Tasty tuber can be mashed like potatoes October 8, 2018 by Barbara Damrosch on Columnists, Home & garden, Kitchen Garden, Lifestyle Vegetable fashions may come and go, but Jerusalem artichokes have been grown on this continent for a very long time. Native American gardeners were tending this nutritious crop well before it caught the eye of Sir Walter Raleigh, who brought it back to England, and the explorer Samuel de Champlain, who introduced it to France. …
Absurdist gardens creep onto silver screen September 24, 2018 by Barbara Damrosch on Columnists, Kitchen Garden, Lifestyle Life is not like the movies, especially when it comes to gardening. Looking after plants isn’t considered the stuff of high drama, suspense or action adventure, so the garden, in film, tends to be a setting, a symbol or an idea. The 1993 version of “The Secret Garden,” for instance, might teach you a bit …
Hunt is on for buried gold September 10, 2018 by Barbara Damrosch on Columnists, Kitchen Garden, Lifestyle Of all the jobs in the gardening year, digging potatoes is one of my favorite. It’s like an Easter egg hunt, except that it happens in summer and fall instead of spring. As soon as I spot blossoms on the plants, I know I can steal a few tubers from the edge of the row, …
Using grass clippings as sun block for soil August 27, 2018 by Barbara Damrosch on Columnists, Home & garden, Kitchen Garden, Lifestyle Summer days are lawn days, with the hum of mowers in the neighborhood, the scent of grass newly cut, the sight of grounds cloaked in emerald velvet (or blotchy burlap if the owners are lax and the weather dry). For the environmentally minded, these are also days of lawn guilt. Even if we practice sustainable …
Richard the Lionheart fueled up on spinach August 15, 2018 by Barbara Damrosch on Columnists, Home & garden, Kitchen Garden, Lifestyle I’ve never had any trouble believing that spinach made Popeye strong. Imagine what powers he might have had if it he’d eaten garden spinach instead of canned. A well grown spinach patch is beautiful: rows of lush, dark green leaves waiting to be picked and tossed in a hearty salad, or sautéed just long enough …
Grouch with the hoe indulges some self-sowers July 30, 2018 by Barbara Damrosch on Columnists, Home & garden, Kitchen Garden, Lifestyle Summer is by no means over and plans are already underway for next year’s garden. I’m not the one making them, though. It will be many months before the new seed catalogs arrive, and what with weeding and watering I haven’t had a chance to come up with a scheme for next year. The garden …
Weeding a therapeutic pastime July 9, 2018 by Barbara Damrosch on Columnists, Home & garden, Kitchen Garden, Lifestyle Say what you will about beastly, dry, hot weather, it has one virtue. The weeds don’t like it either. Their glorious season is spring, when the moist earth favors their agenda. In summer it’s not hard to dispatch them while they’re small by skimming just below the soil surface with a sharp hoe. Do this …
Bees go gaga over anise hyssop June 25, 2018 by Barbara Damrosch on Columnists, Home & garden, Kitchen Garden, Lifestyle Every now and then an obscure plant creeps quietly into my life, and makes a home for itself in my garden. After a while I wonder what I ever did without it. Anise hyssop was just such a revelation. About 25 years ago, a nurserywoman in Gaylordsville, Conn., named Kathleen Nelson, who had introduced me …
Toads are good company in the garden June 11, 2018 by Barbara Damrosch on Columnists, Kitchen Garden, Lifestyle One pleasant thing about tending a garden is the chance to spend time with wild creatures that live and work there, or are passing through. Gardeners will excitedly report a visit from a hummingbird or a pileated woodpecker. But few ever mention one of my favorites, the toad. Bulgy-eyed, warty and rather sleepy-looking as it …
Have a fruitful summer, fall May 29, 2018 by Barbara Damrosch on Columnists, Home & garden, Kitchen Garden, Lifestyle In the official language of botany, a plant is “armed” if it packs certain defensive gear. A cactus uses sharp spines — which are modified leaves — to protect itself from creatures seeking the water inside its stems. A lemon tree guards its fruit with thorns, which are modified branches. Bramble fruits such as raspberries …
