20170518 home, lawn & garden 2017 composite

Home HudsonValley MAY 18, 2017 • ULSTER PUBLISHING • WWW.HUDSONVALLEYONE.COM

How does your garden grow?

Lawns, flowers, veggies, repairs, rentals and projects for the coming months

Home, Lawn & Garden

18, 2017 2 | May Home Hudson Valley

Ulster Publishing Co.

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May 18, 2017 Home Hudson Valley

Ulster Publishing Co.

| 3

Meeting gardens halfway Paul Smart finds inspiration and envy in all that’s outside

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ardens order the mind and change the way we look at the worlds we inhabit. Here in the Hudson Valley and surrounding mountain ranges, we’re blessed with an intense growing season that’s allowed some to mimic European gardening ideals. Others go for something a bit more Oriental, or attuned to the region’s natural wildness.

The eyes of early landscape painters made the region a symbol for both American wilderness and its taming. Later artists who channeled what they saw and felt into Tonalism, Modernism, and the less representational arts movements.

I look at what’s outside the way I approach the inside of my home. I seek a sense of order to help me prioritize and then accomplish the mix of assignments and deadlines, edits and re-edits that make up my work week. Our family displays a similar push for order, and perhaps even calm.

We seek to maintain the lawn that flanks our bluestone front path and sidewalk. Various flowerbeds and hanging pots splash color above the shrubs that adorn our porch and its pleasant, if underutilized, swing from which we watch cars pass. Out back, we augment a stunning view of mountains and some town with a raised-bed vegetable garden, several lines of shrubbery, and flowers that set a pattern for the tick-tock of the warmer seasons.

What’s around our home conjures other vistas, better gardens. Sometimes my wife or I can look out a window, or sit and contemplate a slice of view, and see remembered images from our pasts in the Midwest, Northeast, South or even Pacific Northwest. We’ve overnighted in other places where we wished to have stayed longer in parts of the world both urban and rural.

We replenish this idealized and internalized element of our home’s gardens each summer with trips to some of the great gardens within an easy drive from our home. We visit Innisfree, the grounds of the Institute for Ecosystem Studies near Millbrook, Stonecrop, and Russel Wright’s Manitoga near Cold Spring and Garrison. We love the great landscaped campuses at Vassar and Bard colleges, and Mohonk Mountain House (whose lushness is visible on this issue’s cover).

Much has been written about the Hudson Valley as the birthplace for American landscape architecture, with its grand mansions overlooking the river and the naturalistic creations of the great nineteenth-century landscape designers. Although many of the greatest gardens have faltered as those estates have become tourist draws, there’s still plenty to ogle at Clermont and Locust Grove, the Mills, Vanderbilt and Boscobel mansions, FDR’s Springwood, nearby Bellefield with its Beatrix Farrand Garden, Wethersfeld or Wilderstein, Olana and Cedar Grove. And there’s nothing quite like the grand sculpture-festooned landscapes at Art Omi in Columbia County or Storm King in Orange County.

The best local gardens, however, remain the stuff of private invitations, enjoyed as the light grows magical in or just outside Rhinebeck and Wood-

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Legendary garden designer Beatrix Ferrand’s arrays at the historic Bellefield estate, located on the grounds of the FDR home in Hyde Park. stock, Hudson and New Paltz, or up in the Esopus, Rondout or other closed-in valleys. One’s sense of awe there can be nicely balanced by woeful tales about the many hard hours gone into creating and maintaining such beauty. Our feebler attempts at garden glory around our own home, livable in scale, are awarded their proper perspective.

What we like best about gardens is not how they add up against other gardens, but how they comment on and structure the ways in which we see what’s natural around us. We like being able to imagine order in wildness, but also a bit of wildness ordered into what’s right around us. That’s kindling for inspiration.

Gardening, from religion to reality, has metaphoric attributes. It’s about making better what is.

But it’s also about searching out what one wants

to inhabit, the same impulse inherent in looking at new homes with envy. Gardening is spring, and summer and autumn. Good gardens are us, especially here in the Hudson Valley.

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18, 2017 4 | May Home Hudson Valley

Ulster Publishing Co.

Back yards are the safest places to be Lissa Harris contemplates a tick-free summer

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h, summer in the Catskills, those precious few months when we remember why we choose to live here.

The season of swimming holes and long, sun-spangled afternoons is nearly upon us. I am stone-cold terrified.

You know what I’m talking about: Ticks. Unless you’ve been living at the bottom of the ocean without Internet for the past few months, you’re probably aware that the Northeast is gearing up for one of the worst tick seasons in memory. According to the good folks at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, whose job it is to break bad news about oncoming plagues to an ecologically illiterate society, we can blame the current tick invasion on our oak trees.

Apparently 2015 was a good year for the oaks, COURTESY OF WWW.MOHONK.ORG which made a bumper crop Long pants are the best for those who wish to keep away ticks, but shorts are still the preferred uniform of professional of acorns, which led to an gardeners, as seen worn by members of Mohonk Mountain House’s gardening team. explosion in the population of mice, which were designed by a vengeful God to kind to get me on board with this hot retro-nerd of social media. I’ve developed a thick skin about be perfect little mobile incubators for tick larvae. look. Anyway, Kanye does it. other people’s obnoxious politics — there’s no And so here we are in the summer of 2017, under Repellent is going to be a factor in any of our avoiding it these days, online or off — but I can’t siege from an enemy we cannot see, who carries a off-road expeditions this year: either the DEET handle the armchair entomologists. My Facebook sword of pestilence and loves to hide in armpits. kind, which I’ve come to grudgingly regard as a friends keep posting pictures of ticks clinging to In related news, 2017 may be the year I finally necessary evil, or oil of lemon eucalyptus. Not all make good on my resolution to quit the cesspool their pets, their children, their tender flesh, their “natural” insect repellents actually work, but a screen doors, for God’s sake. One friend recently quick search on PubMed turns up scientific eviposted a photo of a tick she found on her coffee dence that this one does. pot, for which I might not soon forgive her. www.captainspotless.com m After several years of lax homeownership, I am I may as well face facts, though. If this is going determined to finally get serious about the yard — to be the kind of summer in which I have to square and if it takes a pest plague to get me to tackle the off against malevolent little babesiosis vectors just rampaging forsythia, so be it. Untrimmed grass to get my morning caffeine, I am going to need to and straggly bushes are havens for ticks. I have be prepared. one of those environmentally friendly reel mowers The first line of defense, of course, is pants. That — I love the quiet, old-fashioned snicking sound it I can handle.

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May 18, 2017 Home Hudson Valley

Ulster Publishing Co.

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Contemplate the benevolence of the universe.

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Gone are the days when a rural cabin could exist on its own amidst nature, without accoutrements, as seen in this early 19th-century print of an Hudson Valley scene. Now, it seems, yard work is demanded of us all.

I can’t bring myself to use conventional pesticides in the yard, no matter how dire the situation.

Fortunately, there are other options. A big bag of diatomaceous earth, which kills ticks and insects by dehydration, is safe for humans and pets to eat, and can be had for a few dollars a pound at a local hardware store (to keep it from harming bees and other beneficial pollinators, don’t dust it directly on or around flowers). Those with less draconian local laws than mine — the Village of Margaretville outlaws all livestock — might also consider keeping backyard guinea hens. They’re noisy, but they’re also devastatingly efficient tick predators.

I love hiking, but in light of what the shrubbery holds I’m rethinking my outdoor recreation habits. This may be the year I get around to applying to the NYC DEP for a free permit to boat on the Pepacton, so I can sit in a kayak in the middle of 140 billion gallons of water, serene in the knowledge that I am about as far from the nearest Ixodes scapularis as it is possible to be in Delaware County.

Last but not least, there’s acceptance. I plan to spend many hours this summer basking on

Home, Lawn & Garden May 2017 An Ulster Publishing publication Editorial WRITERS: Jennifer Brizzi, Lissa Harris, Elisabeth Henry, Cally Mansfield, Chris Rowley, Paul Smart, Lynn Woods EDITOR: Paul Smart COVER: Mohonk Mountain House’s renowned gardens as summer peaks, supplied by www.mohonk.com LAYOUT BY Joe Morgan Ulster Publishing PUBLISHER: Geddy Sveikauskas ADVERTISING DIRECTOR: Genia Wickwire DISPLAY ADS: Lynn Coraza, Pam Courselle,

Pamela Geskie, Elizabeth Jackson, Ralph Longendyke, Sue Rogers, Linda Saccoman PRODUCTION MANAGER: Joe Morgan PRODUCTION: Diane Congello-Brandes, Josh Gilligan, Rick Holland CLASSIFIED ADS: Amy Murphy, Tobi Watson CIRCULATION: Dominic Labate Home, Lawn & Garden is one of three Home Hudson Valley supplements Ulster Publishing puts out each year. It is distributed in the company’s four weekly newspapers and separately at select locations, reaching an estimated readership of over 50,000.

Its website is www.hudsonvalleyone.com. For more info on upcoming special sections, including how to place an ad, call 845-334-8200, fax 845-334-8202 or email: info@ulsterpublishing.com.

the porch with a copy of Thomas Merton’s “The Wisdom of the Desert,” a favorite antidote to the cruelty of the world. And if that fails to get me sufficiently zen, there’s always a cocktail I invented with some visiting friends at a Fourth of July shindig a couple of years ago. We’ve dubbed it Any Port In A Storm, and it goes like this:

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18, 2017 6 | May Home Hudson Valley

Ulster Publishing Co.

Cultivating vegetables and community Lynn Woods explores Kingston’s new urban farms

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cross the street from the gray and brick industrial buildings of the Binnewater Ice Company, the South Pine Street City Farm is bringing a touch of the country to the hardscrabble Midtown section of Kingston. Farmers Joel Zenie and Trish Hawkins tend the rows of seedlings, a combination of greens, vegetables such as peppers, peas, beans and garlic, and herbs like parsley, dill and a few others planted in hay-strewn beds filling their quarteracre plot. In a few weeks, they’ll be open for business, selling their lettuce and other early-season crops from a farmstand out front.

Approximately half a mile away, KayCee Wimbish is tending her third of an acre at the Kingston YMCA Farm Project, located behind the YMCA parking lot. Three Kingston High School seniors, interns getting credit toward their diploma, are helping her. Wimbish, a former teacher who left New York City to work on a farm in Tivoli, ended up with her own farm. She moved to Kingston with her partner and child in hopes of combining her teaching experience with farming — “to use farming and food as a community-builder,” as she puts it.

Following a season at the South Pine Street City Farm, leased by the Kingston Land Trust from its owner, Binnewater, Wimbish broke ground and raised funds for the new urban farm at the Y in 2013. Besides the old standbys, she is planting hot peppers, tomatillos and herbs reflecting the culture and tastes of Midtown’s Hispanic population.

She’ll sell the produce in the Y lobby starting June 1 as well as from a trailer attached to a bicycle she rides around town. She’ll set up at the library, hospital, and two senior-citizen residences, Yosman Towers and the Governor Clinton Apartments.

Kingston community gardens have also sprouted up next to the Clinton Avenue Methodist Church, the Rondout Gardens public housing project, and two elementary schools. This summer, even Broadway itself will be turned into a fresh-food producer. Under the guidance of Bryant Drew Andrews, executive director of Creative Center of Education, which hosts dance, fitness and music classes and activities, the kids at CCE will nurture hydroponically grown fruits and vegetables from eight buckets placed along a stretch of the main drag, creating what Andrews calls “an edible sidewalk.” He will also be assisting at the community garden at the Everette Hodge Center, which provides after-school activities for children and teens.

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Kingston’s new ag scene is similar to what’s been transpiring in recent years in major metropolises around the nation, including Detroit, New York City and even our state capital in Albany.

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ack in the 1940s and 1950s, many Kingstonians grew vegetables and tended chickens in their back yards. My neighbor Gene Lowe, who grew up in my house on Hone Street, tells me that the soil in my sloping back yard was well fertilized by the decades of chicken manure deposited there. Some residents are once again tending vegetable gardens, but now apartment dwellers can also get their hands dirty by adopting a bed in one of the community gardens. Everyone in the city benefits, by being able to purchase produce in the summer and fall that’s about as fresh and local as you can get.

Kingston even has its own CSA farm (it’s actually just over the border in Ulster). A couple of hundred acres of Esopus Creek floodplain, recently bought up by Northeast Farm Access, LLC, funded by a dozen investors, are being leased to four farmers, one of whom is Creek Iversen.

Iversen’s 30-acre organic and pesticide-free Seed Song Farm is selling shares for $17 a week.

He’s growing traditional U-pick crops and several kinds of berries and Jerusalem artichokes. He’s planted a Native American-style garden featuring the Three Sisters (corn, squash and beans). In the spirit of community that’s taken the city by storm, he is encouraging beekeepers to locate along the edges of his “agro-ecological farm.”

Jon’s Bread, for whom Iversen is growing grains, is building a pizza oven on the premises. There’ll be meals, music jams, blackberry-jam making, forest foraging, Native American ceremonies and other events at the farm, which is open to all.

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ack in Midtown, Zenie and Hawkins also are strong on community. They welcome volunteers who can help weed and man the farmstand on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (starting May 31, they’ll be open from 3 to 7 p.m.). Starting in June, a yoga class will be offered on Wednesday from 6 to 7 p.m. Kids from the Boys and Girls Club will visit once a week to work on the farm. Two Adirondack-style chairs placed in the garden encourage meditative sitting.

Picnic tables and chairs shaded by a massive maple tree behind the farm will be used for Kingston Land Trust events.

The couple’s main focus, however, is producing

organic, pesticide-free produce, which this year will include raspberries, blackberries and gooseberries. They source most of their organic seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Maine, supplemented by seeds from the Hudson Valley Seed Bank. They grow most of the seedlings under lights at their home in Uptown Kingston. Much of their effort has gone into nurturing the soil, which was brought in from elsewhere.

Along with compost, coffee grounds and leaves ground up in their leaf blower, they’ve added soybean meal to the beds. After soil tests revealed a slight deficit in potassium, they added powdered kelp, which Zenie said helps strengthen the plants’ roots and protects against disease. They cover the beds in straw to preserve the nutrients, which otherwise might be leached out by the air and pounding rain. They’ve cut the vines that had grown over the fence to help keep out the critters.

Organic neem oil, from a plant grown in India, is sprayed on the plants to prevent the leaves from insect damage. Water is provided from a spigot attached to one of the Binnewater buildings.

Zenie, who grew up in Westchester County, took courses at Hawthorne Valley Farm and then volunteered at an organic farm near Ellenville in 2013. “I got used to hard work,” he said. One of the biggest challenges is the variability in timing of various crops, which don’t always grow on schedule. And the weeding on a pesticide-free farm is constant, he added.

Hawkins was a member of Circle Repertory, a theater company in New York City (resident playwright Lanford Wilson won multiple awards). She continues to work as an actor, theater director and writer. Witnessing Zenie “finding meaning in his work” inspired her to get involved in farming. “We kept looking at pieces of land around town .… After walking by this place one fall … we got in touch with the Kingston Land Trust and asked if we could take it over,” she said. (The farm, launched by the KLT in 2010, was farmed by a succession of people until Zenie and Hawkins took over in 2014.)

Besides selling from its stand, South Pine Street supplies several Uptown restaurants (Outdated, Sissy’s and Duo Bistro) with produce. Though they have yet to make a profit, Hawkins is hopeful they might make a small one this year.

May 18, 2017 Home Hudson Valley

Ulster Publishing Co.

| 7

Wimbush encourages people to visit the farm for the sheer beauty and serenity. The verdant garden located in the middle of town is part of a little-known greenbelt that extends to the Wiltwyck Cemetery.

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Urban gardening is best handled, Kingstonites have found, utilizing raised beds to maximize space.

Prices are reasonable. While seniors can use vouchers from the Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program to pay for the produce, few do (Hawkins speculates the somewhat cumbersome process of applying for a voucher, which amounts to only $25 a summer, may be the reason). Low-income customers can use SNAP vouchers, the fresh-food equivalent of food stamps.

Few of the immediate neighbors shop at the stand, which Hawkins attributes to the high level of poverty in the area and a lack of knowledge of fresh food and how to cook it. To entice more people to the stand, this year she plans to set up her gas-powered burner and offer samples of sautéed greens, kale salad and other dishes. The couple also plans to distribute more brochures and flyers, in addition to maintaining their Facebook page.

L

ast year, Ted Griese, who resides in a second-story apartment in Uptown with his girlfriend, Gabriel Grigoli, got involved in South Pine, planting flowers in an area overgrown with strawberries. He sold his cut flowers and edible flowers at the stand. He also supplied the Lunchbox with nasturtiums and borage.

He did so well he’s expanding his plantings this year. “Because a lot of flowers [sold commercially] aren’t local, there’s definitely a place for local flowers,” Griese said. He’s just planted a four-foot row of sunflowers along the border of the farm with the Binnewater parking lot. It’s a way to beautify the space.

Griese, who graduated from SUNY New Paltz in 2013 and spent a summer in Michigan working on his father’s farm, works full-time at home.

(Grigoli works full-time as a production manager at a wholesale food distributor at Tech City). He tended a bed at a community garden in New Paltz before tiring of the commute and looked for urban garden opportunities in Kingston.

Griese also tends two beds of flowers at the Rondout Gardens Community Garden and grows veggies on two private properties in Kingston, with the right to sell whatever he grows.

“I love being able to pick what I want, which lasts much longer than stuff you get anywhere else,” he explains. “It’s really satisfying personally to watch a seed you planted grow and produce.”

He also finds weeding meditative. “I put on headphones.” He hopes to grow his urban farming into a business and is considering also selling his flowers this year from a mobile stand.

W

imbish, who spent the summer of 2013 breaking ground and fundraising at the YMCA farm, is in her second season this year. Once her current helpers have graduated from high school, she’ll have a summer crew of up to eight workers, paid by the county-run summer youth employment program, followed by a fall crew. Elementary-school students, mainly from George Washington School, take field trips to the farm and cooked with Wimbish over the winter.

She is helping Chambers Elementary School get its school garden back up and running.

“Younger kids are so excited. Everything’s very magical and wonderful and they’re willing to try new things,” she explained. With teens, the challenge is “finding the hook to try to make it exciting and relevant.” She’s taking them on field trips to Hudson Valley Harvest, a local food processor and distributor at Tech City, as part of an effort “to grow a local food movement and introduce young people to different opportunities in that movement.”

Her farmstand will be open in the Y lobby starting June 1 on Thursday from 3:30 to 6 p.m.

Tuesday at the same time she’ll be at one of the HealthAlliance hospitals (she’ll alternate campuses each week starting June 13 at the Broadway campus) and the Kingston Library. On Wednesday her schedule will take her to Yosman Towers and the Governor Clinton Apartments. The idea behind the mobile stand is “to go where people already are,” she said, especially seniors, who may not be that mobile and might be restricted in their access to fresh produce.

Like South Pine, the Y farm also is organic and uses no pesticides. Because she is a paid employee of the Y, she said, “I have the luxury of being able to make choices and not spray anything. My costs are low, and if I lose a crop it’s not the end of the world.”

s steward of the Rondout and Clinton Avenue Methodist Church community gardens, Karen Miller is reaching out to lowincome residents. It’s been a challenge so far. She distributed flyers to each of the 131 apartments at the public housing project advertising the availability of a free bed at the Rondout Gardens community garden. Only three residents got involved, along with another three people in the community. (Each recipient signs an agreement that they will keep the garden weeded, will plant it by July, and otherwise maintain it) A total of 15 beds out of 20 will be planted this year. Miller volunteers her services, and the city’s parks and recreation department does mowing and other maintenance work.

“I have a passion to see that people have success,” she said. “My hope is that people from the apartments will see how the gardens take off, and word will spread.” The YMCA is donating some seedlings to get started, and residents can use their SNAP vouchers for low-priced plants.

At the Clinton Avenue garden, Miller started helping out a couple of years ago by doing the composting. That garden has a dozen beds, of which ten are adopted. The charge is $5 to the church for a season.

One of the gardeners “created hothouses out of old windows that were being thrown out,” Miller said proudly. “It’s amazing what he’s doing there.

His wife is ill, and he says it’s therapy for him.”

The ARC will help her with raking and cleaning up, and the Dig Kids are volunteering as well. “I’ve made a decision to keep the gate open,” she said.

“People are enjoying this garden. They take care of it, and it really is for the neighborhood to enjoy.”

Julia Farr, executive director at the Kingston Land Trust (KLT), said the trust hopes to build on the South Pine Street City Farm model by matching up more farmers with private landowners.

Three individual landowners have approached the KLT about allowing someone else to cultivate their land. “There’s an influx of young people who want to be connected with the land and community,” said Farr, who joined the KLT four months ago as its first full-time paid director.

Farr moved to Kingston from Brooklyn, which abounds with urban farms and community gardens and also benefits from the resources of New York City’s parks department, which employs nine landscape architects. Kingston lacks those resources. KLT is helping fill the gap by working closely with the city to help promote and activate urban green spaces.

“Right now we’re small, but we can help to connect the dots,” Farr said. “I plan to grow the organization and identify the needs and resources that can be better utilized by the public.”

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18, 2017 8 | May Home Hudson Valley

Ulster Publishing Co.

Siren song of the seasons Elisabeth Henry goes to nature, as did John Burroughs, to be soothed and healed

I

“

will never live in Manhattan again. I have to have my hands in dirt.”

This statement was made by a woman at a film shoot I visited. She had come to this area decades ago to sell property bequeathed to her by elderly relatives.

And then she stayed. She had made a very nice living as a working actress/vocalist when she lived in Manhattan. She was often booked and flown firstclass to LA. Lately this area has attracted lots of filmmakers.

So that’s how she found herself once again in front of the camera. What makes a girl give up the glitz and the glamour of life on the set for toiling in the fields?

“I dunno,” she shrugged in answer to that very question. “But I will tell you this. I am very worried about this year’s apple crop. Last year was terrible. Have you checked the forecast? Snow on Tuesday. There go the blossoms.”

She glowered at her reflection in the mirror.

That’s when the make-up lady shooed me from the room.

To live here, in the valley of this great river, on the high peaks of these ancient mounds, is to live very directly with the forces of the natural world.

The winters are beautiful, but brutal. One cannot ignore the cold.

When spring comes at last, the relief of sunshine and warmth lures everybody outside. The starved senses revel in daffodil yellow, tender new grassgreen, the scent of lilacs and lilies of the valley.

You wanna make more, so you order catalogues.

I know. Just take a peek in to my powder room.

Fedco, David Austen Roses, and Harris Seeds are just a few of the companies that correspond with me regularly. I love thumbing through them, especially those like Fedco, which are loaded with cool drawings and tips for gardeners.

The downside to browsing through catalogues is that one can become gobsmacked, and go tilting off into a spending spree on stuff you don’t need.

Like that rotating composter that sits in my husband’s big barn. Think: church raffle. The thing is supposed to turn on a spindle, like the raffle barrels do, but there’s a hitch. Raffle tickets don’t freeze. Composting leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner do.

And then the rotating composter becomes just another plastic object in the back yard, frozen in place and impossible to open. It becomes covered with snow. Because you can’t use it, you forget it’s there. Your husband tries to shovel a path and breaks his snow shovel on your useless composter, giving him one more reason he never thought the Equal Rights Amendment was a good idea.

T

he composter will be featured in My Yard Sale, coming to you sometime soon. It will be an epic event, I promise you. My entire attic is stuffed with the trivia needed in community theater productions and child-rearing in the 1990s. Included are a megaphone the size of a stepladder left over from my high-school cheerleading days, photographs from my grandmother’s first love affair (he died in WWI), countless tubes of wrapping paper, old suitcases, the Remington manual typewriter upon which I learned to ply my trade, an authentic wall telephone (made of oak) that could possibly still work, the little dresses my first-born wore to kindergarten in Manhattan, little shoes, Easter hats, and luggage from the 1930s.

WIKICOMMONS

What’s more inviting than a summer yard sale? Perhaps storage units in which to stash all one’s bought over the years?

PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTO

Apple trees are said to have been the base upon which American civilization was built. But you have to plant them in the right places, our author found.

Unfortunately, I threw out all my club clothes when I became pregnant the first time. So sorry.

No tube tops. However, if tube tops are your passion, I’m sure it’ll be only a matter of time before you find trunkfuls of them at yard sales or thrift stores. We are rich in them.

One of my friends, who moved here for a little while to recover from a bad love affair or from alcoholism (I’m not sure which was the more devastating), haunted yard sales. She had learned that Todd Rundgren had once lived nearby, and she was sure that if she found out exactly where, she was certain to find his lavish collection of platform shoes. Sadly, I don’t believe she succeeded. Oh, she got over whatever was ailing her, but without the platforms.

Just today I visited my town’s church thrift store.

There I found a United States flag used to drape a coffin. (Not rated to hang off a flagpole. Too heavy.

One stiff wind and the pole snaps. Lawsuit to follow.) A corset. Brand-new in-the-box teeth whitening kits. A salt and pepper mill, rather soiled but completely full of Himalayan salt and black pepper corns. Authentic Uggs. Rather large stilettos that just might find their way to some drag queen’s heart. (These hills are alive with savory secrets.) An electric coffee pot that the lady who bought it swears was in last night’s dream.

I left my wallet at home, knowing the tempta-

tions. I went to visit with the ladies, who are the gentlest of souls and the most generous of human beings. Like wildflowers, the shop opens in spring and summer, but only then. It is such a guilty pleasure. One is sure to find just the thing one didn’t know one needed. Like a special tool for putting in flower bulbs, because every sun-filled day is rare and fleeting, and we want to make the most of it, and we all want to get back to the garden.

E

very county in New York State has a Cornell Cooperative Extension office, which holds a treasure trove of possibilities for the gardener. Sometimes they sell plants and trees there. Ulster County even has a special facility dedicated to the study and propagation of fruit trees.

Look for nurseries and garden centers that specialize in plants that thrive here. Give yourself and your garden a fighting chance.

There are monks that live on a desolate island in the North Sea. They are able to grow much of their own food by listening to the earth. They say the plants tell them where they should be planted.

The monks are obviously vibrating to an entirely different turning fork than the rest of us, but the principle of working with nature does reap the most rewards.

We planted 250 apple trees twelve years ago. If

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only we had paid closer attention to the features in the greater landscape. There are very few apple trees where I live, and those that thrive are wild apples. Most of our trees have died.

Our property is densely covered in wild berry plants, and the blueberry bushes we planted have lived and grown and produced like crazy. Berries love it here.

Despite the disappointments, my apple orchard

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I have photos of white snow encircling my jadegreen pond in early May, when my second daughter was born.

The Farmer’s Almanac, which arrives in every Christmas stocking in my house, has a feature called Planting by the Moon. I follow it. No scientific explanation accompanies the recommendations, but I’ve learned to heed the advice of farmer friends. They live within nature, they know it by sight, by smell, by feel, by sound.

One friend, a lady farmer, can tell you when it will rain, days ahead of the precipitation. She can interpret the clouds, the rays of the sun, and the sounds of the insects.

I love the simple logic that says you’ll never be bothered by too many caterpillars if you plant flowers that butterflies like to eat, because they do not use those plants for breeding. However, you should offer them stinging nettles (They are weeds, they’ll find you.) because butterflies like to lay eggs in stinging nettles. Make a little patch for them.

Bees prefer the color blue, so plant borage. Added bonus? Borage plants near your tomato plants will confuse the bugs that plague tomato plants, and anecdotally borage plants improve the vigor and taste of your tomatoes. After the full moon in May, plant beets, potatoes, turnips, carrots and onions.

The feminine sign of Taurus dominates until the 21st. After that, it’s the time to destroy unwanted plant life and weeds all during the sign of Gemini, until the return of the eternal feminine in late June.

We who live in this part of the world have inherited a great and tender love of the outdoors. “I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order,” wrote John Burroughs, the first of the great American nature writers and a local guy.

Age steers our passions. The death of my beautiful three-year-old filly a year ago was very hard for me. I accept that death and decay are a part of life, only more grudgingly now. I loved that horse.

I bred that horse, born on Mother’s Day. While I fuss over the little seedlings in my garden, I happily cut my roses and daylilies and lavender for my favorite vases. I will greedily harvest my peppers and pumpkins and tomatoes with my mouth watering. The latter actually volunteered to grow in the compost heap of the horse manure!

As Maxine Kumin announced gaily in “An Insider’s View of the Garden,” I too want to warn my edible feats, “For all of you, whether eaten or extirpated/ I plan to spend the rest of my life on my knees.”

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Does your garden talk?

Cally Mansfield provides brief translations for the language of flowers

ies. The daylily is the Chinese emblem of mothers, very sweet for Mother’s Day. Oddly enough, moss symbolizes motherly love as well. I’m not so amused by the eucharis lily, which symbolizes maiden charms. I’m not sure what maiden charms are, but the feminist race says “no.” A yellow lily says, “I’m walking on air or false.” I actually have no idea how to incorporate this meaning into my pretend garden. An orange lily is a symbol of hatred, putting giving orange daylilies for Mother’s Day in question.

I

have loved flowers ever since I was little. I especially love the smells.

I’m amused, however, when I walk the aisles of the chain drug store huffing cheap scent purveyors. In my view, these “perfumeries” have failed to capture “summer night bouquet” and “angel tears.”

One scent was actually titled “Japanese Garden.” Is that what gardens in Japan smell like? Interesting.

I also love the way flowers look. My mom’s garden is never as aesthetically satisfactory as I had hoped it would be.

She plants mostly vegetables and herbs, which are like totally boring and yet domestically practical.

The garden in my mind is as stylish as it is impossible for Zone 5. My garden would focus more on personal expression. Yeah, that’s right, my garden would be a poem, each flower a stanza. If I give you a bouquet, it’s really going to say something.

My mom told me that all flowers had symbolic meaning. These meanings go way back, probably predating the hoe (that’s what she said). So I did a search for “the language of flowers” and conveniently came across langugageofflowers. com. I here present for your delectation an alphabetical compilation of the connotations implied when you give someone certain flowers, with additional interpretations by your truly. When you give flowers, you should know when you are sending a positive message, or just being mean.

A • Ambrosia: Your love is reciprocated. I think this might be a nice message to have out front in my garden, just because I want people to know that if they love my garden my garden loves them back.

Anemone: This flower means forsaken. I don’t want people coming into my thinking they will be abandoned.

M • Magnolias: These flowers symbolize nobility. Give them to your knight in shining armor.

Monkshood: This one means beware! A deadly foe is near! I wonder about the success rate of this warning signal.

Marigold: Such a happy flower to mean cruelty, grief or jealousy.

N • Nasturtium: Conquest, victory in battle. And isn’t it odd that you can eat these flowers?

Nuts: These means stupidity. If you give someone nuts in a bouquet (I really hope you don’t) or grow them in your garden (they won’t be in my garden because I’m allergic), then you might just be stupid.

O • Orchids: They stand for love and beauty. For me, they stand for a plant that will most probably be decimated by your cat and kept up with hair clips.

WIKICOMMONS

The Victorian Age was filled with floral alphabets and species identification. The great artist-philosopher Ernst Haeckel, whose Muscinae is seen here, was one of the first to see beyond specifics. garden

B • Bachelor button: Single blessedness. I know some single gardens out there looking for some blessedness.

Bouquet of dead flowers: In case this wasn’t already clear, this symbolizes rejected love. I hope I don’t receive this because my bachelor buttons will wilt.

C • Carnation: The six colors of this flower all have different meanings. Red says, “My heart aches for you” or “I admire you.” I’m not sure this one will be in my garden. Pink says, “I’ll never forget you,” which is kind of a wistful message but beautiful nonetheless. White is supposed to represent innocence, and is a “ladies good-luck gift.”

I’m not sure how innocence relates to good luck.

A purple carnation stands for capriciousness. I want this in my garden. Wait, no, I don’t. Maybe? A striped carnation says, “I can’t be with you.”

I’m pretty sure this will come in handy someday.

Finally, a yellow carnation says, “You have disappointed me.” My cat keeps leaving these for me.

D • Dandelion: This flower symbolizes faithfulness. They are so faithful they will never leave your yard. So. Faithful.

Dead leaves: Once again, in case this wasn’t already obvious, these symbolize sadness. These are often in autumn arrangements. Maybe don’t get married in October?

E • Echinacea: This wasn’t on languageofflowers.com, so I’m winging it. I think it stands for that

P • Primrose: They are a symbol that you cannot live without someone. Maybe I’ll give my parents one.

Petunia: This means resentment, anger or “your presence soothes me.” That’s one wishy-

feeling you have when you can’t find your pants.

washy flower.

F • Fern: This one is a natural growing symbol of magic! Huzzah, calling all wizards.

Flax: This is a domestic symbol. Meh.

R • Rose: The classic single rose means “I love you.” A white rose stands for innocence or secrecy, which don’t really go hand in hand. A bouquet in full bloom means gratitude, a really nice message to any friend.

G • Garlic: Not sure how many garlic arrangements I’ve seen, but the flower symbolizes strength and courage. It has a very strong smell that might take some courage to get used to, but either way it sends a pungent message in my garden.

Grass: This plant symbolizes submission. Just in case your garden doesn’t work out, you can plant grass as a kind of white, sorry, green flag of surrender.

H • Heather: This means protection, or your wishes will come true. I’m wishing that my garden will be protected.

Hydrangea: I don’t recommend planting hydrangea if you want to give off a friendly, yeahI’m-nice vibe, because this flower connotes heartlessness.

I • Iris: Bonjour! The iris is a symbol of France.

It also symbolizes that a friendship is important to you. This plant is perfect for your French friend that you got in a fight with.

Ivy: This one means fidelity in marriage. Congratulations, keepers of the ivy.

J • Jonquil: This flower symbolizes affection returned, and that can’t hurt anybody.

L • Lily: Overall, these flowers symbolize beauty, but there are few wild meanings in some variet-

S • Spider flower: This one means “elope with me.” This is for those real underground secret messages you need to send without parents knowing. Now, if I can only figure out what a spider flower is.

Snapdragon: Once again, another confusing flower. It symbolizes deception or “a gracious lady.” Take your pick.

T • Tulip: A bunch with different colors means someone thinks you have beautiful eyes. Red tulips mean, “Believe me.” What is this flower hiding that it needs me to believe it?

V • Viscaria: These flowers say, “Will you dance with me?” I think it is very practical for high schoolers. People in my school seem to be to afraid to ask that question, so maybe they need a flower’s help.

Z • Zinnia: These flowers mean consistency or lasting affection. If you want to send me zinnia, I prefer magenta.

This is the time of year for proms, and I do hope your corsages will be meaningful! As your plan your gardens, make sure you know the stories they tell.

18, 2017 14 | May Home Hudson Valley

Ulster Publishing Co.

PUBLIC DOMAIN & WIKICOMMONS PHOTOS

Top, Japanese knotweed is one of those plants innocently introduced into our local landscape only to run rampant; above left, It’s fun to read about bears in other people’s yards, but less fun to meet one trying to enter one’s own domain; above right, Ticks. For many, they were bigger years ago, but not as dangerous in terms of the diseases they carried. Now they’re a reason for many to stay indoors come summer. Just dress carefully, and check each other out after coming back indoors.

Creepy things Chris Rowley looks into the pests, both miniscule and huge, that come with the season

F

lowers, hiking, gardening, even a barbecue on the deck again.

All great stuff, but we need to remember that lots of other critters are awake and active, and some of them can be very pesky, even dangerous.

Dealing with them often presents quandaries. A dash of common sense and a modest amount of effort can usually get you through the worst.

At some point during the next weeks, you may find yourself sneezing uncontrollably while you try to get the lawnmower working just as tree pollen blows past you in thick green clouds. Then you notice a tiny tick has started to attach itself above your ankle.

Pulling the tick off, you hear a buzzing behind you. Uh oh, hornets are building a nest in the rho-

dodendron.

What to do? Do you want to discourage them?

What should your strategy be? If they do build a successful nest, everyone will have to stay away from the area of the plant for the rest of the season. If you attempt to kill them and fail, you had best be ready to run for cover. Afterwards they will be hypervigilant and aggressive. The bald-headed hornet (biggish wasps with white heads and stripe) carries a formidable sting.

Other wasps, like the brown paper wasps that build small nests here and there, or the invasive yellow jackets, are easier to deal with. You can just rip paper wasp nests down, and the creatures will go somewhere else. Yellow jackets can be sprayed if you get close enough to do the job.

Meanwhile, your wife and kids are concerned about the invasion of the kitchen by two different kinds of ants, tiny ones and big, fast ones. Ants are very hard to discourage. Do you want to put out poison to kill them? When you read what’s inside the blue can of spray you get a chilling sensation in your spine as you mumble your way through methyl this and dicarbonyl that. Maybe putting up with little ants is better than absorbing the

contents of the blue can.

And then there’s the bear. Since he or she got some garbage foolishly left out a few nights back, she or he has been around every night. A bear’s universe consists of starry points where food was obtained and a large empty space where it wasn’t.

Bears will return to those starry points many times in hope of finding food again. You have to be really attentive. Someone forgot half a hamburger that fell on the deck? Oh, that’s why the umbrella stand is knocked over and the table is on its side.

et’s review the Pesk-o-Meter. Keep it simple to start and go with the threat level.

What are the most dangerous pests?

No question about that one, Ticks. In particular the deer tick, Ixodes Scapularis. Black legs, black heads and upper parts of body, with pink-orange lower body. The nymphs are black, sometimes a little reddish after they feed. Nymphs can be the size of a period. Adults are about three millimeters long.

They are not particular about what they bite for a blood meal and often feed on mice. They pick up diseases from mice that they can pass on to us.

L

May 18, 2017 Home Hudson Valley

Ulster Publishing Co. These include Lyme disease, which everyone has heard of, but also Babesia, an infection by a relative of the malaria parasite, and thankfully very rarely Powassan fever.

Tick awareness is very important. Wear white socks, and check them whenever you’re working in the yard or hiking. Most tick attachments begin on the feet and ankles. Pull ticks off and dispose of them. To kill a tick, crush between thumbnails. If a tick has embedded itself in your skin, take tweezers, grip its body carefully right behind the head, and pull backwards as smoothly as possible. Try not to crush the tick and squeeze its contents into you. It isn’t easy.

After removing the tick, apply hydrogen peroxide generously to the wound and keep an eye on it.

If it develops a bull’s-eye rash, hurry to the doctor.

If it doesn’t but about a week later you start to feel deathly ill, hurry to the doctor. Lyme disease is no joke, nor is Babesia. Powassan fever, well, fortunately the Ixodes tick that carries that, bites squirrels and is more picky about its host than Ixodes Scapularis, the deer tick that conveys Lyme.

To be pro-active, help the mice. Buy some cardboard tubing. Cut into short sections and stuff with cotton wool soaked in a little pyrethrin insecticide. Mice use cotton wool for their nests.

Place little tubes wherever there may be mice, and yeah, they can be anywhere, but do your best. See if the mice take the cotton. If they don’t, move it to another location. Ticks will be killed en masse in mouse burrows.

potting soil mulch flower pots

N

ext on the list in terms of danger would be rabid animals, usually raccoons and skunks, sometimes foxes and coyotes. This is a very rare event, only included because of the danger involved. If you see any of these animals in daylight, if they appear in the yard or on the drive and do not seem afraid of you, get you and yours indoors and stay there. If you have a shotgun you may use it to dispatch the poor creature. You’re doing it a favor. If not, just wait until it wanders away, confused, feverish and very, very sick. It will die shortly after.

Remember, a fed bear is a dead bear. Never, never feed a bear. Bears survive and prosper by remembering every single place they found something to eat. Feed them and they’ll be back. Take down your bird feeder if you’re situated in bear country. Or at least take it down every evening.

T

he list of garden pests is long, changing with what you’re trying to grow. Every vegetable will bring something pesky to dine. Aphids are to be expected, and you may have to spray for them. Japanese beetles can also be expected.

Set pheromone traps as far from the house as you can. Alternatively, plant a decoy crop, like sunflowers, again as far from your real target crop as you can manage. You will still need to pick the little buggers off your plants from time to time.

Gypsy moths are an invasive, well-established pest with cyclical booms in their populations. You can control them in your own neighborhood by setting out pheromone traps every season.

The brown marmorated stink bug is a newish invasive pest that is becoming a more serious threat to crops in the Hudson Valley. In a warm summer this bug may boom in numbers. They favor anything juicy: tomato plants, apple trees, any fruit. They just want a little sip, but they leave a brown spot of decay behind. Serious efforts are under way to control this critter.

Even newer threats are on the horizon, such as invasives from Asia, like the lantern bug.

Fleas are another pest to be aware of if you have pets that go outside. Apply a topical flea and tick control to all pets, and add collars, too. Flea infestations are unbearable.

Then there are the things that are very hard to do much about, mosquitoes and biting flies. Forget bug zappers. They do not attract mosquitoes, only moths and bees. There are techniques for trying to control mosquitoes, but the best one is to use screens and wear light-colored clothing.

Horse flies are another story, but they zero in on dark stuff. Wear light-colored clothing.

There are other pests and critters to be aware of and be careful around. The northern timber rattlesnake is not an aggressive snake. Leave it alone, and it will leave you alone. When it’s upset and dangerous, the buzzing of the rattle will give you fair warning. These snakes are rare, and if you follow the rules they won’t harm you. Ticks are far, far more dangerous.

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| 15

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18, 2017 16 | May Home Hudson Valley

Ulster Publishing Co.

Tethered to the green Paul Smart looks at how to responsibly replace with lawnmower

S

pring’s strange hiccup this year made a mess of my lawn. Here we all were in March, oohing and ahhing as the first daffodils awoke in some of the warmer spots around. And then it snowed. After which things settled into an old style season of chilly nights and somewhat warm days. Plus lots of rain.

The grass out there on the other side of my home’s windows grew crazy-fast in some spots while other areas seemed to mimic an arctic tundra. I remembered how sluggish my electric longcord lawnmower had become by the end of last summer...Maybe the fact that I’d skipped my last mowing was part of the problem this springtime?

It was time to get prepped for the new mowing year. “Dead,� was the sole word I remembered from the mechanic’s prognosis spiel about overworked elements of my Black & Decker’s engine. I noted how they’d simply replaced the whole machine half-way through the eight years I’ve had the thing. The man said that wasn’t happening this time. I’d have to buy something new.

Not ready to do so then and there, I retreated home to Google my next move. But first I needed to head out to my porch swing and stare down the lawn at the center of my consumer quandary.

I first got a corded mower as a means of engaging and personally answering the “peak oil�

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Ulster Publishing Co.

A

s usual with such searches, I got sidetracked into Wikipedia. The first lawn mower, I discovered, had been invented in an English town called Thrupp by Edwin Budding in 1830 and led to the codification of many sports after being bought for London’s Regent Park, and clipping the greens at Oxford. The first power mower was an 1893 gas-fueled steam contraption that took six hours to heat up (it wasn’t until the 1930s that modern-style gas mowers became common; their popularity was post-World War II). “In the United States, over 12,000 people per year are hospitalized as a result of lawn mower accidents. The vast majority of these injuries can be prevented by wearing protective footwear when mowing,� I read. “Persons using a mower should wear heavy footwear, eye protection, and hearing protection in the case of engine-powered mowers.�

Oh, I thought, deciding I may have had enough of my research, especially after further learning that it would be unwise for me to allow my son mowing privileges until the age of 16. It was enough to be reacquainted with the knowledge that, despite Environmental Protection Agency

And started up and ran better than what I had had, and been happy with.

Now I wait for the rains to stop to mow all I have (leaving the bottom hill unreachable by my 100 foot tether to twice a year hired ride mowers) in one swath. Because I’m still waiting to get the lawn(s) back to something less messy than what they’ve become. At least by Labor Day.

HO

promises to make lawnmowers more green, “A 2001 study showed that some mowers produce the same amount of pollution (emissions other than carbon dioxide) in one hour as driving a 1992 model vehicle for 650 miles (1,050 km),� and furthermore, “Another estimate puts the amount of pollution from a lawn mower at four times the amount from a car, per hour,� although this report is no longer available.

Availability wasn’t necessary, for me, as I read a Consumers Report listing of best electric mowers, and gauged it against local supplies...including several where I’d accrued credits over the years from various writing or editing jobs (don’t ask).

I

ended up simply driving over to the local box store one day while my dad was in town and bought what was on sale, checking its star-rating on my phone before swiping the credit card. With a 19 inch cutting width, similar to what Budding invented 114 years earlier, it would serve me well.

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LE

(mown over flower beds among them).

It was fun, after several mowed-over electrical cords, figuring out how to maneuver my lawn within the restrictions of a 100 foot tether. It was even more exhilarating listening to people’s taunts about my attempts to be green as I mowed, and eventually some real questions about the effectiveness of my mower. Hey, it never needed fixing and always started right up, I’d note. And when it didn’t the company replaced the entire thing.

Until they didn’t.

Finally I was ready to look at what was available.

I ruled out the new robo-mowers, worried about the many balls and gloves, driveway rocks and kitties that could become hazards as Hal buzzed around the back yard. As well as what might happen if a robo-mower chased down someone walking on the sidewalk that bisects my front lawn.

| 17

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18, 2017 18 | May Home Hudson Valley

Ulster Publishing Co.

Growing good stuff for fine feasting COURTESY OF WWW.MOHONK.ORG

Jennifer Brizzi looks at an outdoors larder

What’s more rewarding than cocktails on a verandah as the sun sets, a day of home improvement and gardening chores successfully completed?

B

etween the time the first tiny chive of the season pops up to when tomato season finally comes upon us, there is a period of time when gardeners exult in the appearance of all those late-spring and early summer things. They come along to infuse our eats and drinks with the excitement of things we haven’t had in a year: the fresh green asparagus, the peas, the spinach, and the early fruits like strawberries.

After those little chives appear comes the return of other perennial herbs, and the cut-and-comeagain salad greens, and then the early sweet peas (which you planted on St. Patrick’s Day as per custom, right?) After a winter of hearty braises, long-keeping roots and tubers, dried legumes and frozen foods, the emergence of green-ness out of carefully enhanced special dirt is a true joy for the gardener.

Although most of us love spring, and renewal, and softer, warmer temperatures, the gardener is truly happy. He or she likely got a head start in January sowing seeds indoors in tiny cells, and then finally cleaned up the garden beds, tilled and amended the soil, and sowed and planted the seeds or seedlings, and at long last gets to see and touch and eat the fruits of his or her labors.

The garden beginning to produce coincides with the season of eating and entertaining outdoors: picnics and parties, trail snacking, the wish to shorten and simplify our time in the kitchen so we can get outside and enjoy the fair weather. These early summer harvests bring a welcome cornucopia of lighter fare, fresher, more vibrant flavors.

Moving away from meat-plus-three-meals, we

WIKICOMMONS

Ramps, found in the wild and now ripe, have become a cause celebre of chefs in recent years, gaining their place on local menus. Check for them at local farmers’ markets. crave simple, healthier salads, soups and sweets based on the early harvest.

My salad formula makes for a salad that is not a side dish but rather the whole meal, whether lunch or dinner or trail food. It is based on whole grains like farro or wheat berries or black rice or quinoa, plus maybe a protein like beans or shredded poached chicken, salmon, grilled tofu or shrimp, plus an assortment of raw seasonal vegetables, like young zucchini sliced thin, shredded carrots or beets, radishes, baby greens.

These salads are so simple and portable and super-nutritious. Just add minced garlic, onion green or red, your best oil and vinegar and/or lemon juice. Don’t forget the salt and pepper and a hint of heat if you like. There you have a simple formula for a dish you can take anywhere or keep in the fridge for a few days for noshing.

Those baby greens — whether lettuce, arugula, kale, spinach, mizuna — not only jazz up your whole meal but are lovely on their own as green salads, whether as a combination or as just one shining star, whatever your garden is offering up that day. Picked and eaten fresh and simply

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dressed, the flavor is sublime. You can just plant your faves or look for mesclun mixes available in hearty to mild flavors to accommodate the tastes of every gardener. Or try going outside your comfort zone with greens you may not have grown before, from purple dandelion greens to perennial arugula to tat soi to ethnic greens with exotic flavors you may not have tasted.

(DROP CAP) Early harvestables promise elegant soups as well; before the weather gets too hot for soup. Make a simple puree of the first peas or spinach, subtly seasoned, and drizzled with cream or coconut milk is lovely. I like texture, but the unctuousness of a soup based on perfect produce can’t be beat.

Just sauté onion in butter or olive oil or a combination and add the sweet peas (I like Lincoln) or young spinach or other greens or a combo. After a few more moments of stirring, add some savory broth, homemade or store-bought. Fresh herbs don’t hurt, either. Think mint, parsley, dill. Puree with an immersion blender or blender and thin or drizzle with the creamy stuff of your choice. Make

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May 18, 2017 Home Hudson Valley

Ulster Publishing Co. sure it’s salted and peppered appropriately, and enjoy.

You may have heard that sweet corn’s sugars turn to starch quickly, as in the classic advice to start the pot to boiling before going in the field to harvest the corn. But this is true of some other vegetables, like asparagus and peas as well. Their sweetness turns to starch quickly, so cook them up as soon as you harvest them. This is the gardener’s privilege, to enjoy the fruits of their labors quickly and while at their sweetest best.

(DROP CAP) With early summer produce we can ring in and cheer the season with appropriate beverages, from a ramp martini — pickled ramps take only a few days and enhance and garnish beverages, (look online for recipes or see Edible Hudson Valley’s spring issue). The herbaltini is another simple scrumptious beverage concept based on the herb garden’s offerings; recipes abound online.

The gardener who grows strawberries is lucky, able to enjoy a fruit that comes long before peaches and plums, pears and apples, and other berries, and to quickly pick the fodder for delicious classics strawberry rhubarb pie and strawberry shortcake. Or just enjoy them right from the strawberry patch, eaten plain or dipped in sugar.

Another fine use for the strawberry is the shrub.

This new/old beverage — popular in Colonial America and trendy today — can be made with a variety of fruits, but is perfect with the in-season strawberry. Cut them in small pieces and macerate

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A recommended ratio is 1:1:1 strawberries to sugar to vinegar. This makes the shrub syrup, which keeps well in the fridge and some say improves with age. When you’re ready to partake, dilute it with lots of seltzer and a bit of gin or vodka if you wish, and you have a delightful refreshing beverage for early summer. To condense that process,

| 19

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These early summer items are very decorative and will enhance any outdoor space, as well as providing accessible and tasty produce for your kitchen.

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