It’s probably imagination, but it seems that most snail or slug attacks occur after a recalcitrant seed has finally germinated or a weak plant is showing signs of vigor. Everyone who’s ever had a garden is well aware of the damage snails and slugs wreak. They can be incredibly destructive, decimating rows of seedlings, disfiguring […]
Three friends of forty years standing get together about twice every decade. This has been my experience. We met in our teens—boarding school and first year of college—and are now squarely in middle age. Boarding school is either a benign or toxic form of neglect, but neglect in any case. This has little to do […]
Recent news has included discoveries of new planets, supernovas and even changes in the rates of the contraction of the original expansion of the Big Bang. A few friends have shared that these various cosmic phenomena make them feel a bit weird, depressed or anxious. In contrast, it makes me feel better, not worse. I […]
Some garden writers seem to have an obsession with lawns. Michael Pollan’s erroneous but extremely influential 1991 op/ed in The New York Times kicked off a two decade landscape architect parlor game. However, the debate over the ecological and environmental value of lawns is much older. Front or back worse? Side lawn okay? Organic lawn […]
Four years ago, I nearly came out of my skin with excitement about “GL 581c“, the second planet from the star (“a”), which is the GL, which stands for Gliese, the name of the astronomer who discovered it. So, the star—or sun—is Gliese. I do not know what the 581 stands for. Matrix number, most […]
Much is made of the aesthetic difference between the season long “show” of flowers and the end-of-season vegetable harvest. Keen gardeners know that a garden can be more nuanced than this; and, on closer inspection, most gardens are successional in both vegetable and flower form, from the beauty of the spring lettuces to the harvest […]
David Mamet wrote, “Money buys you things.” As with communication, it is the context of money that gives it meaning. The same words can light up a listener’s life, or bore another to death. So money can buy food, shelter and clothing; but the same amount can ruin your soul or tear a family apart. […]
Grace Romero is our Research Director. Here she is demonstrating the hybridization process to members of the press on August 19th. We received about 20 media folks per day for two days. This is in the Kitchen Garden at Fordhook Farm looking due south. It was hot, dry and gorgeous. Burpee Kitchen Garden looking north-northwest, […]
Before I put up a post about Media Day for 2011, our upcoming 135th year in business, I’d like to introduce you to the past President of W. Atlee Burpee & Co. before me, and the current President after me. On the left (my right) is William “Bill” MacDowell and to the right is Christos […]
In summer as children, we were allowed to stay out until dusk. In our northern part of the Central Time Zone, even on its eastern edge, dusk came late. I remember most the mosquitoes, fireflies, and bats. Some nights I would watch the bats as darkness fell. First there would be only one, then two, […]
