Image from Select Seeds – Annual Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate

There are many stories about Saint Valentine. According to some, during the 3rd century, Valentine was a priest and a physician who was martyred. According to legend, St. Valentine signed a letter “from your Valentine” to his jailer’s daughter, who he had befriended and healed from blindness. Another legend said he married couples secretly so the husbands could then avoid being sent to war. (more…)

Our son gave us a Chinese Money Plant for Christmas. We did our research to learn that the Pilea peperomioides plant is originally from the Yunnan province of China.  The Norwegian missionary, Agnar Espergren,  took cuttings home with him and shared the plants, which started friends sharing the plants, and passing them through through Scandinavia, and eventually the rest of the world. (more…)

Douglas Tallamy is a great man – who is sharing his greatness with all of us in his books that explain how plants feed the natural  world – and us! The Nature of Oaks  – The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees -is the third of his three books about trees and and the creatures that live on them. (more…)

I have had a vegetable garden for many years, but the science behind plants is always is always bringing us important new information about how to plant a vegetable garden. Emily Murphy began her gardening when she spent summers  with her grandmother who was an energetic gardener.  Those phrases on the book cover, Go Beyond Organic, Rewild Your Land, Sequester Carbon and Support Biodiversity, suggest that gardens are giving us new ideas,  and new ways to give each of us – and the world – good health. (more…)

The Plant Hunter  – A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines  (Viking-Penguin)  is an fascinating book, coming as it  does in these two years of a pandemic. We  have had doctors and scientists  working to find a cure for COVID-19 and now for variants like Omicron. We do not get to see how the scientists work, but in her book Cassandra Leah Quaves provides great stories and information as well as about her life as a plant hunter, searching  for plants that will heal. (more…)

Christmas brought me wonderful gifts – one of them being a big book of The New Pie: Modern Techniques for the Classic American Dessert. So far I have only made one pie from this book. My pie, Spiced Apple Cider is from the New Fruit Pies category, and there are many beautiful pies to make. (more…)

On the twelfth day of Christmas it was time to take the Christmas tree down. One final look – and a sigh as we begin. (more…)

Winter is here, but that doesn’t mean that there is no  color in the garden. My garden is still very green. I walked through this morning and I could admire many green plants like this green creeping thyme. It grows in a small herb bed next to  the house. (more…)

Books are my favorite gift and this Christmas I acquired lots of reading. The Book of HOPE by Jane Goodall  and Douglas Abrams – with Gail Hudson is one. We all know about Jane Goodall and her work with chimpanzees, but there is more to her work than that. Goodall, now age 87, is considered the world’s most famous naturalist, and her concerns are not only with animals. In The Book of Hope she focuses on ‘Four Reasons of Hope – (more…)

During these pandemic years I’ve done a lot  of reading – and a lot of cooking. A dear friend who also likes to read, and cook and eat gave me a marvelous book – an early Christmas gift. O frabjous day! I have already begun planning to make Louise Penny’s Madame Benoit’s Tourtiere, Harlan Coben’s Myron’s Crabmeat Dip, James Patterson’s Grandma’s Killer Chocolate Cake and Lisa Scottoline’s A Tomato Sauce for All Seasons. Cooking and baking is a great way to get through these pandemic days. We have just received the order to put our masks back on. (more…)