FROM SCRATCH CLUB

I love to garden. Maybe you do too. I love to do lots and lots of things. So many things, in fact, that I am too busy to allocate as much time to my garden as I would like. If only I had an extra 2 hours a day… that would make things so much [...]

I spent three years of my childhood in Germany when my father was stationed there in the army.  I have very distinct memories of the allotment gardens people cultivated at the edge of town in little individual rented plots of land, each with its own immaculate garden hut for sitting and enjoying the summer days [...]

How Does Your Garden Grow? Sizing up our land and making the most of 1 acre. My husband is a cultivator; it’s in his veins. By the time most people begin their Spring cleaning he is out tilling the ground and planning the upcoming year’s garden. When were looking to build a home all he [...]

  There are many ways to garden. Some people buy plants from a nursery, your local farmer or garden center, which is a great option for many. I have done this in the past, primarily with annuals flowers (like pansies and petunias), tomatoes and peppers.* Last year, I decided to try my hand at starting [...]

Even though the ground is covered with snow and ice and the sun barely shines, January is the time to plan your garden.  There are four essential tenets of good organic gardening; have a readily available water source, keep on top of the weeds, feed the soil and rotate your crops.  Crop rotation is probably [...]

{Our main garden in quiet rest} After the big fall harvest my garden, my husband, and I am ready for a break. We begin to put most all things outdoors to rest, batten down the hatches, and embrace winter. Our minds take a respite during the month of November and December from gardening but once [...]

Although it was a good year, 2011 went by in a bit of a blur for me. This year, I am hoping for a more manageable pace that will support a healthier, more peaceful year for my family. I don’t usually set goals each new year, or make resolutions, but I came up with a [...]

I’ve moved a lot in my life and although it can be scary and stressful it also means a fresh start. That’s how I feel at the beginning of each new year. There are always a lot of unknowns but the simple fact of it being fresh and new makes it seem like there’s a [...]

Remember way back in the beginning of gardening season when I showed you my garden and said it’s good to spend a few minutes in it each day? Yeah, well I’m going to be blunt and tell you that I didn’t follow my own advice this year. Last year it was so easy because I [...]

September is the biggest harvest month in the community share-cropping gardens.  That means that we have to do something with the perishable stuff we grew all summer.  While I think zucchini make excellent compost, I want to use each and every eggplant, no matter how small.  I have spent years convincing my husband that we [...]

Our rabbi, Jonathan Rubenstein of Temple Sinai in Saratoga Springs, runs a non-profit bakery out of the temple.  Most Friday mornings he is there, baking challah and babka, plus his kick-ass granola.  When we sold our house and garden in Argyle, New York three years ago and were moaning about where we would go to garden, Jonathan’s [...]

For all of my adult life, I’ve been a big fan of Asian rolls. I didn’t grow up in the most food-savvy town and it’s nice to look back and see how my experiences and my taste buds changed as I traveled and moved farther away from home. At first I only knew about egg [...]

Garlic is an easy crop and should have a place in every home garden.  The individual cloves are planted in October, lie dormant in the ground all winter, and then are among the first plants to sprout in the spring.  You can buy garlic heads from your local farmers market this fall, break them up [...]

We have limited light in our small backyard because of trees to our south and west.  We trellis grapes around six and a half feet above our deck and up onto the wall of our house to maximize our edible gardening space. Grape leaves are among the first produce of the season from our garden, [...]

Right now there isn’t a whole lot of excitement in the garden. Since the weather has been a little finicky, I’ve put off direct-planting some seeds (cucumbers and basil mostly), and some of my tiny seed starts just aren’t big enough to transfer yet. I have a feeling that the recent lack of sun is [...]