Open View Gardens

I know I know… I own too many cookbooks.  Even I have to admit it now that I can no longer fit my collection into the kitchen bookcase and the shelves in the pantry cleared for the overflow. And yet I just bought another cookbook, a big heavy one.  Do I have a cookbook-buying disorder?  […]

I’m trying to break a bad gardening habit. I’m trying to resist the urge to over-plant, to stuff the vegetable beds to bursting point no matter how good it makes me feel. You see, when visitors ask for a tour of my gardens, I do a lot of apologizing– for the small size of the […]

I’m just back from a short visit with good friends in Los Angeles–leaving these rural acres from time to time for urban settings shakes things up, expands my sense of the world and helps me see my Vermont life.   That our friends love good food of all sorts also meant we were in for […]

Cross-posted at Eating Well Magazine. I’ve been wondering about my flower gardens lately–asking myself why I put so much energy into those lovely blooms that buzz nicely with bees and birds and bugs and bunnies (and sometimes deer) and feed my eyes so magnificently but not my stomach. Perhaps I should rethink those beds, make […]

It’s snowing again. Hard. The wind is fierce. Winter has a long way to go yet. But last week brought the faint breath of spring. A couple of warm days swelled with transitional birdsong–not their nesting songs, but then again not the single, plaintive notes of midwinter. It was the loveliest reminder of what’s to […]

Earlier in the summer,  I wrote about learning from family, students and friends.  Actually, since I started blogging in 2001, I’ve often remarked on being far more student than teacher even when I taught in formal schools. Every day since then I’ve learned essential and moving lessons from the non-human inhabitants of the gardens, but […]

Yesterday my daughter returned from her year studying food and culture at the University of Bologna, a year filled with adventures, not the least of which were about food.  Her experiences reminded me of why I majored in art history–it was the only truly interdisciplinary major in those days at my school.  Now there are […]