The blooming lilacs in my garden are a joyful celebration of spring, but also remind me of “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Walt Whitman’s beautiful 1865 elegy to Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated on April 14 of that year. The first stanza says it all: When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, And … Read more
I love oregano—on pizza, in cooked dishes, in salads and in my garden. In the past I have grown pots of common oregano or Origanum vulgare ssp, hirtum to provide myself with ample quantities to dry for winter cooking. This year I will do that once again. The flavor of home grown dried oregano is … Read more
It is spring and everything looks healthy—especially chickweed, onion grass or wild onion and dandelions. As all gardeners know, Nature abhors bare ground and works hard to cover it as soon as possible. Unfortunately the plants that cover the quickest are the aforementioned weeds. Dandelions are nice if you want to make salad from the … Read more
When I think back on my father’s garden, lots of flowers and plants come to mind—the huge rhubarb in the very back, the Johnny jump-ups that jumped up through the grass every spring under the pine trees, and the long row of pink, rose and white peonies that grew by the back walk. The property … Read more
There are some tunes that stick in your head, sometimes for weeks. That happened to me recently with the old sea chantey, “What do we do with a drunken sailor?” The song isn’t as common as it was a generation or two ago, possibly owing to its bawdy lyrics, but is still widely known. The … Read more
