Michele's Profile

Thanks so much for having your publicist suggest that we partner with you to help promote Pennington Smart 1 Feed. He was smart enough to notice that our blog has "gone mostly grassless" and we probably wouldn't be the likeliest... Continue reading

Posted May 18, 2012 at Garden Rant

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Will We Miss the Grass?

As all our Rant regulars know, my partner Susan Harris is a big, big champion of going lawn free. I visited her old garden in Takoma Park, which managed to be restful and beautiful without a carpet of grass, and... Continue reading

Posted May 11, 2012 at Garden Rant

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Yellow Approaching Chartreuse

My tulips are finishing up, weirdly early, so we're missing all the great oranges and purples from the photo. But the lily-flowered 'West Point' in front is still thrilling me, mainly because it is a yellow that can stand up... Continue reading

Posted May 6, 2012 at Garden Rant

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Score

I love it when expensive plants like Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost' seed themselves. I have a tough time finding these plants for less than $20 each in nurseries, and ideally, I'd have a sea of them, since they thrive in... Continue reading

Posted May 5, 2012 at Garden Rant

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Off Topic, I Know

Do you think it's a comment on the current economic/political/climate-related moment that a version of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" just set a new record for art at auction, selling for $120 million? Personally, if I were going to spend $120... Continue reading

Posted May 3, 2012 at Garden Rant

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The Fence Line

Do gardeners want to put down deep roots, plant trees, and watch them ever so slowly become massive and still presences in the landscapes of their personalities? No, the people who do that are not gardeners. Do gardeners strive to... Continue reading

Posted Apr 27, 2012 at Garden Rant

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Why Is Chicago So Civilized?

Friend of Rant and Chicago radio personality Mike Nowak now has a TV show on Comcast 102, Dig In Chicago, which will debut tomorrow. We love Mike because he blasts away the twee in gardening, is a real journalist willing... Continue reading

Posted Apr 20, 2012 at Garden Rant

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The Mushrooms Will Save Us

Ordinarily, I'd be writing about my tulips now. But there are so many noteworthy news stories at the moment for gardeners that a series of links seemed more pressing. Good news for the plastic life! Yale students have found a... Continue reading

Posted Apr 13, 2012 at Garden Rant

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Making Nature Irresistible

Rant readers, please welcome Ken Druse, one of the few garden writers whose work I find truly exciting. Druse is the author of 17 books about ornamental gardening, including The Natural Shade Garden, Planthropology, and a supremely useful book just... Continue reading

Posted Apr 6, 2012 at Garden Rant

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The Magnolias Are Confused and So Am I

March is defnitely the cruelest month. I never heard the phrase "mud season" until I moved to upstate New York 20 years ago, but March is it, mud season. Of course, April is no cakewalk, either. I can usually count... Continue reading

Posted Mar 30, 2012 at Garden Rant

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Kat Kinsman of Eatocracy: Woman After My Own Heart

I really enjoy Kat Kinsman's playfully broad definition of food reporting on CNN's Eatocracy site, and she makes me laugh on Twitter. But today, she ventures into the vegetable garden in a delightfully sloppy and inexpert way, with precisely the... Continue reading

Posted Mar 28, 2012 at Garden Rant

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Can't Wait for School to Start!

It's a bizarrely early spring here in upstate New York. I've never started planting out of doors at the same moment I've started tomato seedlings in the basement, but that's where we are this year. Ready to go! I've been... Continue reading

Posted Mar 23, 2012 at Garden Rant

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Good Taste, White Flower Farm Style, versus Good Taste, Kitchen Style

It's been many years since I paid any attention to White Flower Farm. I used to order a bareroot rose or shrub from them now and then. Early in my career, they disabused me of the notion that it was... Continue reading

Posted Mar 16, 2012 at Garden Rant

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A New Leaf

I never was a seed starter. There was a nursery near me that for a long time had a fantastic selection of vegetable seedlings. But then the lovely people who owned it sold their house, moved to the South, and... Continue reading

Posted Mar 9, 2012 at Garden Rant

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Assembling Natural Companions

The always stylish and inspiring Ken Druse has just published a new book titled Natural Companions: The Garden Lover's Guide to Plant Combinations. In order to illustrate these happy relationships, Druse collaborated with photographer Ellen Hoverkamp, who turned groups of... Continue reading

Posted Mar 5, 2012 at Garden Rant

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A Way to Counter Forces Beyond Our Control

This week, The New York Times ran a piece suggesting that tensions in Iran and Syria may soon bring us $5 a gallon gasoline. Nothing any of us can do about that. Frankly, over the last four years since the... Continue reading

Posted Mar 2, 2012 at Garden Rant

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Here's How to Beat The Snowless Winter Blues

Another fantabulous video made by my genius neighbor Sean O'Donnell. Continue reading

Posted Feb 27, 2012 at Garden Rant

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Eliot, Nice To Get To Know You Better

I thoroughly enjoyed Anne Raver's New York TImes piece this week on vegetable gardening's sovereign couple: Eliot Coleman, author of among others Four-Season Harvest and Barbara Damrosch, author of among others The Garden Primer. Coleman, who spent his youth travelling,... Continue reading

Posted Feb 24, 2012 at Garden Rant

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The Extra Edibles

Today we have a Guest Rant from Willi Galloway, who has just published Grow, Cook, Eat, a vegetable gardening guide that includes recipes, too. I particularly enjoyed Galloway's intrepid way of looking at the entire vegetable plant, not just the... Continue reading

Posted Feb 24, 2012 at Garden Rant

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We Have A Winner...

Thanks for the great comments. Gene wins for cheerfully admitting to slaying large trees by over-pruning. I am sure he will make the best possible use of this book--and his neighborhood will soon be pollarded and cloud-pruned into oblivion. Gene,... Continue reading

Posted Feb 10, 2012 at Garden Rant

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Go Burpee!

So, my theory is that everybody should grow a little food in the yard: Take a little pressure off the world's limited arable land, cut greenhouse gas emissions, eat better quality food in terms of both nutrients and flavor, and... Continue reading

Posted Feb 10, 2012 at Garden Rant

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The Brand New USDA Hardiness Map: Already Out of Date?

Meet David W. Wolfe, Cornell plant scientist and expert on the impacts of climate change on agriculture. Wolfe is also the author of an absolutely delightful book about the soil, Tales from the Underground: A Natural History of Subterranean Life,... Continue reading

Posted Feb 3, 2012 at Garden Rant

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A Pair of Felcos and a Dream

Let's face it, as a gardener, I am mainly a farmer. Yes, I have strong opinions about the aesthetic questions in gardening. No, I do not have a fascinating yard. Too busy planting food and cooking it! Nonetheless, I was... Continue reading

Posted Jan 27, 2012 at Garden Rant

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An Interview With The True Potato Seed Man

For years, I've planted potatoes from seed tubers, which are now getting shockingly expensive. But I paid the money because of the disease-free certification. I did save my own seed tubers a few times and felt that this was merely... Continue reading

Posted Jan 20, 2012 at Garden Rant

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Fun for Potato Obsessives

That would be me! Potatoes are just about my favorite crop. They are famous for yielding the most food in the smallest possible space, why is one explanation for why the land-poor 19th century Irish became so dependent on them.... Continue reading

Posted Jan 13, 2012 at Garden Rant

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