptly murdered every pocketed strawberry plant. The ones on top somehow survived though, and this year the pockets contain a very pretty hot pink portulaca. Lesson learned!

3.) The rule of 3’s

This is the only real design principle I know, which I learned from a combination of garden magazines, home design books, and Bravo tv in general. Don’t know why, but things go better in 3’s. Better yet, I apply my Rule of 3’s to three aspects of plant design – number, shape and color. Whatever do you mean, Laura? Well, let me tell you!

Number: I always do at least three plants per container, and if the container is larger, then I go up to five. The sub-rule to the Rule of 3’s is, if you don’t use 3, at least use some other odd number. Again, I don’t know why. Maybe 2 of something looks too unfinished, like you meant to elaborate but didn’t get a chance. Maybe the pro-3 lobby is stronger than the pro-2 lobby. If you are a designer, please speak up and explain! Enquiring minds want to know.

Shape: My baskets generally have three different types of plant shapes – spiky, mounding, and cascading. Finding plants that fit this description and meet your sun requirements is not hard at all to do! It may take some label reading at first, but I’ll list my favorites for you below to get you started.

Color: I won’t go too far into color theory here. That would be a huge topic all on it’s own and I’m not qualified to speak on it. Plus in the end, it’s really about preference. You can choose a basket of all big bright colors, mix up only pastels, or even choose all different plants that feature the same exact color. No matter what the overall color theme is, I still use the rule of 3’s. My favorites tend to be combining 3 highly contrasting colors, like burgundy – silver – hot pink, or burgundy – lime – white. The best thing to do is to pick up plants and see what they look like together grouped in pots. Do you like the effect and color combo? Good, you’re done!

Now it’s picture and basket recipe time!

Shade basket, left to right clockwise:
Lamium, "pink chablis"
Coleus, "black dragon"
Dracena spike
Dusty Miller, "silverdust"
Oxalis, "charmed velvet"
Alyssum, "snow crystals"

Shade planters: This is a funny little plant invention that I bought at Lowe's last fall. There's an indented middle section with space for a small pot where you can plant seasonal annuals. The outside larger pot contains ivy, which stays green all season. This way, you can change out the flowers in the center pot when it's time to go from summer to fall plantings. Cute! I have these on my front porch, so the shade plants from above are repeated.

Sun basket, left to right clockwise:

Petunia
Sweet Potato Vine, "blackie"
Dracena spike
Licorice Plant (helichrysum petiolare), "white licorice"
Calibrachoa, "callie rose"

These pictures are from the beginning of May when I built them. Maybe later I'll post an addendum with what they look like now. In the meantime, happy planting!

Cast of Characters: FRANK!!!

2009-06-09T17:40:00.000-04:00

Frank is a groundhog.

All groundhogs are Franks.

Frank, in various manifestations of size and gender, has plagued me since my beginning days as a gardener - except for the gardening I did entirely in containers on the second floor balcony of that apartment complex. Even then, I'm sure there was a Frank or two, rubbing his meaty little paws together while staring upwards and formulating a plan.

But really, all this humanization of animals does nature no justice. Groundhogs are not evil, conniving wizards. They are simply hungry little rodents with somewhat magical powers. For example, I believe groundhogs are capable of completely dissolving their skeletal systems at will so as to shimmy under a 2 inch fence gap, Mission Impossible style. They also have some sort of otherworldly endless appetite. I'm amazed by their ability to settle into a nice dining experience in the grassy fields next to a 65 mile an hour highway, completely oblivious to the rattling earth and rushing wind caused by passing 18 wheelers. However, should I even step out of my back door when a Frank is busily snacking on my weedy lawn, he shoots me the "whatchoo talkin' bout Willis?" suspicious one-eyed stare, and then he waddles off at top speed into the woods. Historically, all of my past Franks seem to prefer take their chances facing off with a truck rather than dealing with me. Look out boys, that crazy bitch is out again! The most impressive and newest stunt I've seen was just today when I watched him scrabble 40 feet up the mulberry tree with an almost bored self-confidence. I could practically see him peeling off his furry skin to reveal the spiderman suit underneath.

You see, I have a love/hate relationship with Frank that stems from my daily dealings with humans. I am nice. Too nice. I am nice to store clerks, customer service agents, and even (gasp!) medical claims specialists. I wind up being a repressed pent-up stew of anger and resentment. And then an innocent Frank crosses my line of sight, meandering about the yard nibbling on this flower or that weed. Aha! Got him! I tear out of the house screaming and brandishing kitchen utensils, with the fury of a thousand unpaid medical bills and bad customer service incidents, and shout "FRANK! YOU FAT BASTARD, YOU GET THE HELL OUT OF MY GARDEN!!!". And poor Frank does one of those cartoon poses where the shocked animal leaps straight up into the air in fear and starts running in place before his little paws even hit the ground. As he flops into the woods as if being chased by satan himself, I smile and let out a little sigh of relief. Ah, that felt good. Think I'll get more coffee.

Around this time of year, Tom and I start referring to Frank as though he is a family member. "I saw Frank at the swing set today" or "Frank seems to prefer the baby squash to the baby cucumbers." This is also around the same time that our friends and family start to consider us clinically insane. "Why don't you just get rid of him?" they ask, and immediately start offering up their personal cache of weapons from poison, to traps, to pellet guns and beyond. But I always turn them down. Why? Three reasons.

#1.) What would you have me do instead? Unleash my anger out on the humans who actually inspire it? Lose my insurance coverage because of the string of expletives I used on the Horizon rep after calling my fourth 800 number to be told "we don't handle that"? Pull a hammer out of my diaper bag and matter-of-factly smash to bits the device my clerk is too busy OMG!!!ing on to ring me up? Trust me people. The world is better off with me as the crazy lady running around my yard chastising rodents, than with me as the crazy lady running around Michael's chasing down store clerks shouting "What do you MEAN it shows 17 in stock but they are on the truck??? They were still on the truck last week! Where is this truck? Does it ever stop driving? Does WONDER WOMAN drive this truck? AM I THE ONLY SANE PERSON IN THIS PLACE???" And so on.

#2) Sure, I could off Frank. But Franks are like gray hairs - you pull one, five more come back in it's place. Maybe not in Frank format. Maybe they reappear as deer, rabbits, moles or squirrels. Don't even get me started on the countless bugs and diseases. My point is, if mother nature has some sort of cosmic judicial system, the void of one murdered Frank is sensed by the hungry deer on the prowl for beautiful hosta leaves, or that fleet of Japanese beetles that just hatched from your neighbor's lawn. You're surrounded. Just put the weapon down, and back away slowly.

But let's say you keep your gun and your can of spray and set up shop on the edge of your garden. In the end, you might get more vegetables than I will. But you'll wind up having to do that all day, every day, and what fun is that? Better to just jump in with both feet, and muck around in the yin and the yang of it all with the rest of us - aphids & ladybugs, tomato hornworms & parasitic wasps, groundhogs & anti-groundhog fencing ... or maybe a barky dog. The enemy of my enemy is my friend - if not in global politics, at least in gardening. So for now, I will find ways to use Frank's natural tendencies against him while engaging in my own trifecta of weaponry - menacing looks, degrading insults, and generally scaring the bejeezus out of him whenever possible.

#3.) If I kill him, how many hilarious stories will you miss out on in the coming seasons? Ok, maybe they are not that funny, but they are funny to me. Being the star of my own self-deprecating comic melodrama, I need a character who can be the butt of my jokes while accentuating my own neuroses. In other words, if I am the Kathy Griffin of organic gardening, Frank is my tour manager, Tom.

I have a lot more Frank information to share, but for now I'll leave you with this new twist. This year's Frank has a girlfriend Frank, and I'm sure the little Franklets are on their way. Bring it on, Franks! It's going to be a fun summer.

Spring Garden Progress

2009-05-13T21:43:00.000-04:00

Now that folks in the northeast have stopped Ark building long enough to get outside, it seems like a good time for a spring garden veggie update.

Potatoes-in-Bucket are going along swimmingly (literally, considering all the rain this week). So far the bucket potatoes are twice as big as the trenched ground potatoes. However, the mulched potatoes in the tree line are barely sprouting, probably due to excessive weeds and minimal sun.

In the middle of the potatoes in this picture is my whiskey barrel of mint, which I've been growing with almost purposeful neglect for 8 years now. I usually keep three types - chocolate mint, spearmint, and peppermint. Mohitos, anyone?

Speaking of herbs, most everything coming up now is perennial, although I'm starting to see some volunteer seedlings from last year's basil, parsley and cilantro. The big guy on the left is tarragon, with golden thyme next to it.

Here we have chives, Greek oregano and hot & spicy oregano in front, with some chamomile and a strugglig sprig of stevia in the back. I planted the stevia this year, and also had to replace my rosemary, which never seems to overwinter for me. My sage also died after lasting a few years. I'm hoping to get a common sage along with a pineapple sage, which is gorgeous as a huge ornamental plant. If you see that variety out, you should get it and put it someplace in full sun with lots of room - and wait for the show.

Moving along to the veg, this bed is badly in need of thinning, with spinach and some out of control turnips. And lots of grass clippings because the lawn was just mowed!

Next up is the bed where half the work was done for me in the fall. The greens furthest away is a variety of arugula called rocket, or wild arugula. I had arugula in this bed last year and let it go to seed, and the seeds went everywhere. All done! The seeds germinated when they were good and ready, and I didn't have to do anything (although I also now have an arugula lawn and arugula pathways). In front of that, I broadcast some mesculun mix a few weeks ago, and that's coming up nicely too. Both those crops are the kind you can cut and inch above the soil line, and the plants will regrow. Sow it once, and you can have salad for the whole spring and some of the summer. On either side of both crops is my slowly plodding along peas. I'm not sure how much they appreciated that week of 90 degree weather we just had, so we'll have to see how much they wind up producing this year.

The second half of this bed consists of my wall-o-waters housing early tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. The only way to get summer crops started in the ground in spring is with some type of greehouse style protection. In between, I planed a row of carrots and a row of radishes. You can just barely see one of the tomatoes peeking out over the top. Hopefully the combination of putting an early fruiting variety in the wall-o-water means fresh garden tomatoes in June!

STRAWBERRIES! This will be year 3 for my strawberry bed. Last year we were buried in strawberries for all of June. It's worth losing a bunch of space to a strawberry patch, but they need to be contained somehow or they will run right over you. Even then, it's like keeping puppies in a box. Good luck!

Early morning dew on a strawberry leaf.

This shot is of my perennial bed, which is my asparagus patch, and horseradish in buried containers. We're also in year three of the asparagus, but I feel like it should be producing better at this point. Asparagus takes a few years to really establish, so maybe I'm just jumping the gun. The horseradish are in buckets because that's another crop that will take over (underground) if left unmanaged. In back is a cover crop of rye which I have yet to till under and let decompose - the purpose of a cover crop. Hmm, not sure when I'll be getting to that one.

Onions, shallots and garlic and doing just fine.

And last but not least, the Earth Boxes are housing a variety of lettuces. It looks like the endive and lettuce are ok, but the radicchio and mache are not so hot. For more details on the Earth Box, check my blog entry from 7/29/08.

That's all the news for now. In just a few weeks - TOMATO TIME!

Joyce's Mother's Day Heist, Pt 2: reprinted from 5/12/08 entry

2009-05-10T09:24:00.000-04:00

Once again, if you did not read JMDH part I, here's the quick story. I mailed both my mother's and grandmother's gifts for Mother's Day in the same package. Each gift was clearly labeled as to who got what, but they weren't wrapped. I assumed my mother would give my grandmother her gift. My mom emailed me to thank me, and the following madness ensued.

Email #1:

From: Joyce
To: Laura

Thank you for the card and ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS candy. I told
Grandma you sent her candy when we talked last night. I will bring it
to her the next time I go for a visit.

Email #2:
From: Laura
To: Joyce

i'm glad you liked the candy. does grandma like chocolate covered cherries? i always remember eating them at her house, but i don't remember if she liked them. i remember she liked maple though, but the cherries took up the budget.

Email #3:

From: Joyce
To: Laura

I must confess, I ate the cherries bec. carmel is not one of my
favorites. Hopefully, it is one of hers!!!
Love you, J.

Email #4:

From: Laura
To: Joyce

sorry, i couldn't remember besides the pretzels what you like. doesn't grandma have dentures? i don't think she can eat carmels if she does. i hope you didn't eat ALL the cherries on her, and if you did, you'd better tell her that they were meant for her! if neither of you can eat the carmels save them for me.

Email #5:

From: Joyce
To: Laura

I didn't eat all of the cherries since I only got them yesterday and
decided to ration myself to one a day bec. they are soooo good and it
would be nice to let that great flavor linger for a few weeks. What a
great treat!!! I will give grandma the caramels and the pretzels and
ask her if she wants them, if not then you can have them and I can pick
up something else from Gertrude Hawks for her.

Email #6: this is where I foolishly cc my dad, thinking he can help

From: Laura
To: Joyce
CC: Jim

JOYCE ANN, YOU SHARE THOSE CHERRIES!!!! i mean it! the pretzels and the carmels were supposed to be for you, as the placement of the cards clearly indicated. if you want to barter with grandma who gets what, that's fine, but you'd better let her have some of those cherries if she wants them. boy, that'll teach me to send multiple gifts in one box. you are a crafty crafty little woman.

i am alerting dad by cc so he can enforce the fairness of this trade mission.

Email #7A: my dad responds to me, but does not cc my mom

To: Laura
From: Jim

I am a little confused here. I assume your mother received some food that
she is hiding and/or hoarding. This is the first I'm hearing about it. You
should know by now she doesn't share when it comes to delicious treats. She
has always hidden food in the bedroom when she doesn't want to share. Your
grandma is on her own, your mother never did listen to me anyway. I guess
we will be seeing you in a few weeks. Take care.

Email #7B: my mom responds to me, having not seen my dad's email to me

Why are you telling on me? Your father never even saw the candy bec.
it's hidden in my bedroom. Boy, I can't believe you are doing this. I
DON'T WANT TO SHARE THE CHERRIES!!! This is just awful.

Email #8:

From: Laura
To: Joyce

you just made me laugh right out loud. i KNEW you were probably hiding them in your room. you're lucky grandma doesn't have email, or i'd tell her too. in fact, if i had uncle walter's email with me at work i'd tell him so he can tell grandma, just in case you knock dad off in his sleep before he has a chance to talk. uh oh, now i realize i put dad's life in jeopardy. well, hopefully all those years of private investigator shows will give him some tips on survival.

Email #9:

From: Joyce
To: Laura

I hate to tell you this but your father is not going to do anything to
help you because a long time ago he HAD to live with you but now he HAS
to live with me. Because, I'm the one who puts a smile on his face (it
has to do with sex) he will not upset the applecart and my dear, whether
you realize it or NOT you are living in another state. On the serious
side, I did not eat another choc. cherry so there is only one missing
from the box. BUT I still haven't decided if I am going to give them to
grandma yet and you CAN'T make me. If I decide to act like a grown-up
then she will get to taste a few but if not, they will remain hidden in
the bedroom and she can struggle with the caramels. You just gave me an
idea. Now that you know my hiding spot, I may have to look for another
one!
J.

Email #10:

From: Laura
To: Joyce

re: dad smiling - gross. i did not need to know that.
re: chocolates - on second thought, i'd better not reproduce because i hear insanity skips a generation and i'll probably just have the luck of birthing some child who will some day stab me in the back and steal my mother's day gift.

Happy Mother's Day to all you honorable women out there, who will one day be thrown under the bus by your own spawn!

I LOVE MY NEW MULCH!

2009-04-24T22:16:00.000-04:00

There's really nothing of value to say here. I just love my newly mulched beds at the front of my house!

I was kind of going for a Japanese feel to our plant choices when we first landscaped this area. It was inspired by the two gangly rhododendron that refused to come out of the ground, even when lassoed with chains and pulled by a truck. Since we had to give up moving them, I decided they had a bonsai flair about them, so I surrounded them with low growing complementary plants with silver and burgandy colors to them, like Japanese Barberry, Blue Star Junipers, and a Cutleaf Japanese Maple tree.

I REALLY wanted an authentic stone lantern to finish the look, but hey - you can't be $30 at Bed, Bath and Beyond for a fake one. It's even got a solar powered light in there! The grass is blue sedge, and the burgandy creeper in front of it is called Voodoo Stonecrop.

This is my show-stopper spring perennial flower on the front walkway called "Helleborus" or Lenten Rose. Everybody loves these guys and they are so easy to grow. They are a perennial evergreen for part to full shade areas, and the prickly leaves make them deer resistant. In my zone 6, they start blooming in March and are in full swing by April. Eventually the flowers fade to a pretty dusky green color.

The purpose of this bed is to hide the various septic pump equipment, like the lid to the tank and weird pipes and stuff. I made this my pink and blue bed, although it's too early in spring to really know that at this point. The main features are the three hydrangeas in the middle, along with some dicentra ("bleeding hearts"), astillbe, spirea, columbine and some grasses. This bed actually looks better now, since Tom, my official workhorse, has since edged all around it.

These are baby astillbe, which look kind of like furry snakes - surrounded, of course, by my gorgeous mulch.

Last but not least is my 173 Brunswick Pike memorial bed, replicating the garden I had in my very first house either by flat out stealing the original plants (it was a long 9 months before that thing sold) or finding the exact same plants already in place at the new pad. And just like at my old house, I still can't get anything but weeds to grow up that damn trellis. When this bed grows up more, it will have lots of shade friendly plants, since I seemed to have absolutely no sun where I used to live. Some good shade perennials here are lungwort, Jacob's ladder and dead nettle.

And now for the final tie-in .... doesn't my mulch look great?!?!?

Potato Woes

2009-04-17T13:40:00.000-04:00

I forgot to mention potatoes in my spring garden line-up, which is not surprising. Potatoes and I have a sordid history. One of us in this relationship is just not giving 100%, and for my part, I'm blaming the potatoes. Even with my best efforts, my potatoes tend to not live up to their potential. The potatoes, I imagine, would likely complain about my lack of consistent watering and general laissez-faire gardening style. Still, I'm not giving up just yet. Homegrown fresh potatoes are out of this world, and completely unlike anything you can get at the grocery store. So in 2009, I'm attempting three different planting methods that I haven't tried before.

1.) Trenching

This is the method I got from the handout at Agway where I bought my potato starts. Apparently potatoes don't appreciate being plopped into dense, clay-like soil and just left there. The proper way to treat them is to build up the soil around the plant at the stem, giving new potatoes room to form. In my raised bed, I dug two trenches about two feet apart, and planted potato starts around a foot apart in the row. As the sprouts grow, I'll pull down the dirt from the sides of the trench to keep the plants covered. Hopefully this will improve crop yields.

2.) Mulching

I knew there were other methods of growing potatoes, so some quick internet research resulted in a great page from Irish Eyes Garden Seeds. This page has complete start to finish potato growing tips, including two alternative planting methods. Mulching is when you prep the planting bed like you normally would, but instead of trenching, the potatoes get placed on or just below the soil. Mulch, like straw or shredded leaves, gets placed on top 6 to 10 inches deep. Continue to replenish as the stem grows, and harvest normally.

I don't have a picture of this method, but I don't have high hopes for it either. The only room I had left for them was out of the fence perimeter and solidly into the wilder parts of my yard - groundhog/mole/vole territory. Also, because it's not within reach of the hose, these guys are going to be subject to the watering schedule of mother nature herself. So, uh, yeah. Good luck out there potatoes!

3.) Cage/Garbage Can Method

The above link at Irish Eyes Garden Seeds calls it the cage method, and this eHow article talks about growing potatoes in a garbage can. Either way, this is a great method if you have space constriction, are growing vegetables in containers, or have problems in the past with diseases in your soil. As a member of the Solanaceae (Nightshade) family, potatoes are prone to the same diseases as peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant. To avoid passing these diseases through the soil from one year to the next, you should not plant potatoes (or any other family member) in the same spot for three years in a row. If you have a small garden, crop rotation by these standards is pretty much impossible unless you are using containers.

Since my potatoes religiously die back early from some kind of disease and have a low crop yield, I'm overly excited about this method. I took the hints from the Irish Eyes Garden Seeds article about planting in containers 18" across and at least 2 or 3 feet tall. I put finished compost in a layer at the bottom, and put dried chopped leaves on top. The trick here is to keep the pots watered well, which is not my strong suit. Wish me luck - and greater attention to detail.

OK, I have so many entries in my head to write, but I really ought to be taking advantage of this coolish morning to get some work done. See ya!

Check Out My Tools!: Must-Have Garden Supplies

2009-03-28T17:18:00.000-04:00

That's right, it's product promotion time, but I still don't get any money for this stuff. And because of that, you can wager that I legitimately mean what I say!

My favorite spring garden supplies are as follows:

Reusable velcro ties & bamboo poles

Check out my adorable pea trellis! Bamboo usually comes in 5 or 8 foot lengths so it meets many large scale needs, but can be cut down to any size. It's sturdy, attractive, plentiful and cheap. Combined with reusable velcro ties, you can make all sorts of great garden trellises. Here's a link to a simple bamboo trellis from Organic Gardening magazine.

Using plastic zip ties will give you a tighter connection, but I really like the velcro ones instead. I've had the same ones now for years and they are still going strong. Plus I'm not great at building stuff, so I usually need to reposition the bamboo multiple times and that means going through multiple plastic ties. The velcro adjusts quickly, and then you're off and running!

Wall-o-waters

How do you get the earliest home-grown tomatoes on the block? These guys right here. Each wall-o-water is like a mini greenhouse. A series of tubes is connected in a circle. Fill the tubes half way with water and place in the garden for two weeks to heat up the soil beneath. After two weeks, plant your tomato, pepper, eggplant or other summer crop in the wall-o-water and fill the tubes the rest of the way. That's it. The water in the tubes absorbs heat during the day and releases it at night, keeping your plant at a consistent cozy temperature. By the time your plant grows too big, nighttime temperatures are safe for those tomatoes to be out of the bag anyway. Using wall-o-waters will give you a serious six week head start on summer vegetables. You can easily have an early (with wall-o-waters in late spring ) and late (without wall-o-waters, and planted at the proper time) planting, which can give you a solid harvest from late spring to frost! These are easily found in any garden supply catalog, but I'm not sure you will find them on the shelves at garden store. But they should be!

Soaker Hoses

Good watering is key to a successful garden, and the best way to do it is to send the water directly to the roots of the plant where it belongs. Regular sprinklers waste water by sending it flying into the air to be lost to evaporation or to land on the entire plant as opposed to the soil. Too much water on the leaves themselves can lead to disease and mildew problems. Also, when a lot of water hits dry soil fast, it initially tends to pool up and run off. That's more water literally down the drain.

Using soaker hoses is the "set it and forget it" method of watering. You don't need to move a sprinkler around, or stand there endlessly with the hose nozzle doing it yourself. Lay your soaker hoses out so that they snake all around your garden beds. Connect your water supply and let the hose drip water slowly to the base of your plant and directly to the roots. Leave your water supply on long enough (depending on your soil type) to water 1-2 inches, and do this once a week. To determine how long that takes, put a shallow plastic container with inch measurements on it under your soaker hose and see how long it takes to fill. Again, these are reusable for many seasons and come in 25, 50, 75 or 100 foot lengths. They are easily found at any big box store or garden center.

That's all for today. I would be putting down new mulch right now, if not for the rain. It won't be long before I hit you with my next topic about the BEST organic method of dandelion weed control! Stay tuned!

Bring It On, Spring!

2009-03-28T09:54:00.000-04:00

Early in the week, I got the news. Friday's forecast called for 65 degree temperatures, followed by a weekend of rain. You know what that means? It means that I plant seeds Friday and walk away smiling, and mother nature is stuck theoretically dragging 50 feet of hose all around the yard doing the watering. Sweet! Let's go zone 6, time to mobilize!

Laura's Comprehensive and Probably Still Too Ambitious Spring Garden Plan

Peas: Apparently, the specific date peas should be planted depends on your religious affiliation. If you are extremely religious, peas are planted on St. Joseph's day. If you are only moderately religious, but have a solid appreciation for holidays that allow for excessive alcohol consumption, then St. Patrick's day is your pea planting time. If you are a secular granola crunchy hippie, then March 15th is your day. Regardless, all these bits of advice seem to be different ways to say the same thing: plant your peas in mid-March, as soon as the ground can be worked.

When did I plant peas? I threw seeds down on March 21st, in between grocery shopping and picking Sophia up from school, because that's when I finally got around to it. Make your own assumptions. And of course, I planted two different varieties but didn't keep track of which went where, and accidentally dug them up a week later when fertilizing the beds. Let the games begin!

Garlic, Onions, Shallots: These bulbs got planted in the fall and are coming up nicely! Three 4x4 beds of garlic gave us enough harvest that we finally ran out only last week. All these can be planted now for fall harvest as well, and you can get onion sets and shallot bulbs at most big box home stores. You might have to head to Agway for the garlic though. You can try planting store garlic if you like, but those are generally sprayed with a chemical that prevents them from sprouting, so it's a bit risky.

Root Vegetables - Radishes, Turnips, Beets & Carrots: Except for the carrots, I always have easy success with this cool weather crop group. Carrot seeds don't seem to like the fact that I'm going to forget to water them regularly while they are germinating, while the others seem to be more flexible about this. That's why I like planting seeds right before the rain is due! The other seeds I pretty much just broadcast around the plot, rake or poke them into the ground and then thin as necessary.

Lettuces & Greens: My favorite thing to do is to buy a mesclun salad seed mix and lightly cover the seeds in the ground in a 2x4 foot patch. In a few weeks, you have a colorful mix of salad greens that will grow back if you cut them an inch or two above the soil line when harvesting. Easy & fresh salad all spring and early summer! If you want to be really particular ( I won't mention any names, but someone in this house meets that description), you can buy the greens separately and make your own mix. Mesclun mix usually has endive, mustard, radicchio, lettuces and a variety of other random colorful greens. This is a great beginner gardener crop, and it can really save you some money when you compare the price of seeds to bagged grocery store salads. My other favorite spring planted greens are spinach, arugula, swiss chard and bok choy, which I usually plant separately instead of mixed together.

I thought I would take it easy this spring, and not start too many summer vegetables under lights in my basement. However, the above scheme does not sound much like taking it easy. Check back for further status reports!

A Walk in the Woods

2009-02-27T13:15:00.000-05:00

Today I was driven by the creepy overcast sky and unusually warm air to abandon my groceries in the car, and take a walk by the water. A creek runs behind my house, the kind of water that's too small for a boat but too big for a simple footbridge. It's the main reason we moved here from ten minutes away. Sophia's swing set is by the water, a placement decision that most parents would think better of, but not us. Today I swung facing the water, and eyed the dark woods not far to my right.

Calling it "woods" is a big stretch. It's really just a bit of wild at the edge of our property line maybe 100 feet deep. You could never have a Blair Witch situation in there. Sandwiched between our road and the creek that intersects it, you won't go far before you meet a natural or unnatural barrier. Even though we've lived here a few years, I never go there, and have never until today picked my way along the banks of the water.

In the height of summer, there are good reasons not go to in there. A wall of poison ivy, my nemesis, greets me at the tree line. Even when brave enough to get past it, the thorny brambles and the tangled wild vines are enough to stop me in my tracks. Don't even mention the ground that gives too much as you walk, layered with years of decomposed trees and leaves. What am I stepping on? Am I about to fall into a hole and break my ankle? Holy crap, why is the poison ivy vine FURRY???

In the brittle brown of winter, though, everything's a little clearer. I pick my way along an implied path and discover other sad sights on the way. Rusty pipes and rebar jutting out of abandoned chunks of concrete. Plastic tubs, broken glass. Tires. Who would do this and why? I can't imagine even touching this stuff, much less having the strength to lift it. It's a mess and probably not worth dealing with.

I keep crunching around anyway, finding funny things here and there. An old bird's nest built with feathers and sticks with a nice plastic bag foundation. An argument between two different surveyor's opinions - ribbons of hot pink vs. safety orange. But I kept finding myself veering toward the water until I ran into the fisherman's spot.

The fisherman can be seen from my house most seasons, casually traipsing through the backyard or picking along slowly through the water. But usually I see them in the same spot far from the house in this patch of woods. If I squint, I can make them out through the trees as shadowy camouflaged figures in their superhero-like rubber waders (read: tights). I stand in their footsteps, and I see why they come here.

A few sections by the water are weed and leaf free because of the natural rise of the stream during a storm. The sediment left behind makes sandy and flat areas, like mini private beaches. A large chuck of moss covered shale, the perfect natural bench, sits in the middle. Trees stretch over the stream and stand tip-toe on their gnarled medusa roots. In front the water is a quiet pool, a little bit of deep stillness that the fish like. For a second, the passing cars fade, and I am aware that I just exhaled in a way that my shoulders thanked me. In the next second I knew that, although I look at the water every day from the big bay windows in my comfortable dining room, I never see it. That makes me just the same as the dude who dumped the tire. How can I respect and appreciate something if most days I don't even notice it exists?

There's still the rusted pipes and broken glass, but the structure is here. This place has good bones and my mind starts to whirr. A meditation garden is what I need. Nothing fancy.
The cleared path to the spot is the easy first step. Then junk removal, and then a fight with the poison ivy and picker bushes as soon as they start to rear up, even though I hate those more than I hate being stabbed by rusty metal. And then when the trees leaf out and I can see how the sun hits, some Japanese ferns and variegated hostas will brighten up the spot and shadow out the invasive wild carrot and garlic mustard. The mossy rock stays, perfect just as it is.

Last fall I was sure I would be blogging in the spring about seed shopping, making up potting mix, and showing off my elaborate homemade grow light system. Normally in mid-March my basement system would be well under way with staggered plantings of tomatoes and peppers, lots of different lettuces and greens and then my chosen experimental exotic weirdo vegetables of the year (leeks and artichokes for 2009). But now I think I'm going to rely on Cierich's garden center for heirloom tomato and pepper stock, and Agway for the herbs. Instead of scattering myself doing a hundred small projects at once, and badly, I will do three simple things.

I will face my fears of the unknown. I will repair what is broken and neglected. I will see the water every day.

I will make it right.

Show Me the Money! (and other abandoned topics)

2008-12-13T12:13:00.000-05:00

"If you've been following my illustrious career as a blogger/artist/gardener/funnywoman, then you've likely noticed some recurring themes. 1.) I'm lazy. 2.) I'm cheap. 3.) I have a lot of hobbies, all of which I aim to do with as little effort or expense as possible. "

That's the intro to a never written story about how to shop for and plant deep discount end-of-season perennials. It was never finished because, having purchased about 60 plants for maybe $100 bucks, I spent two weeks maniacally digging holes and throwing plants into the ground as if being chased by a pack of wild dogs. By the time I was done, it was too cold to plant anything else, and I bought all the remaining inventory, so my advice to you would have been useless.

Here's another good one that never got finished entitled "Cast of Characters: Sisyphus"

"Tom and I are busy people - your standard busy married couple that can go for long periods of time, caught up in the "to-do" list of daily life, without having any sort of constructive conversation. What follows is the story of one couple's communication issues, and one cosmically challenged little red squirrel."

What's the point of sharing what I've started but not finished? First, to prove that I'm always Thinking about writing, I'm just not necessarily doing it. And second, whether I am writing or thinking, I am always terribly funny - at least to me.

So to conclude 2008, my first year of garden blogging, I'll leave you with a list of other articles not likely to get written in the next two weeks:

Why Throwing a Rotting Pumpkin in the Woods is the Same as Gardening
Frank vs. Laura: The Final Score
If You're Eating at My House, Don't Ask "What's in the Salad?": An Edible Weed Primer
The Tale of the Tufted Titmouse, and His Dirty Bird Friends

And so goes 2008. But make sure you return in 2009 because man, do I have some stunning realizations for you ... starting right in January with seed catalog shopping time!

Happy Holidays!

Difficult Conversations

2008-12-12T14:43:00.000-05:00

I can't conclude 2008 without poking a tiny bit more fun of Joyce. Out of fairness though, I have to admit that we're quite a bit alike. So here you go - a little bit of even steven if you will....

Joyce's Tale... Why Mothers and Urban Vernacular Don't Mix: An Email Exchange
The story begins after a painful email discussion regarding which, if any, bread products should accompany Thanksgiving dinner. For the sake of every one's sanity, those particular emails are not included.

Joyce: "I could tell yesterday that you were getting annoyed with me over the bread/rolls thing but I kept it up just to tease you!"

Me: "see? you're just as annoying as dad. but at least you know you're being annoying. as a status on my facebook page, i wrote "laura is going to kill her mother", but too many people commented in your defense. well, really it was 50/50. then i later wrote that i changed my mind due to the pro-joyce comments, and my friend jim from college wrote "she rocked in our creative writing course. totally rocked. mad props." you have a lot of fans."

Joyce: "Wow!!! I'm impressed that one of your friends would remember me from a class in the first place let alone even remember the props I used. Apparently, they impressed him more than me."

Me: "'mad props' means something like 'kudos'. i doubt you showed up to that class in your mink coat and groucho marx glasses, or juggling pins, or anything like that. pretty funny though. i laughed for about five minutes after your email."

Joyce: "No--really I did use props. I think he might be referring to my speech about twins bec. I brought your sisters to class with me."

Laura's Tale ... Married People Talking
I am a multi-tasker from hell, and I tend to believe that I am rather good at it. Yesterday I put Sophia to bed, realized I hadn't eaten in 9 hours, and set about making myself a plate of some lovely stew that my wonderful husband made. But it was going on 9, and my mind started rattling on to everything I had to do before bed ... finish cleaning the kitchen ... start that new glass order ... call jen ... isn't pick-up artist 2 on tonight? gotta watch then call jen after .... what's in this stuff i'm eating anyway?

Me, to Tom, while slamming stuff in and out of the microwave: "Is there meat in this pork?"

Tom, confused: "Wha-?"

Me, using my annoyed outside voice: "Is there MEAT in this PORK??"

Tom, hesitantly sarcastic: "Uh .... yes ... there's meat in the pork."

Me, extremely offended: "Well you don't have to say it all snotty like that, it's a legitimate question!"

Tom, exasperated and close to giving it all up for good: "I don't know what you MEAN."

Me, making it known I am speaking to someone of inferior intellect: "What I MEAN, is that when you cooked the MEAT, did you leave the .... uh .... are there bones in this pork?"

Perhaps I am not the multi-tasker I claim to be, and should attempt to concentrate on one thing at a time. Or I can just become a vegetarian so I no longer have to be concerned about what's in the pork.

Cast of Characters: Ma'am, Sir & Family

2008-09-07T19:54:00.000-04:00

Last week I trudged out into the garden after a week's vacation at the shore, and grimly surveyed the damaged. The trifecta of disease, poor gardening skills, and a rock-star style drunken orgy thrown by our resident groundhog had combined in a perfect storm of disaster. My trellises were groaning under the weight of enormous San Marzano sauce tomatoes which were still producing, even though a wilt was yellowing and killing the leaves. My adorable stand of corn was overtaken by some sort of bizarre Chinese long bean that I had planted, and in a display reminiscent of the recent Olympics, the beans proceeded to climb the corn, knock it over, and then march relentlessly and perfectly in-sync towards the sunflowers. But the worst was easily the result of Frank the groundhog and his buddies. Taking advantage of vacationing humans, the zucchini and cucumber plants were feasted on down to the stem by the raucous bunch, leaving only miniature smashed guitars and tour bus skid marks in their wake. As I approached, the last of the slightly drunk and partially clothed groundhogettes started home on the long waddle of shame.

As I added up the amount of hours and physical strength that would be needed to bust the place back into shape, my spirits sank. Where to begin? The overgrown dying tomatoes? The (clearlyy underage yet creepily strong) Chinese bean vines? In my depression I decided to take the path of least resistance and weed the flower bed that didn't really need much weeding, just to feel like I accomplished something. I stuck my hand into the tangle of nasturtiums, nearly crapped myself in shock & fear, and then gave a whoop of joy. Ma'am was back!Are you scared yet? Don't be. Ma'am is a garden orb spider, not dangerous to humans but a real super ass-kicker when it comes to annoying bugs that cause trouble in the garden. Ma'am is appropriately named, because I feel that if she was ever given the power of speech, I would probably actually crap my pants, and then say "Yes ma'am!!!" to whatever directive I was given. I mean, I know she's not dangerous, but still. YIKES! Not appearing in this picture is her husband/boyfriend/partner, the aptly named Sir. He is about a third her size, takes up residence in his own mini web somewhere on the outskirts of hers and is generally good for only one thing. Clearly, I need to finish this paragraph with a zingy one liner about married life, but, as is often the case with other marital activities, I'm simply too tired to bother. You finish it. And happy fall gardening to you!

Question of the Week/Month/Quarter: Starting a New Garden

2008-08-25T15:31:00.000-04:00

So in a separate personal email, infamous commenter of recent past "szg" asked for some input on starting an organic garden from scratch. I wrote back and told him I would answer him as my question of the week/month/quarter, and he advised that I needed to slap it on the table and go large with this blog thing. He also said I should call out Mike McGrath, and then claim ownership of various professional degrees which I do not actually have. So out of deference to szg's marketing techniques, here is the (revised) question of the week/month/quarter that I will be answering.

Since I started my blog, I have gotten thousands of emails (one) from all over the country (Trenton) from first-time or wannabe gardeners. They all (same one) ask a question similar to the one I got from szg in Central New Jersey that asked "Laura, why are you like the smartest person ever? And how come that punk Mike McGrath has a radio show and you don't? And what advice would you give someone starting an organic garden from scratch?"

Well, szg, as ever, I am humbled by the overwhelming response to my blog, and would be nowhere without my adoring fans. I appreciate you taking the time to offer your insightful and completely accurate commentary. But now, on with the show, if you will.

1.) Build a raised bed

The basic tenant of organic gardening is that you garden from the soil up, not from the plant down. So if you start with loose, well-drained soil soil rich in organic matter and nutrients, your plants will be less prone to disease and pests. Now, maybe you can walk outside, stick a shovel in the ground, and conveniently have this perfect ideal soil. That could happen, and if it did, well, you suck. And congratulations. But if it doesn't (or even if it does), consider the merits of the raised bed.

Raised beds warm up faster in spring (allowing for earlier planting), are easier to plant in and weed, and allow proper drainage. If you're building the bed and adding fresh soil instead of tilling the soil you have, you will be avoiding much of the pre-existing perennial weeds, not to mention sticks, rocks, hunks of clay, broken bottles, unidentifiable plastic things and other disturbing items you find when digging too deep in New Jersey. My neighbor found an entire car buried in his yard. Seriously.

So now I told you why to build a raised bed, but I failed to mention what it is. A raised bed is simply an extra 12 to 24 inches of dirt raised above the regular soil line in your yard. Ideally it is 4 feet wide and reachable from all sides so that you never have to step in your wonderful loose soil in order to plant or harvest. It can be as long as you have room for, or have the energy to build. It can have sides, or just be a raised berm. The sides should be some rot-resistant non-chemical-laden material, like bricks, rocks, cinder blocks, cedar, redwood, composite wood-like stuff, etc. No railroad ties allowed, and organic types are still hesitant about treated wood, even though the new treatment method doesn't use arsenic. You can even google "buy raised beds" and find kits that include the corner brackets and the material. For example...

2 tier plastic raised bed from gardener's supply catalog
raised bed with cedar from eartheasy shop
composite raised bed from eartheasy shop
raised bed corner brackets - you supply the wood

I realize none of this material is cheap, and all of the fancy products in the world aren't going to save you from the fact that you STILL have to remove or turn over the sod in the area where you are going to build your bed. Knowing that may push you in the berm direction, or may make you abandon the idea of raised beds all together. If you decide to till and plant in existing soil, make sure you get a soil test to determine what your nutrients your soil needs, whether you need to add amendments to balance the pH level, and determine from there if you need to till in compost or leaves or other organic matter to make your soil more friendly to plantings.

But if you can't stand the thought of tilling, amending soil or digging out sod, there's one more option. Lasagna gardening! There's a whole bunch of organic gardeners who don't believe in tilling or digging at all. The quick and dirty (heh!) version of no-till gardening is that you kill the grass by putting down thick layers of newspaper or cardboard, let it break down for a season, and build your bed on top of that. In the book "Lasagna Gardening", Patricial Lanza explaines the system she invented of building her raised bed and putting in alternating layers of different types of organic matter 2 feet high, and then putting the plants straight in them. If this sounds good to you, looks like you have to do some book shopping!

2.) Plant stuff (not too much, and follow the freaking directions on the label!)

What??? All this time and energy making the perfect damn organically specified raised bed, and then your advice is "don't plant too much"??? Look, you're the one who asked. I'm just saying that you might get carried away out of the gates and make things too complicated. If you're new to gardening, focus on a few standard and somewhat easy crops to manage so you concentrate on getting it right the first time. Here are my thoughts for zone 6 plantings:

Spring: Peas can go in the ground mid-March even through snow and ice, and are usually pretty easy to manage. Plus you get to start your long gardening career as trellis builder, which is its own drama. Buy lettuce seedlings from your local nursery and the ground will usually be ready for them in April. Lots of lettuces can be cut an inch above the soil line, and what's left in the ground will regrow for more harvesting until it gets too hot.

Summer: Pick your two or three favorite veggies to eat, and plant them. Tomatoes, peppers and maybe a sqush plant will give you plenty to keep up with. Again, just buy the plants instead of worrying about starting tomatoes and peppers from seed the first year. It's easier, and there are tons of options at all the garden stores. This is the time when spacing really becomes important, especially if you're going to do some of the monsters like zucchini and cucumber plants. Read the package and do what it says .... right Dina???

Fall: If you don't totally hate gardening by now, put in some spinach and radish seeds. They grow quickly and don't mind the cold. Plus you get extra bragging rights at your dinner party when you're serving garden fresh salad in October.

3.) Do everything right, then figure out what you did wrong

You follow all the advice, and find yourself screwed anyway - disease, drought, bugs, rodents, hungry neighbors, whatever. Something is bound to go awry, and when it does, don't worry. It's just the beginning of your own organic gardening adventures! Here are my favorite resources to help you on your way....

Web:
Organic Gardening Magazine's website
Garden Web Forums - join and post questions
Radio Show Host Mike McGrath on WHYY

Magazines:
Organic Gardening Magazine, of course!

Books: (Clearly I am a fan of J.I. Rodale and all his works. However, I'm just about to pick up some stuff by Jerry Baker to see what he's about. Seems like a bit of a kook, but then again, most gardeners are.)
Rodale's Chemical-Free Yard & Garden
Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening
Insect, Disease & Weed ID Guide
Lasagna Gardening
You Bet Your Tomatoes!

So in summary (you were begging for that phrase, I know), my recommendation for the first time gardener is to build a raised bed, fill it with good soil, follow spacing guidelines for your crops, and get your Google fingers ready. Oh yeah, and have fun! Really, it's fun. And besides, how bad can it be? Not worse than my garden, I assure you.

Product Placement For Which I, Unfortunately, Receive No Compensation: the Earth Box

2008-07-29T08:05:00.000-04:00

Two questions: What is the Earth Box? And why are they not paying me to promote their product?

Well, I guess I'm not getting money or other valuable prizes because they don't know me, or care what I say. But I harbor no ill will. And as for what is the Earth Box? We must got back to the beginning - to the one and only Walter Petrosky.

Walter Petrosky is my 70+ year old Polish grandfather from the Scranton area who has 70+ years worth of wisdom to relay. Aside from being my favorite person, my grandfather is my greatest literary influence because of his particular style of leading his stories with the punchline. However, the punchline in his case usually doubles as the moral of the story. For example, my favorite stories by my grandfather begin with this line, delivered with complete sincerity in a strong Scranton accent: "Laura! (Lare-uh!) You gotta be careful with electricity (lektricity). [Pause - lean in for dramatic effect - commence pointing] Because one time, me, Bobby Touch, Jackie Mancuso (Mancuse) went up the (da) Mountain (Moun-un)...." and then things get weird, and there's something about stealing railroad tracks from the coal mine, an exposed 220 volt wire, and now my grandfather has curly hair. That's the best of the "beware of electricity" themed stories, although it would seem my grandfather has electrocuted himself no less than 5 times, and still lives so that we might all learn from his errors. He has also planted garlic upside down and nearly gotten bitten by a rattlesnake while picking blueberries ("We were up the mountain! We got paid five cents a pail! We shared one pair of shoes!"). Hints from Heloise, look out! These are good tips, all delivered Walter Petrosky style.

So how am I going to bring it back around from an elderly Polish man to the Earth Box? Here I go people, check me out. My grandfather has always sponsored my hobbies. Apparently in college, he felt my hobbies were eating peanut butter and drinking A-Treat lemon-lime soda by the case. Walt had that covered. Then when we bought our first house and took up renovating, we received a constant supply of Sears Craftsman tools. Now that gardening is my latest preoccupation, he's on the lookout for new and better gear for me at all times. So when Johnny Schwartztraubber's tomatoes became the talk of the block, my grandfather was on it.

It was explained to me, with much directional gesturing, that Johnny had bigger and more tomatoes on two plants than the guy with the garden across the street, or so-and-so from down the block, and the reason was that he was planting his tomatoes in a raised plastic box on casters. Not one to dilly-dally, I immediately became the owner of two such contraptions.

The Earth Box is essentially a raised bed on wheels. It's a self-watering system, which means that the bottom of the box is a reservoir that holds water and keeps the dirt above it on a perforated platform. The soil absorbs water as needed, keeping itself evenly moist. All you have to do is keep topping off the water. It also comes with the soil, the casters to move it in and out of the sun, a tight fitting plastic mulch cover and fertilizer. The complete instructions detail exactly how many of each type of a variety of seedlings should be planted, how they should be placed in the box and where the fertilizer goes. It's pretty fool-proof and is great for decks, since it's easy to roll around. An additional accessory kit comes with the trellis for tomatoes or other tall plants.

It's fool-proof all right, but how did I fare? Well, pretty ok, even for me. FOR ONCE, I followed the directions when planting my lettuces and only put in as many as they said and arranged them properly. I didn't even water regularly, but was still rewarded with an entire spring's worth of pest-free delicious lettuces that I cut an inch from the root so that they regrew. They were twice the size of the same lettuces that I planted in the garden at the same time. It really and truly rocked. Now, as far as the tomatoes, I couldn't resist the urge to plant only two, and put in three, which was not good. I also didn't keep watering regularly, resulting in something called blossom end rot, where the tomatoes gets black soft spots. The lack of regular watering and tight spacing stressed the plants, and now they picked up some sort of wilt. However, the tomatoes I did get were the first of the season, I believe because the box heats the soil sooner, speeding up the growth process. The tomatoes are still coming, but the ones in the garden are in better shape.

My final assessment? If you are a new gardener, or have limited space in the garden, or have ample deck space for containers, or just feel like it, get yourself an Earth Box system. And when you do, take a bit of a time out to thank Walter Petrosky for his enthusiasm, his dedication, and his knack for self-electrocution. Clearly, it has worked out for the best.

Notes From the Chopping Block: Tom's Pea & Garlic Scape Soup Recipe

2008-07-24T22:06:00.000-04:00

Tom and I genuinely have a good system here: I grow food and he cooks it. Luckily for me, he is a better chef than I am a gardener. The following words are his, including the smart-ass remarks about yours truly.....

Long-in-the-tooth pea & garlic scape soup

What does the cook do when the gardener falls asleep at the wheelbarrow, and allows fantastic, organic produce to enter the agricultural equivalent of our “golden years?” Make soup. It is easy and surprisingly delicious. Even though the fruit, vegetable, tuber, or whatever isn’t pretty and tender anymore, it is still loaded with the flavor that only accompanies food that is freshly harvested.

So, here is just one of many simple soup recipes, and the basic technique works for just about anything coming out of your garden.

Ingredients
Peas (shucked with pods reserved)
Garlic scape (feel free to use the tough parts and save the tender ends for something else)
Tarragon
Water
Salt (please, not the iodized stuff with the picture of the girl and the umbrella. Go out and get yourself some good sea salt, or grey salt, or kosher salt, anything but the other stuff)

Procedure
Coarsely chop the pea pods (not the peas), the garlic scape and the tarragon. Place in a stockpot, and cover with water. Bring to a boil, and then lower to a simmer. Let it cook, covered, for about 30 minutes or so. Let cool. Puree the cooled stock in a blender or food processor. Pass the pureed stock through a sieve. You now have a stock – congratulations!
Prior to serving, return the stock to a simmer and add the peas and salt to taste. Let cook for just a few minutes until the peas are slightly softened, but retain some bite. Garnish with a pinch of fresh tarragon and perhaps a drizzle of olive oil or cream (not both). Serve with crusty bread.

In Defense of the Lazy Gardener

2008-07-10T11:18:00.000-04:00

Who starts a blog and after a month, never posts again? I do, I do! But seriously people, it's not practical to start a blog about gardening in the spring. The spring is full of opportunity and hope, wacky schemes and grand adventures. That's the time my happy self is puttering in the garden, delusional and optimistic, sure that THIS time it's going to be great! Then summer comes, and reality punches you in the face with the quick one-two jab of disease and pest damage, an uppercut of drought and then the full wind up knock-out of Frank the groundhog. Summer, I realize, is the appropriate time to start a garden blog because #1. it's too hot out there and #2. the creatures are winning. When Frank starts his own blog, I will go into even deeper hiding.

In the meantime, I would like to share my favorite triumphant screw-ups of 2008, and point out the merits of my specific version of bottle rocket gardening (fire with good intentions, put on a mediocre show, fail with a lingering whine). It's also good to note that if you are going to be a bottle rocket gardener, it's best to have a spouse/partner/whatever who can pick up the pieces of your failed attempts and, Iron Chef style, still come up with some fantastic meal.

1.) To Pea or not to Pea:

So every year I plant peas, usually snap peas and snow peas, because I love walking around the garden eating fresh pea pods right off the vine. I can't be bothered with shelling peas since that's extra work, and who wants that? But here's the thing, even if I eat 5-10 pea pods every other day for the month or so that peas are producing, that's maybe two or thee plants worth of peas. How many plants do I grow? Like a 20 foot row. So I eat two plants worth of peas, and go start a blog, while the other 118 plants are like WHAT THE FRIG??? Here they are, doing their genetic duty and waving their offspring around in the wind, and I can't be bothered to harvest them. So I finally get around to harvesting, and the pods are way past edible. They're tough and stringy, and no fun at all, and my crop's a waste. Tom, as usual, is aggravated with my lack of follow through, but starts shelling them instead of eating them whole. I'm like, bah! They're not shelling peas, they're meant to be eaten in the pod when they're young. But sure enough, they taste quite lovely. So I go and read the packet and, lo and behold, I bought peas that are good for pod eating OR shelling. Doh! Suddenly with the standards being adjusted, we had a huge crop of shelling peas which Tom made the best soup ever with, and all thanks to the fact that I am not only a bad gardener but I also can't be bothered to read.

2.) The Great Garlic Scape

Ever since moving to this bizarre section of northwest Jersey, I've been obsessed with attending the Pocono Garlic Festival. For some reason, every year we ran into a scheduling conflict until Fall of 2007, when we coerced Dina and Rich to escort us to this extravaganza of garlic. All I knew is that I was going to buy garlic bulbs to plant, and that I was willing to try garlic ice cream just to say I ate it. The overall assessment from the four of us (including a silent nod of agreement from Sophia) was, like Christopher Walken in the famed SNL skit, we needed more garlic. It was your typical fall festival with craft vendors, music, local food stands, but everyone (maybe not so much the soap vendors) had a garlic theme. The local farms all had their fall crops for sale, including lots of varieties of garlic, potatoes and onions, and all the local food vendors had something on the menu that was garlic heavy. We did have an awesome garlic chowder, bought a strange garlic hot pepper jelly, and ate really freaking good kielbasa from a meat joint called Komenski's hailing from Dupont, PA. The heavily touted "garlic ice cream" turned out to be vanilla ice cream with a garlic pretzel topping. Regardless it was a great garlic time, and I bought THREE varieties of garlic, and couldn't wait to plant them in October, as directed.

If you are unfamiliar with the mechanics of garlic, each clove of garlic, if planted in the fall and left to overwinter, will become a full head of garlic by the following summer. This is just like planting tulips, and you do both at the same time. Like tulips, they will send up a stalk with a flower, but unlike tulips, this is a bad thing, since you're growing the garlic for the bulb, not the flower. Producing a flower weakens the bulb because it's putting it's energy into flower production. I knew that at the first sign of flowering, I should have pinched off the top of the garlic so it would keep growing but keep its energy aimed at making a great head of garlic. I should have, but didn't.

Instead one day I looked out at the three beautiful 4'x6' beds of garlic and notice the tops had all turned into giant curly Q's. What??? Clearly they were going into flowering, and that's no good. I say to myself, I have to get out there and cut those crazy things off. And time goes by, and I pass them and say I REALLY have to cut those things off! And more time goes by, and I pass them and say I REALLY NEED to cut those damn things off. And still more time goes by, and finally I'm like OK DAMMIT! I'm cutting those things off right now! But some voice in my head knows they are called garlic scapes, and thinks, maybe they are edible. So I run to Google.

Turns out, that not only are they edible, but they are some sort of eagerly anticipated food dork delicacy, and people pay offensive sums of money for these at fancy local organic markets. You seem to use them as a cross between an herb and a scallion - like a garlic flavored herb but the flavor is really mild and blends well into lots of foods. A little more digging, and I found some recipes for scapes & eggs, along with garlic scape pesto. This was all Tom needed to know to get rolling, and we ate and served garlic scapes to people for weeks, and stored a bunch in the freezer - all because procrastination rules the day.

3.) Rampant volunteerism

I'm not talking about heading to the local food pantry to plate up stuff for the needy. Volunteerism is my favorite aspect of lazy gardening. It's my reminder that no matter what you do, nature has its own agenda, so you may as well just let it go and see what happens.

So, here's some basic life cycle plant info. Every plant's job is to reproduce itself somehow. Lots of typical garden plants do this by producing flowers which get pollinated and produce seed, at which point the plant knows it has done its genetic duty and can happily die. If you continually pick the flowers or seeds, the plant cannot happily die and has to keep producing flowers until the weather causes it to die or take a long nap. Therefore a good gardener knows, that to keep flowers at proper show stopping production, you must snip off old flowers before they go to seed, otherwise known as deadheading. A good gardener putters about the garden every day, plucking off fading flowers. It is the right thing to do. However, I do not have the time or energy to be a good gardener.

That means, many (most) of my flowers go to seed, put on a crappy flower show, and die proudly as scheduled knowing they did fantastic work, because their seeds have hit the soil and will grow again next year on their own. These babies are called "volunteers" by gardeners, and these can be good or bad .... bad when it's an invasive weed, but awesome when it's your favorite vegetable or herb or flower. I had lots of great volunteers this year, therefore, I have lots of good reasons to never walk around deadheading plants. Did you see that? Once again, I have found a way to justify not working that hard.

In the event that you would like to take up gardening but not do the proper amount of work, here are some of my favorite volunteers:

flowers: columbine, cleome, impatiens, calendula, cosmos (something with the c's, don't know why), pansies
herbs: purple basil, parsley, chamomile
veg: spinach, bok choy, arugula. Tomatoes will also appear again next year anyplace you let one fall off the plant and rot. They are not necessarily going to exactly resemble the plant they originated from, but that's a story for another entry. In the meantime, if you need an explanation, ask Mendel.

I have to give a special shout out to my favorite volunteer, my Sicilian arugula. I bought these seeds literally in Sicily in 2003 and smuggled (gasp!) them home in my suitcase, thinking I was getting some special exotic plant. We went there on a week long tour in the fall and every restaurant we ate in had the same main foods billed as the "typical Sicilian dish" of the season. Trust me, the Sicilians have been on the local-seasonal-fresh bandwagon forever, and after my 18th eggplant caponata, I got the message loud and clear. However, there was also this salad that I swore was called "rocket salad" with this green leaf that was spicy and vibrant and amazing, reminiscent of arugula, yet making arugula the ugly step-sister. It rocked, as the name indicated, and I had to have it. Turns out, once I got home and looked though some books, it was actually called roquette, and is a variety of arugula that is likely referred to as "sylvetta wild arugula." And it's perfectly accessible for purchase online. Not quite as exotic as I thought.

BUT here's the best thing - if you plant something, and let it reseed every year, over time, it will grow to adjust to the specific conditions in your garden, climate, zone, etc. Like, I may have started out with "arugula, sylvetta wild variety," but after years of the strongest plants surviving to reproduce in my particular patch of dirt, I have created "arugula, sylvetta wild variety, laura knott zone" meaning my arugula's internal monologue is "I grow in a zone 6 garden in New Jersey in full sun. Sometimes I get water every week, sometimes I don't. I never get fertilized, and no one cares much about me. One time, this super creepy spider moved into my flower stalks and totally freaked me out and STILL no one cared. *sigh* I'm like, whatever, dude. I'm just here to grow and shit."

Do I need a recap here? I think I do. In summary, it is good to be a lazy gardener because accidents can wind up being beneficial, and Mother Nature will pick up the slack where you fail. Of course, at the moment I'm not telling you about my disease ridden potatoes, broccoli riddled with flea beetle bullet holes, and Frank the groundhog, who I'm pretty sure threw me the finger the other day after he ate every bean plant in the ground. Ah, but that's another entry, isn't it? Biggest garden failures of 2008 - coming soon!!!

Joyce's Mothers Day Heist: Part III - the feel good conclusion

2008-05-12T09:15:00.000-04:00

What happened next, you might wonder? Well, I bought my grandmother a brand new box of chocolate covered cherries, made fifteen copies of the emails, and went to Scranton. I passed out the emails, did a dramatic reading for my entire family and presented my grandmother with her missing gift. And, as expected, everyone was hysterical laughing. My mother got the candy from her hiding place and still refused to let anyone try them, and my grandmother interrupted the reading to point out that she never got the pretzels either. It was quite a heart-warming Knott family moment, and there was no ill ill. After all, it was about the chocolate, and none of us are really sharers.

Do you have a crazy mother, or are you working towards being one yourself someday? Do simple family holidays degenerate into madness at the hand of the head matriarch? This is your moment to share - not your chocolates, god forbid, just your stories. From what I hear from my friends, Joyce is not the only nutjob out there to have ever given birth. Take it away, readers!

Joyce's Mother's Day Heist: Part II - the deed is done

2008-05-12T08:43:00.000-04:00

Joyce's Mother's Day Heist: Part I - the beginning

2008-05-11T22:05:00.000-04:00

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Specifically, it was the time my mother switched out the Mother's Day gift I got her for something better - for something I had gotten for my grandmother, in fact. Confused? You're not alone. There was no one more confused than me at the time - confused, shocked, offended, and secretly impressed. Ask any of my friends and they will agree: ain't no story like a Joyce Knott story.

The following are actual emails sent between myself and my mother in the year 2003. They are unedited. This story is completely true. There is no poetic license. There is no James Frey I-meant-it-as-a-memoir crap. This is totally Will & Grace style ..."JUST JOYCE!"

By way of background, in the year 2003, I did not return to Scranton, PA for Mother's Day. Because of this, I sent two gifts of boxed chocolates to my parents' house - one for my mother, one for my grandmother. Each was wrapped with ribbon and had a card attached noting the beneficiary of said gift, but no wrapping paper was involved (my fatal flaw).

By way of further background, the Knott family sweet tooth is legendary. We are not big on food. Food keeps you alive so that you can wake up another day to eat chocolate. I STILL have to physically restrain my adult (may I say OLD) parents from diving into the pumpkin pie prior to Thanksgiving dinner. It is perfectly acceptable, and even praiseworthy, to show up at a family dinner with a half eaten dessert. Well, at least we shared, didn't we? You're welcome!

It was a strange juxtaposition then, to marry into my husband's Italian family. To people who behave as though cured meats and aged cheeses are exotic treats. To people who can taste, smell, and consequently discuss at length the quality difference between different brands of extra virgin olive oil. {You didn't notice it, but I LITERALLY just capitalized "olive oil" as I was typing, and had to fix it - as though I had just typed "God" or "President Bush" or "Tuesday".} To people who put hours and courses between themselves and dessert. On purpose! And then when dessert finally does come, part of it's nuts and fruit. NUTS AND FRUIT. What the hell kind of crazy joke is this? You mean you don't spend most of your waking moments trying to destroy yourselves with fat and sugar?? You mean that just because fruit tastes sweet and good that is counts as dessert??? AND YOU CALL YOURSELVES AMERICAN????? Oh wait, you don't. You call yourselves Italian. Der.

Here I stand, ten years later, a foot in each food world. I've largely adopted the Italian way of eating. Frankly, it's just better. Vegetables, when not from a can or in a casserole, are not a type of punishment. Meat, when properly seasoned and prepared, can taste wonderful. And most importantly, there is an enormous difference between brands and styles of olive oil. Seriously. If that's not enough to convert, it's also acceptable during these meals to drink fantastically excessive amounts of red wine! Woo-hoo! If you are not Italian (or some other culture where food is a big deal) please do yourself a favor, and fix that immediately.

But does nurture ever really win over nature? Can we as humans be more than the sum of our genetically predetermined components? Maybe you can, but I can't. I can eat relatively well most of the time, but if you sit me in a restaurant with a menu, a slight variation of the following meal will be ordered: gigantic piece of medium rare red meat, mashed potato, token vegetable to be ignored, carafe of house red (keep it comin!) and dessert - always chocolate, usually prefaced by "triple" "death by" or "flourless". The only acceptable fruit involved are reduced in a sauce and drizzled artfully over the chocolate, with maybe one tiny piece garnishing the whipped cream. And so help me Jesus, if you try to pass off some frigging cobbler, or pie, or some shit like that as dessert, I swear on my life I will KICK YOUR ASS.

Perhaps now the events of Part II in our drama will make sense. Please proceed, but with caution.

Question of the Week: Stink Bugs

2008-05-01T13:39:00.001-04:00

In order to be a reputable and information oriented gardening blog, I've decided that I need to do a "question of the week" segment - or question of the month, as is more likely the case. This is the part where I field legitimate questions from my loyal readers so as to spread my wit and wisdom far and wide. The only catch will be that the answer to said question is likely to be filled with a few random facts surrounded by fantasy, exaggeration and outright lies. Sound good? Come on, let's play!

In a previous comment, Andy writes:

"Are stink bugs real, or is this another one of Tom's personalities?"

Excellent question, Andy. Stink bugs are in fact real, and do indeed stink. According to Wikipedia, stink bugs are also called shield bugs, and are in the Hemiptera order of the Heteroptera suborder. According to me, they are strange prehistoric looking insects with ridged backs and inferior reasoning abilities. They are in the phyla of bugs that feel the overwhelming need to slam themselves repeatedly into light fixtures, not quite realizing they can never go into the light, as they are all instructed to do by the bug version of the creepy "Poltergeist" lady. If that's not annoying enough, they fly as though piloted by drunken five year olds, and as a result, I've caught a stink bug to the head on more than one occasion. The good news is that they are so loud when they fly, that you can usually hear them coming and duck.

However, stink bugs in general seem to prefer plodding around morosely to flying. I once described a parade of Mummer style stink bugs marching around my house, but really, the Mummers are way too "up" for a stink bug. I imagine the internal monologue of a stink bug sounds a lot like Eeyore, with some depressed mutterings about not being able to get into the light ... again.

Oh yeah, and the stink part. They emit some gross type of defense-mechanism stink when faced with aggravation, which is likely why my idiot cats won't bother them - that and the fact that they move so slowly, they are of no real interest to chase down. Not that the cats COULD chase anything down - Captain seems to be reaching Jabba the Hut capacity and will soon need to be hand fed from his permanent throne in Sophia's beanbag chair, and Tennille is much too busy following me around howling for treats and trying to trip me.

Although Tom does have many personalities, some of them as of yet unnamed, I am not embarrassed to admit that stink bug is all me. Although I do not fly drunk or slam my head into my desk lamp, I highly recommend to all the married ladies reading this post some defense-mechanism stink factor to avoid, uh, nightly extracurricular activities. A weekend of gardening and no showers works every time!

YOU are welcome.

Tomato Lust ... Awww, Yeah

2008-04-25T14:33:00.000-04:00

Well folks, I have gone and done it. It's April 25th in my zone 6 garden, and my first round of tomatoes is properly planted and watered. I am super excited, and the early pangs of maniacal tomato lust have begun.

If you are not a gardener, you are saying to yourself, "Lady, you are a FREAK. Tomato lust? Seriously? Besides, what's the big deal, anyway. I can get in my car right now and go to the store and get an organic tomato. I have a Whole Foods."

If you are a gardener, you are saying to yourself, "Lady, you are an IDIOT. You're going to lose those to frost, or at least stunt their growth. Everybody knows you don't plant summer crops until at least mid-May, and even then, Mike McGrath says June 1st is better."

To that I say the following:

1.) Whole Foods - well goody for you, but I am not impressed. If you are eating a tomato in April in New Jersey, it is likely not grown in New Jersey, picked green, ripened in-transit with gases, and even after all that, winds up being a variety that doesn't taste that great. AND even if it was grown in New Jersey and picked ripe, it was in a greenhouse, and it's still not the same. If you love tomatoes, and I mean LOVE tomatoes in a somewhat inappropriate way, you must must must grow your own, pick them perfectly ripe, and eat them straight from the vine. Which leads me to my next topic.

2.) Tomato Lust - There are two kinds of tomato lust: the kind that ends in -itis, and the kind that ends in -ism. Tomato Lustitis is a summertime temporary virus. It starts in July and August with the onslaught of the "Jersey Fresh!" signs, and the popping up of random farm stands. You hear your tires squeal at you swerve to the side of the road, hop out of your car, and start buying them by the bushel. Tomato sauce, tomato slices, tomato salad, tomato SALSA, SUN-DRIED Tomatoes, FRIED GREEN tomatoes, T O M A T O I C E - C R E A M!!!! And yet the instant your tomato frenzy reaches a fever pitch, it violently recedes, leaving in its tsunami-like wake nothing but a few leftover skins, and the dull realization that if you see another tomato you will literally throw up in your own shoes.

Tomato Lustism is something quite different. A cross between religion and affliction, Tomato Lustism is a quiet dark force lurking far beneath the surface of many completely normal looking human beings. You might THINK you're having a conversation with someone about current events, but that person is off in his or her own world thinking, "Will my San Marzanos produce enough this year for canning, or will I be stuck with the Romas? And is the cage I built strong enough for the Brandywines? And why won't this person stop talking about Darfur when I have mulch to refresh?"

Not only do these victims think obsessively about tomatoes, but they also possesses a need to grow more tomatoes that ripen earlier, take up less space, and taste better than anyone else's tomatoes. Taking a page from the Book of Dennis Leary, tomato lustism does not lead to other vegetable addictions, but to carpentry (see above image). Only 2.5 people reside in my house, yet a minimum of ten tomato plants will be planted, eight of which will be indeterminate heirloom varieties plus the two token early hybrids, just so I can brag about having garden frnesh tomatoes in early July. Did I lose you at "indeterminate"? It's OK. That means that you are free from the above mentioned illness, and should remain so ... unless you keep reading these posts and find your mind wandering...

3.) In my final point, I speak to other gardeners. Just how do you plant tomatoes in April in a zone 6 garden? Why, with Wall-O-Waters of course! This is my favorite tomato trickery. I start seeds under lights in the basement in February, put out the WOW's in the raised beds in March or April, and ta da! The WOW's warm the soil so you can get your plants in early, and then protect them at night from chilliness. Of course, for best early tomato results, you should put in an Early Girl, or some other super early hybrid, but at the moment I've got 3 San Marzanos, 2 Sugar Snackers, 1 Brandywine and 1 Purple Calabash ready to plant. So maybe none of these guys will be producing in June (my ultimate tomato goal), but my caprese salad is going to be the cat's meow. Now, if only we could get a handle on the homemade mozzarella cheese...but that's another day, another blog entry.

Cast of Characters: The Humans

2008-04-23T10:10:00.000-04:00

Due to the fact that I will be referring to the same folks repeatedly, I think I should take a moment in do some introductions...

Tom, devoted husband - also, executive chef of our house, manual laborer, and professional eye roller. For example, "Tommy, I just got done reading my free copy of 'Hobby Farms' magazine - let's get chickens!!!" (insert dramatic eye roll). Tom has various sub-personalities, which I have also taken upon myself to name. Tom/Francois is the self-taught French chef who once asked me, in complete seriousness, "Do you need anything brined?" Tom/Hurricane Bob exists mainly during the fall, when he enjoys speaking to me at length about the relative wind speeds and trajectories of various tropical storms brewing in the south. And then of course, there's Tom/Ray Romano, which I think all husbands seem to channel at different points in time. When you find yourself having a fight that's straight out of a sitcom, it's time to blog. Why not? It worked for those freak shows for ten seasons.

Sophia, dear daughter - also, four year old, destroyer of flowers, confuses all raised beds with sand boxes. Sophia is my garden sidekick, in the sense that I drag her around in her wagon trying to weed, while she howls and gestures wildly to her swing until I give up and prepare myself to sing "Six Little Ducks" for the 4000th time. Since Sophia is a woman of few words but extremely expressive eyebrows, I will be translating her signs and dirty looks Sunny Baudelaire style, depending on the situation. Sophia's sign for "where?" often is better described as "just what the frig is going on here?" or "why must I persist in dealing with these complete morons?"

Brian, the bug guy - One of my best sources of news and information of all the goings on in the entomological world. Brian is our Ehrlich rep, and no, Ehrlich is not organic. Organic gardening? Yes. Organic management of wood eating critters invading my home? No can do, sister. That bug be GONE indeed. But Brian is a good soul who abides by the "good bug vs. bad bug" rule of organic gardening. And, no matter what weird shit is going on at my house, he makes me feel reassured that it's completely normal. Me: "Brian, yesterday my front door flew open and a parade of 200 stink bugs dressed as Mummers marched around my house playing 'oh dem golden slippers'. They scared the crap out of my cats." Brian: "Oh yeah, yeah, they're going around. Everybody's got 'em at this time of year. You should see some of the outfits though, quite spectacular. Not much you can do about it. I'd just get a lawn chair and a beer."

The Captain & Tennille, kitties - OK, so they're not humans. But as indoor cats they reside entirely in the world of humans, and have human personality traits (meaning they are as annoying as most human beings are), and in the battle of me vs. outside creatures invading my garden, they are generally on my side. But they don't eat stink bugs, which is unfortunate. At the very least, the cats could take away their godforsaken banjos.

Are these all the characters in my garden melodrama? Oh no. I haven't even gotten to the outside critters yet. There's Frank, Sisyphus, James Bond and his Bond girls, Ma'am & Sir, the Mancusos and many more to come. I'll post their histories as time allows.

For now, it's time to look outside at the unfinished/unstarted projects in my garden on this beautiful 68 degree Spring day, and think to myself "Hmmm, I'll get to that crap later. I need more coffee."

Happy garden procrastination to yous!

Is Organic Gardening Funny?

2008-04-22T10:36:00.000-04:00

Well, no. Not exactly.

Organic gardening is a lot of things these days. For some it's a part of a spiritual belief system that includes nature as a life force. For others it's about getting the highest quality and best variety of food possible. And in today's "greener than thou" culture, it might even be considered trendy and a potentially good business investment. However, very few conversations start with "I planted peppers today, and it was hysterical! Ho ho ho! Just thinking about it cracks me up - hold on, hold on, I need to sit down. I think I just peed a little."

OK, so maybe the act of putting a plant in the ground is meaningful, and not funny. But you know what is funny? Slowly losing your ground while straining to hold up a toppling cage of 2x4's housing your prize heirloom tomatoes, hoping beyond hope that your husband will notice your absence and just LOOK OUT THE FREAKING WINDOW!!!! Or finding yourself shouting obscenities after a groundhog, who is waddling away at full speed in his attempt to shake the crazy lady in mud boots and parachute pants (please find yourself a groundhog and shout at it in order to see just what 'waddling at full speed' looks like). Or taking large amounts of time to set up your new expensive anti-critter-motion-detector-water-squirter-thingy...and then forgetting to shut it off before you go in the garden. Or giving human names and elaborate life histories to the variety of creatures who frequent your vegetable patch (if my high school AP English teacher Mrs. Timms finds herself reading this, that's a little bit of anthropomorphism for you, lady!).

Let's face it. Even for a good gardener, taking a small patch of earth and remodeling it after your own vision is nearly impossible. Mother Nature will light up a clove cigarette, put on her ergonomically sound shoes, and happily stomp all over your parade. Add to that issue a gardener with a tendency towards laziness and procrastination, and when things actually DO work, it's mostly a happy accident. But I'm all about the happy accidents and am willing to lose to Mother Nature most of the time to get them. Plus when stuff doesn't work, well, that's just another funny story for you at my expense. And YOU are welcome!