Musings on horticultural therapy and the soothing effects of plants and nature
We were lucky. The weather was great and everything and one showed up when they were supposed to. I often fret too much about working with large corporate volunteer groups at Ann’s Place as I want to ensure that everything occurs without a hitch. So when I did not get an e-mail or phone call […]
When you are away from your garden for even the smallest amount of time, compared to being away from a loved one, days seem like months. The garden I left was not the garden I came back to. As expected the most significant change is in the amount and size of weeds. The garden left […]
When my father planted tomatoes, he told me that the best time for them to go into the ground was when, "the size of an oak leaf is the size of a squirrel's paw." At best this is an approximation as it is difficult to have a squirrel hold still to compare its paw with […]
May is the first month when the garden begins to become more reliable for food. There have been years where the cold frame has provided early March greens, and sometimes dormant carrots and leeks that have been left in the soil after last Fall’s harvest can be pulled as a unfrozen treat. But newly grown […]
When I first start planting vegetables, it is in the comfort and warmth of my kitchen as early March is too cold to start seedlings outside. I retrieve dusty plastic trays from my greenhouse and wash them, mindful of any pathogens that could be remaining from the prior year. Sometimes Charlotte helps me start the […]
Often the effects of nature arrive in lumps or large batches. This was more than the case this week with my beds of seedlings and the foot plus of snow sprouting up and falling down, respectively. I planted three trays last week thinking that perhaps I was a bit late. But upon checking my past […]
November is often when we get the first snow of the season. It arrives in different ways, sometimes as a simple flurry other times as an unanticipated storm that halts fall clean ups for the rest of the year. Today’s first snow was between these extremes as it was an unexpected fall with a few […]
Recently I helped my friend Eric and sister-in-law Rosana move their possessions into a new summer rental for the next year. They have always been very generous to Juana and me inviting us to their house on Fire Island. As a gardener, the visits have forced me to return to my Long Island roots of […]
The first snow of the year comes with anticipation. By the time the first flakes can reach the outstretched tongue of a child, the annuals have long since died and the perennials gone dormant. The leaves have lost most of their color becoming a gray carpet that periodically crunches underfoot. Broken branches are scattered waiting […]
As Labor Day fades along with the crowds at the beach, the signs of Fall accelerate. The first hint of change ironically is not spawned by nature but man in the mid-August appearance of Halloween candy in grocery and drug stores and mums and asters in garden centers. The heat of the season tests us […]