Inside The New York Botanical Garden
Archive: July 2009
Posted in Gardening Tips on July 6 2009, by Sonia Uyterhoeven
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Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. Join her each weekend for home gardening demonstrations on a variety of topics in the Home Gardening Center. |
Have you ever observed the popular kids in school? They look stylish seemingly without having made an effort, are confident and outgoing, and always seem to surround themselves with beautiful people.
Vegetables are no different. Some of them are born with style while others struggle to cast off their utilitarian image. Some just have a universal appeal, others are easy to grow and never disappoint, while a select class can transform any second-rate chef into the next Jacques Pépin.
An Internet survey of the most popular homegrown vegetables in the country resulted in the following Top 10: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, onions, beans, lettuce, carrots, sweet corn, radishes and cabbage. (Reading the list just made me hungry.) How were the choices made?
Not surprisingly, tomatoes were at the top of the list—close to 90 percent of the population includes tomatoes in their vegetable garden. Both tomatoes and peppers are incredibly prolific—if you have space for only one plant you will get a nice harvest.
Tomatoes and peppers are also easy to buy as transplants at your local garden center or farmers market. The choices are always exquisite: Do you want an F1 Hybrid or an heirloom? Would you like a sweet pepper or hot pepper? What color would you like the fruit to be this year… yellow, purple, red, orange, or green?
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Posted in Exhibitions, Programs and Events, The Edible Garden on July 3 2009, by Plant Talk
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Andrew Haight is Manager of the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden. |
Maps have always captured children’s imagination. Growing up I had every intention of becoming the next Indiana Jones. I hunted down buried “treasures” in my parent’s basement and made my own maps. I carefully crinkled the sheets, even tearing the corners to make the paper maps appear from “olden times.” The mystery and excitement seemed trapped on these sheets of paper; I felt they could lead me to new adventures.
This summer as part of The Edible Garden, maps will play a central role as we focus on the adventure in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden through Flower Power!
Visitors can embark on their own journey through a series of activities laid out as a map inside each child’s field notebook. For instance, the map points out where a family can stop and make a pollinator puppet to take home and also guides children to several different activity and play stations, including a spot where they can mold their own flower out of clay.
The map allows children to choose their own route. Along the way they can discover the larger-than-life flower models, detour through Beth’s Maze, or simply take their time to explore each nook and cranny of the Garden. With the reins in each child’s hands in the form of a map, the possibilities are endless.
For more Edible Garden events and weekend activities, click here.
Posted in Exhibitions, The Edible Garden on July 2 2009, by Plant Talk
I’m a self-proclaimed minimalist. I don’t really know how it happened (a result, most likely, of having moved 16 times in the past 10 years), but it has permeated all parts of my life, including my kitchen. Despite that, I’ve always made space for some homegrown produce in my life—or on my windowsill, to be more precise. And having a garden to eat from is the basis of how I learned to cook, a reality that’s not easy for anyone. (It helps that my home region of Southern California is an agricultural utopia where nearly anything will grow anytime of year). And while I’ve never had enough space to sow a full garden, the idea of eating as fresh and as in season as possible has stuck with me.
With green, sustainable, and local as the buzzwords du jour, it can become intimidating figuring out how, if at all, it can work for you. All that moving I’ve done and all the creative ways people have embraced those tenets in my current hometown of San Francisco has led me to this conclusion: Make sure whatever you do works with your lifestyle, and you’ll be more likely to stick with it in the long term. There are plenty of resources out there for the gung ho: you can get a subscription to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), get a plot in a community garden, or just support your local farmer or grocer who you think is doing it right.
And, there’s a huge upside for the food obsessed—you and your family start to learn a lot about ingredients you once may have considered mundane (like that Brussels sprouts grow on stalks, that chickpeas are tasty fresh, that freshly grown cucumbers actually have taste, or even that kids will eat freshly picked tomatoes like candy once they’ve experienced how sweet they actually are).
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Posted in Exhibitions, The Edible Garden on July 1 2009, by Plant Talk
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Nick Leshi is Associate Director of Public Relations and Electronic Media. |
With gorgeous weather and in front of enthusiastic crowds, Martha Stewart and Dan Barber were among the celebrities who kicked off the opening of The Edible Garden summer-long exhibitions this past Saturday at The New York Botanical Garden. You may have seen some of the coverage on NY1 News, WABC-TV, WCBS-TV, or WNBC-TV, or you may have read about it in New York magazine, The New York Times, New York’s Daily News, or online at Daily Kos and dozens of blogs.
Those of you who were here in person witnessed Martha Stewart and her friends answering audience questions about the Culinary Herb Garden they designed and demonstrating how to make delicious cocktails using homegrown herbs. Dan Barber, winner of the James Beard Foundation 2009 Outstanding Chef Award, captivated visitors with his insightful presentation about the farm-to-table movement. Other special guests who appeared on the Conservatory Kitchen stage during the opening weekend, providing delectable cooking demonstrations, were: Johnny Iuzzini, Michael Anthony, Peter Hoffman, Aida Mollenkamp, and Michel Nischan. Recipes by some of The Edible Garden participants can be found on our Web site. Thanks to all of our sponsors for helping make it all possible.
Other attractions included lectures by Amy Goldman on Heirloom Tomatoes and Rosalind Creasy on Gardening with Heirloom Flowers and Vegetables. There were booksignings, home gardening demonstrations, and tours—all part of the Botanical Garden’s continuing efforts to showcase edible plants as economical, nutritious, and good for the environment.
If you missed the opening weekend, you can still experience The Edible Garden throughout the summer until September 13. Multiple exhibitions are on display across the Garden’s 250 acres, including Tropical Fruits, Roots, and Shoots in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory and Vegetables and Kids in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, to name just two. Other highlights of The Edible Garden include an Edible Audio Tour narrated by Mario Batali and others, Edible Evenings for seven Thursday nights beginning July 9, the Farmers Market all day every Wednesday and Saturday, and a closing weekend festival to wrap it all up on September 12 and 13.
For all the details and to purchase tickets, visit our Edible Garden Web pages.
Posted in Uncategorized on July 1 2009, by Plant Talk
Carol Capobianco is Editorial Content Manager at The New York Botanical Garden.
We can hardly believe it, but a year has already passed since our blog content team first assembled and officially launched Plant Talk: Inside The New York Botanical Garden.
Since then we’ve brought you a full schedule of posts from Monday through Friday on a broad range of topics, from gardening tips and science stories to behind-the-scenes glimpses and fun things to see and do. And we’ve had an extensive field of interesting contributors—at last count, over 70 people had written entries, including staff members from a variety of departments, students, and volunteers.
Along the way we’ve picked up a number of fans: people who have selected Plant Talk as one of their favorite blogs or who have added us to their blog rolls or who have written about us on their own Web pages.
We hope you are enjoying the ride as much as we are. Please let us know what you’ve liked and what you’d like to see more of. As always, we look forward to hearing from you as we continue to share with you all the wonderful exhibitions, garden collections, programs, research, classes, and more taking place here at The New York Botanical Garden.
