NINETEEN YEARS AGO ALMOST TO THE DAY, I ate pickles for breakfast with lovely Dan Koshansky, a retired railroad conductor and an organic gardener in suburban Long Island. I was garden editor at Newsday newspaper then, and the beat included many a recipe tasting at harvest time. It’s how I learned to garden, and to cook from the garden: from people like Dan. Today, on our second of a series of weekly Thursday Food Fests in collaboration with Everyday Food’s Dinner Tonight blog, I want to share his recipe with you. Enjoy. [read more…]
dan koshansky’s refrigerator pickles
July 31, 2008 at 1:00 am
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a kousa dogwood i’m certain about
July 29, 2008 at 5:32 pm
REMEMBER THE GREAT KOUSA CONTROVERSY, when I wanted to evict my nursed-from-infancy weeping Kousa dogwood? You all helped me see the error of my ways, and we’re still together. Though I’ve often waffled on the weeper, there’s one Kousa I never have regretted planting, and that’s the showy white-variegated ‘Wolf Eyes.’ That’s it beaming at you hundreds of feet beyond my back yard in the photo, shining like a beacon, even at a smallish size. Wow.
won’t you join our thursday food fests?
July 28, 2008 at 7:02 pm
ONCE YOU FIND A GOOD HABIT, STICK WITH IT. Last week’s Pesto Fest collaboration with the Dinner Tonight blog was so well-received by gardening and cooking friends that we’re throwing a series of events each Thursday through Labor Day.
This week: Cukes and Zukes, from tips for growing to how to take the bounty from garden (or farmer’s market!) to table.
Next week (Aug. 7): Beans (as in that Heftybag-ful of long green pods in my fridge).
Here’s how easy it is to participate (and what’s up in other weeks to come):
frogboys on google page rank of 6: unanimous ‘no comment’
July 28, 2008 at 7:48 am
WHEN NEWS ARRIVED YESTERDAY on our 4-month blog-aversary that A Way to Garden had earned its first Google Page Rank ever—a robust 6!—the staff uttered no comment. Well, the occasional “urp,” but basically nobody even got out of the pool to party. “Wow,” I told them, “Guy Kawasaki at Alltop put us on the top row among garden sites yesterday, too!” But did anybody out back care? Now perhaps you see what I’m up against. Thanks to all of you for your role in making our funny little blog a success, for reacting to our stories by sharing yours. Keep the comments coming (but please, say more than “urp,” OK?).
pesto fest! (garlicky green ice cubes)
July 24, 2008 at 8:20 am
THE LATEST HEATWAVE FORCED THE BASIL into flower, so before things go too far: pesto. Apparently, it’s in the air. My friend Deb Puchalla of Everyday Food magazine and the Dinner Tonight blog was about to make a batch, she said the other day…and then a second later, we both thought: Hey, let’s collaborate. Let’s talk pesto with our garden- and food-blog friends. Let’s have a Digital Pesto Fest. Care to join in? [read more…]
more leaves that i love
July 22, 2008 at 9:04 pm
I HAVE ALREADY SPOUTED OFF ABOUT HOW I AM NO FLOWER GIRL. Foliage rules here. Month 3, and it still looks good. What flower can say that? Oh, really?
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- pelargonium ‘vancouver centennial’
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- farfugium japonicum ‘giganteum’
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- euphorbia cotinifolia
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- h. ‘sum and substance’
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- athyrium nipponicum ‘pictum’
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- rhus typhina ‘tiger eyes’
why do you garden?
July 18, 2008 at 6:26 am
WHY DO YOU GARDEN? I keep asking myself daily as I risk sunstroke to mow and weed and drag hoses round the place. And why do you garden? Some of you have told us, I know, but yesterday when I was in for my third cold shower between rounds, I thought, “Why do I do this?” and figured maybe some of you were wondering exactly the same thing about yourselves.
I garden because I cannot help myself.
I garden because I cannot look out the window and see the shaggy bits any longer, and have to go “fix it” (as if it will ever be “fixed”). [read more…]
scratch and sniff this cimicifuga post?
July 15, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I WISH TECHNOLOGY ALLOWED ME TO TRANSMIT the scent, and not just word-and-image data, on oddly-sweet Cimicifuga racemosa (I know, it was renamed Actaea racemosa by some taxonomist guys not long ago, but ask me if I care?). I even like it when its bottlebrush-shape flowers are still mostly closed (above), in the first week or two of its month-long bloom cycle. [read more…]
why won’t this plant die?
July 13, 2008 at 7:15 am
I HAVE KILLED MANY PLANTS in my gardening career, most of them unintentional and many of them regrettable. So why can’t I kill Houttuynia cordata, the so-called chameleon plant, despite years and years of trying? [read more…]
