Something has always troubled me about the practice of mass cuttings of conifer trees for Christmas trees this time of year. In my adult life I have never once been able to stomach the tradition in my home, and this year a new inspiration hit. The herb, Rosemary, grown organically in container gardening or as [...]
This lovely but scary spider sits square in the middle of our organic container edible garden in Lake George, NY. We've watched him (her?) get noticeably plumper over the summer, he's (she's) a wonderful ecological neighbor. The spider eats any garden pests who might dare visit, and our tomatoes, peppers, beans, lettuce, potatoes, cherry tomatoes, [...]
I'm always surprised when friends don't know the basics of growing basil. They are conscious, and go to the trouble of setting up an organic herb garden, but lack the nuts and bolts information to keep basil alive. When basil "bolts" or begins to form seeds and flowers, as shown in the above photo, that [...]
In the region of the world where I live, (the Saratoga and Lake George area) gardens are just starting to produce basil in useable quantities. The Saratoga Farmer's Market is the first place I've seen basil for sale, and only one organic herb farm has it ready fresh from their gardens. I also found garlic [...]
This week found me delightfully engaged in one of my all time favorite types of gardening projects: I was comissioned by an amusement park center near me to design and install some Children's Gardens, with the kids there helping! We decided to use Little Acres because they are the perfect size for manageable fun for [...]
Rain poured from the sky today as I staked the baby and mid-growth hops vines with fishing line. It was a relief as the weather has been brutal this week so far. In this business of professional gardening, rain is immeasurably preferable to blazing sun. In the rain, we don't worry about sunburn or heat [...]
Tea is medicine to me year round; iced tea is literally a spiritual experience for me in the summer. There is something ethereal about the process of seeing herbs grown organically in all their aromatic splendor, harvesting them and seeing them transform, as if by magic into tea, a substance so subjectively wonderful and really [...]
This week found me weeding a tea garden I planted last fall, in Saratoga. Organic herb gardens are the easiest gardens to keep organically- the spicy or aromatic properties of the herbs often chase away predator bugs. Being able to cut some beebalm, lemon balm, mint, catnip, lemongrass, lavender, chamomile, sage- any combination of these- [...]
This week I met a new client who has a beautiful existing organic herb garden. She has a lovely piece of property in an ecological riparian zone: the edge between the forest and some wetlands. This brings her lots of wildlife. She is open to habitat friendly gardening methods, which included leaving this gorgeous aromatic [...]