A Garden Fair Pictorial
The Hudson Valley Garden Association had their second Garden Fair on May 3 at Montgomery Place in Red Hook. My husband Dale and I’d never been to Montgomery Place and we couldn’t make Garden Fair last year. You know how sometimes in life you have a magical experience that only lasts a few hours, but it is … Continue reading
Our first garden together.
It amazes me how many different ways there are to grow a vegetable garden. This year my fiance and I are growing our first vegetable garden together and we are doing it our way, along with her way, his way, the book said this way, so and so said to do it this way, the … Continue reading
Naked Rock Garden Ambition
My hubs, Mom, and I went on our first Open Garden Days tour of the season yesterday. Open Garden Days is a fundraising effort of the Garden Conservancy, and we are embarrassingly rich with Open Gardens in the Hudson Valley! This was the most ambitious rock garden I have ever seen: rock wall after rock … Continue reading
Elegant Design & New Garden Friends
Recently I did some pruning and consulting with a dynamic couple in Poughkeepsie, John and Gayle. Forty years ago they converted a red brick barn into a contemporary marvel of comfort and beauty (John’s an architect). One of the outdoor design features that really delighted me was this fantastic tiered series of perennial planters in … Continue reading
Book review: It’s a Long Road to a Tomato
If you are interested in reading about the life of an organic farmer, you may like the book entitled It’s a Long Road to a Tomato, Tales of an Organic Farmer Who Quit the Big City for the (Not So) Simple Life by Keith Stewart, with wonderful illustrations by his wife Flavia Bacarella. I was drawn to … Continue reading
Seeds for the People: Hudson Valley Seed Library
I just ordered my 2012 flower and veg seeds from the Hudson Valley Seed Library, founded by the charming and über-talented duo that is partners Ken Greene and Doug Muller. You don’t have to live in the Hudson Valley to order from them. They serve all of New York and those parts of neighboring states … Continue reading
Zinnias, Right up to October Snowstorm
Zinnia elegans. What a lovely, simple Latin name. The zinnia cultivar ‘State Fair’, with its 3-foot-tall stems, has given me a lot of enjoyment this fall. (The long stems lend themselves to cut flower arrangements). I got my seed from the Hudson Valley Seed Library, in a gorgeous Art Pack. The woodchuck “pruned” one patch … Continue reading
Larisa Code: “What smells better than fresh soil?”
Larisa Code, landscape designer, gardener, community green gal and all-around Earth lover’s bio begins simply: “Larisa Code has been an avid gardener her entire life.” And so she has. She no only uses her own home and garden as a real-life working and experiment on green gardening and eco-gardening. She balances designing the gardens of … Continue reading
A Little Fall Garden Walkabout
I’m so glad I planted some food crops in my home garden, because the community veg garden has been repeatedly flooded since Irene, rendering all crops there unsafe-to-eat mush. My cohorts and I will be lucky if we can get in there to plant garlic before Thanksgiving! But at home I have some swiss chard, … Continue reading
Red Rocket Snapdragons
I’m looking through pictures of last summer’s glorious garden successes to comfort myself after seeing the devastation in our New Paltz community gardens, where all is lost after Hurricane Irene. The “Rocket” series of snapdragons come in red, pink, yellow, apricot, orchid … they are on long stems so make great cut flowers (don’t buy … Continue reading
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