'horticultural how-to and woo-woo'
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margaret roach, head gardener

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great food without fuss

I’VE FOLLOWED a vegetarian diet for decades, but it wasn’t until just a few years ago that I mastered a really good vegetable soup. Now I’m learning variations on vegetable-based soups, plus ones with beans and even ideas for mushroom soups, too–all thanks to Alexandra Stafford and these recipes. (Stream it below, read the transcript or subscribe free.)

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Margaret Recommends

My picks of garden gear, books, and mulch, mulch more, all things I use myself. (Disclosure: includes affiliate links.)

RECENT FAVORITES

‘nature into art:’ lessons in gardening the wave hill way, with tom christopher
osage oranges; plant overwintering & food preservation; upside-down pots on stakes: q&a with ken druse
october garden chores
thoughts on invasives, plant conservation–and connection, with michael piantedosi
fragrant plants in ‘the scentual garden,’ with ken druse
how to store garden vegetables for winter
when inner conifer needles turn yellow or brown
how to grow garlic, a q&a with filaree farm
skins-on applesauce to freeze, can, and share
how to freeze parsley, chives and other herbs

awaytogarden

mad gardener, nature addict, award-winning writer & podcaster, rural resident, corporate dropout, creator of awaytogarden dot com and matching book.

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What’s wrong with this picture? (And even though my friend here is a bit off-balance at the moment he/she wanted me to please tell you he/she is not a spider but a #harvestman, aka daddy-longlegs, a #spider cousin among #arachnids.) So what’s not right here? Notice anything amiss? #awaytogarden #arachnid #arachnida

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Red alert, baby: Twice-weekly for 2 years I have stared at this decommissioned gadget on the wall just across from the treadmill I use at the fab rural hospital near me where I go to tune up my #asthmatic lungs. The cardiac-pulmonary rehab gym there used to be the (you guessed it!) birthing suite. Kinda love learning to take bigger breaths in the same spot where babies drew their first. Also love the many amazing services like this encouraging and supportive place that local hospitals offer to their communities. #localhospital #ruralhospital #awaytogarden #asthma

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“Look you big-brained arrogant Homo sapiens types, can you maybe show some respect and get with the #insectidentification thing? I am NOT repeat NOT a grasshopper. And I am NOT a cricket, either. Yes, I am in the #orthoptera like those guys but I am a proud #kaytdid. Margaret (maybe because her name is Roach, a source of endless grief as a child, think: #cockroach) tries a little and she knew first off to see how long my antennae were (hidden in this photo angle), which narrows things ‘cause grasshoppers’ antennae are shorter than their bodies and mine and the crickets’ are longer than ours. And another thing I reminded her about: we sing at night, not by day like those grasshoppers. So get the app from @inaturalistorg or upload a photo to bugguide.net and get to know us.” (This public service announcement was paid for by Insects for America. #kidding ) #amblycorypha #roundheadedkatydid #katydidsofinstagram #awaytogarden

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“I may look like just another fat green caterpillar, but I prefer to think of myself as the stinging nettles of the #lepidoptera world. I showed that silly Margaret when she tried to move me off the doormat at dusk last night and put me on this mossy stone nearby. She was like, ‘Hi, honey bunny, don’t sit there or someone will step on you’ (yeah, she talks all lovey-dovey to us) and I was like, ‘Check this out bitch,’ and gave her one of my #setae (aka venom-filled hairs) to try on for size. When I grow up I will be a gorgeous, big yellow #iomoth (and a kinder, gentler soul).” #caterpillars #awaytogarden #moths

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I’m working an asymmetric botanical #sidebang lately — an old look for me but a good one, no? — because one cannot forget one’s standards of beauty (and fashion) when crawling under shrubs in the mud. #awaytogarden #trainwreck #badhairday

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Colchicum en papillote! Brought home some little paper bags of #colchicum bulbs aka #autumncrocus from @hollisterhousegarden plant sale Saturday and they instantly started telling me they would like “to be planted please, now, thank you very much. RIGHT NOW. Or else we will just flower in these damn bags in protest, Margaret, and make you feel like a lazy-ass colchicum-torturer.” This is how plants talk, really, very bossy and insistent, and not all sweet and gentle in flowery language. #colchicumdisraeli #colchicumautumnale #awaytogarden #enpapillote

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“This is my barn,” I keep trying to explain when she stomps in and out in those big #muckboots of hers, to grab a spade or the mower or wheelbarrow. “Be gone, girl.” Instead Margaret insists on talking to me, watching me, taking my picture even. Touch me she does not because I might just slime her with the #bufotoxin stored up in those puffed-up #parotoidglands behind my eyes, toxins from a member of the #bufonidae, the family of all toads. Even if not all grabby, she is too personal, asking if I am yet “sexually mature” (meaning in American toads 2 or 3 years old, longer than most of us live in the cruel snake-filled world) and what gender I am (“Drop the old-style binary mindset,” I say, but she keeps looking at my throat, often white on females, and other bits of me for clues.) This is my barn, my kingdom, the place I call home. #toadsofinstagram #anaxyrusamericanus #pigeontoedtoads #awaytogarden

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Welcome! I’m Margaret Roach, a leading garden writer for 25 years—at ‘Martha Stewart Living,’ ‘Newsday,’ and in three books. I host a public-radio podcast; I also lecture, plus hold tours at my 2.3-acre Hudson Valley (NY) Zone 5B garden, and always say no to chemicals and yes to great plants.

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