You are looking at one of this year’s serendipitous brainstorms. I feel perhaps a little bit too genius for coming up with it, when really, it’s just an enamel colander filled with ‘Sea of Red’ cutting lettuce and hanging in a wire basket. I quite like it. So much so that I haven’t had the …
When the folks behind this product sat down to envision a highlighter/post-it flag hybrid, I hardly think they knew they were creating a useful tool for gardeners. Students, office managers, and anal retentive note takers? They’re the obvious users. But I’d bet they didn’t know that around about midwinter gardeners everywhere are kicking back with …
The other day, while shopping in the plant section of the Montreal Botanical Garden’s gift store I came upon a long pair of forceps that a staff member must have forgotten, left sitting among the cacti. In that moment it occurred to me, aha, yes, THIS is just the tool I need to help wrangle …
Yesterday I posed the question, What is inspiring your edible garden this year? I think it is only fair that I join in and divulge my current inspirations for the 2010 growing season. I saw this book, Terrine by Stéphane Reynaud the other day but couldn’t justify the purchase. The next day I treated myself …
Have you ever heard of sea cabbage, a wild cousin of the domesticated brassicas? Did you know that edible bananas are a primitive plant thought to be related to some of the first trees of the primeval forest? I didn’t either until this weekend when I was finishing up an article on unusual vegetables and …
A few months back I decided not to do reviews anymore. Not that I did many in the first place, but the decision lifted a huge load off of my shoulders. It’s the difference between just not doing something, and making a conscious, said out-loud choice not to do something. I love books, yet for …
And make our own edible version of Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party! There has been a long and harried internal debate raging in my brain for days over that title. I have avoided making this post, worried that I will offend people by using the anatomically correct word for part of the female anatomy on a …
As I mentioned earlier today it’s been a L O N G year. Actually, it’s been a long year and a half. Or two years. Where am I? I’ve mentioned it briefly here and there but was finally given the go-ahead today to speak freely(ish) about the main project that has been taking up so …
A friend gave me a pack of these “I Double Heart Jesus” hair bobbles years back and I’ve been trying to find an excuse to keep them ever since. I lived the bulk of my life with long hair until I cut it all off around age 30. Chances are good that I’m well over …
The title says it all. Although, taking the Street Garden out of the picture this year significantly reduced the opportunity to spend more. I could completely disregard most flowers, bushes, or bedding plants, focusing instead of edibles and a few hardy, drought tolerant plants for the fire escape. Bringing a set number of dollars and …
Over the weekend, I decided to read Jamaica Kincaid’s “The Autobiography of My Mother” for the second time. Opening the first page, I notice a note scrawled into the top right hand corner in my own handwriting, “pg 143.” Turning to page 143 I find the following passage underlined: “He had an obsessive interest in …
I spent Arbor Day weekend in the countryside outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, speaking and conducting workshops at Terrain, the new garden center opened by the company that owns Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, among others. The best word or phrase I can come up with to describe Terrain, besides stunningly beautiful is well-appointed. It is by …