celebrating connection: margaret renkl’s wildish garden (+ our nov. 7 event) Hello ,
I’ve been finding a sense of community lately in conversations with other writers whose work, like mine, is inspired by the garden and the natural world. Shared connections.
By who knows what forces of fate, I share an uncanny set of connections with another writer, Margaret Renkl, my guest this week. Though we have never met, we have much common ground, starting with our first names (named after paternal grandmothers we never met), followed by five-letter last names starting in “R”—and that we both write weekly “New York
Times” columns. Readers even email me thinking I am her, and comment on our Times stories believing they are addressing the other one. A case of mistaken Margarets! More substantively, though, we share a strong commitment to managing our beloved landscapes with ecology front of mind, in support of insects, birds and other animals, and that’s this week’s topic. Margaret’s 2019 book “Late Migrations” is an all-time favorite of mine. Now
she’s back with a new one, “The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year,” which prompted us to speak again on the podcast—and (very exciting) to plan a webinar together Nov. 7 to celebrate her latest. A portion of that virtual event’s proceeds will go to support the nonprofit Homegrown National Park, founded by Doug Tallamy, who has done so much to educate all of us about the natural world and how we can all help support it, one garden at a time—speaking of the kind
of community we both feel connection to.
Listen in, or read along, and maybe join us Nov. 7, too.
Plus: Enter to win a copy of the other Margaret's upcoming book.
in
case you missed them: other writerly garden voices in 'the new york times:' dare i complain about 2023? The most recent in my "New York Times" series that began in April 2020: I hate to complain, but ... do you mind listening? The 2023 garden season was a struggle (jumping worms, spongy moth caterpillars, late freezes, torrential rainstorms, you name it). Blessedly, nature served up enough small miracles, too, to keep me in the game. One column earlier: The celebrated poet and essayist's relationship to his garden is joyful, and he is grateful for every bit of delight it offers. A week earlier: Cornell Botanic Gardens
has been experimenting with sustainable native lawn for nearly 15 years. The grass they rely on as the foundation? A genus you may never have heard of: Danthonia, or oatgrass. The previous story: It's an old-fashioned practice that can bring contemporary gardeners a lot of late-winter joy. How to force flower bulbs (especially
in a cold frame or cool garage or cellar), with Page Dickey. One week earlier: For Jennifer Jewell, the pandemic seed shortage got her asking questions about seed, deep and sometimes unsettling ones. We talked about the wide-ranging answers she dug up writing her new book “What We Sow: On the Personal, Ecological, and Cultural
Significance of Seeds.” For four garden seasons, I've interviewed gardening experts for my In the Garden column in the Times, and they interviewed me, too, in a Q&A on page A2 of the paper. The link is here, with links to all my past columns as
well. recap: an 8-point plan for october's cleanup chores Even I—she of the monthly chores lists—get overwhelmed at the thought of it: fall cleanup. As the month begins, I wait in a sort of suspended animation—for frost, and for leaf drop, the two accelerators that manufacture literal heaps of to-do’s faster than I can keep up. Top on our chores list this month: an 8-point program
to help us all focus, along with some critical note-taking on the year's garden, as we’re teasing it apart. recap: what does organic mean? When you shop for food—whether produce or meat
or eggs—and see a label that says “organic,” what do you think that means? At its most fundamental level, I guess I always thought it meant vegetables grown on the fields of an organic farm—like in the soil, or animals raised in its pastures. But increasingly, as hydroponics have become more widespread, soil isn’t always part of the organic food-raising equation. My guest was Linley Dixon (above), a Colorado-based organic farmer who is also co-director of the Real Organic Project, an advocacy organization of farmers who grow in the soil and together seek to protect the
integrity of the organic label’s meaning on food. Real Organic Project is holding a daylong conference Oct.14 in Hudson, N.Y., with a great lineup of presenters from the organic community, and we’ll hear about that, too. And along the way also get some tips for maximum tomato yield (think grafting!) and precisely how to apply compost to your beds. |
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