Open View Gardens

The sun lifted itself high into the sky this morning and has stayed there, for once not cloaking itself with a thick grey blanket, instead letting the clouds wash over and away in quick waves. The breezy warmth has pulled some local residents out of deep slumber, hungry, to compete at the bird feeders. In […]

Outside the weather continues to flirt with winter, temperatures careening between yesterday’s 40s and today’s single digits (first real cold), snow dancing about the sky but refusing to lay down a fluffy quilt to insulate the gardens. Yesterday the fennel, artichokes and rosemary were still alive and well inside their light tunnel.  We’ve had a […]

I’ve stopped buying pine nuts–except when I find fresh Spanish ones at Sahadi’s when I visit my daughter in Brooklyn.  The only sort available around here are flown in from China–too far for something that needs refrigeration and careful handling–and the $30/pound price is beyond affordable.  Perfect pine-nutty pestos and some Italian cakes and cookies […]

I’ve just returned from a work trip to southwestern Montana where it seems that most people don’t plant gardens. In towns, out on the ranches, I saw little sign of tomatoes or lettuces, even kale or broccoli tended in neat rows or clustered in raised beds. And vegetables that do grow?  They fold up early. […]

On a table in my house sits what most people, including my entire extended family, find quite bizarre, something they cannot align with what they know of me.  After all, I pride myself on being an ecological gardener who tries to consider the impact of my actions on all the inhabitants of the garden, not […]

My father was among the world’s most enthusiastic record keepers. As a historian, he stacked details of time, place and event neatly in his mind. On index cards he noted the noteworthy including nagging holes in his coin and stamp collections. Even after he died, we discovered more: deep within his desk he’d squirreled a […]

My family jokes about how when my husband heads out on a trip, Mother Nature lets loose. An albino robin appears just before he’s to leave. An owl hangs around in broad daylight, staring intently into the screened-in porch.  Bats flit about the house.  Birds get trapped in my studio. Coyotes prowl the garden to […]

  Listen to Barbara read the post. I stopped growing corn a few years back.  For good reason.  It takes up precious garden real estate and inevitably gets snatched by some clever critter or other the night before I plan to pick it. Just as people line up for local chicken-pie suppers around here, I […]

A Note from Barbara:  I have learned more than I can say from Nancy White, one of the foremost thinkers on online communities (read her book), incredible graphic facilitator (see her work), lover of chocolate, and good friend.  Here I learn lessons gleaned from gardening in a sodden place. A Note from Nancy: My friend […]

Yesterday the wind blew hot and surly across the tall field grasses. Today the high dog days of midsummer have pooled around my feet. It is still but for the drone of heat-loving insects and the intermittent warning of a robin, the hissing of a house wren, the drink-your-tea-tea-tea call of the Eastern towhee. On […]