Cara Davies remembers the day the city inspector came to take a final look at her garden before signing off on the building permit: “He came around the corner and he was quite surprised—and he said, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s a little bit of paradise.’” The garden shed gets the credit.
No one would have described the .3-acre property in downtown St. Helena as paradise in 1999 when Davies and her husband, Tom, moved into the Napa Valley house. “There wasn’t much here, just a little lawn with a deck, so we completely redid the backyard,” she said. Landscape architect Josh Chandler designed the garden as well as the galvanized shed, which owes its charm both to its unusual proportions and facade of corrugated steel panels salvaged from old chicken coops.
Photography by Mimi Giboin for Gardenista.
Above: Chandler designed the 10-by-10-foot square shed to sit alongside Davies’ edible garden, next to the swimming pool. The shed’s unusual height–it’s 20 feet tall–and peaked roof make it the center of attention. Above: The shed’s siding is vintage galvanized steel panels, salvaged from a former farm with chicken sheds that dated to the 1920s. Growing next to the shed is salvia whose deep purple color is intensified by the gray backdrop. Above: The shed sits on a solid concrete pad etched with lines to evoke the look of pavers. A path of permeable pea gravel leads to the shed. (For more ideas about how to use pea gravel in the garden, see Hardscaping 101: Pea Gravel.)
My fenugreek may be your methi. The aromatic, cuboid seeds of Trigonella foenum-graecum—a clover-like legume whose botanical name translates as Greek hay—are used as a spice in food traditions spanning South and West Asia, the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Sprouted, the seeds are an accessible and easy way of growing your own fenugreek microgreens, and allow you to enjoy its friendly aroma and nuttily bitter, green-tonic flavor, even if you don’t have a garden, or if it is the middle of winter. A lush tray of fenugreek seedlings on a windowsill is a satisfying thing when the world is frozen.
Above: Fenugreek microgreens.
Methi is a pan-South Asian term for the plant, and hilbeh is transliterated from Arabic. The Turkish name is çemen. The plant is probably native to the broad region encompassing Southern Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, and West Asia. Fenugreek smells, to me, like the Westernized commercial Indian curry powders I grew up with, long before learning that “curry” is a catchall for a complex array of dishes in a flock of cultural traditions. The smell of fenugreek is often described as strongly reminiscent of maple syrup—compelling.
Above: Fenugreek growing in-ground.
Fenugreek makes a good cover crop, since the legume fixes nitrogen in the soil, as well as a green vegetable: the well-known Indian aloo methi combines the tender stems and leaves of fenugreek (methi) with potatoes. (Years ago, it was Madhur Jaffrey’s memoir, Climbing the Mango Trees, that gave me a longing for fresh fenugreek greens.)
Above: Fenugreek microgreens with warm potatoes, eggs and turmeric butter.
And it is with potatoes that I like to deploy my own microgreens: with warm baby potatoes, eggs, and vivid turmeric butter. The fresh greens add their powerfully sweet aroma along with their much-appreciated trace of bitterness to a plate that brims with functional food goodness.
Above: Fenugreek seeds for microgreens—I use store-bought spices for sprouting.
To make your own fenugreek microgreens no special equipment is required. No soil, no pot with drainage. I use a ceramic tray, but a shallow soup bowl, or enamelware would work, too.
The seeds are soaked, covered for three days (to create a dark environment), and then uncovered and placed somewhere bright. You only add water when it threatens to dry up, keeping the sprouting seeds very lightly moist. As to where to find fenugreek seeds for growing the microgreens, I have been very lucky with store-bought spices—100 percent germination rate, in fact, which surprised me. They are also available online especially for sprouting.
Above: Fenugreek seeds have sprouted after 48 hours in a shallow tray with water, covered. Above: A school slate is the cover for my microgreens.
Every once in a while, we come across a story on sibling site Remodelista that would be just as at home here on Gardenista. Such is the case with Margot’s recent post on the refined, naturalistic Devon home of Russell Pinch and Oona Bannon.
“The two together run Pinch, a London furniture company that is all about refined details, honest materials, and unstinting craftsmanship. They had already devoted years to turning a cow shed in France into a vacation retreat for themselves and their two daughters. Did they have the stamina and the savings for another pipe dream?” writes Margot of their latest project.
Reader, they did. Working closely with award-winning architect David Kohn and landscape architect James Hamilton, the couple crafted a singular home that feels authentically rooted in nature—which is why we’re spotlighting it on Gardenista, too.
Have a look. And be sure to head to Remodelista for the full story (and more photos).
Photography by Michael Sinclair, courtesy of Pinch.
Above: Russell and Oona founded Pinch in 2004 “to create furniture and lighting we would want to live with”—they recently celebrated Pinch’s 20th anniversary by opening a showroom in NYC. The furnishings throughout are Pinch designs mixed in with antiques. Above: The couple’s kitchen garden flanks a flagstone entry path. Russell tells us that they initially wanted to be able to park in front—”but in reality, it was awful to walk by the car to get to the front door, so we immediately ripped that out and put in vegetables.” The concrete-framed stainless steel door alludes to the property’s factory past. Above: The central new building is clad in locally quarried pink sandstone edged with reclaimed brick. “The back of the house overlooks a newly introduced one-acre wild flower meadow. Russell and Oona worked with landscape designer James Hamilton who planted, among other things, some 500 trees on the rolling property. The combined structures are 2,400 square feet and were recently named UK House & Garden’s Project of the Year.
Like many excellent chefs, Samin Nosrat is also a keen gardener. When she’s not recipe testing or cooking for friends or, as is often the case these days, traveling to promote her new cookbook Good Things, she can be found puttering around the courtyard garden that she shares with three other households in Oakland, CA. (I wrote about their unique communal living situation in the 2022 book Remodelista: The Low-Impact Home.) Every neighbor pitches in when it comes to gardening chores, “but I tend to drive the bus,” she admits.
“I’ve been gardening avidly for about 15 years now. My interest in it grew out of both my cooking career and my love of flowers and friendships with Sarah Ryhanen [of Saipua] and [floral designer] Nicolette Owen. And over the years, as I’ve spent more time in the garden, it’s occurred to me that many of my maternal ancestors were also extraordinary gardeners,” she shares.
“For many years I was hesitant to start gardening because I was a renter and felt like, ‘What’s the point? I’ll have to leave everything behind when I move!’ Then, a master gardener taught me that gardening’s real takeaway is the experience, and that even the best gardeners have tons and tons of failures. This has been a great gift to me, as a recovering production-oriented perfectionist. I love that gardening gives me a daily opportunity to slow down and pay attention, to get my hands dirty, and to learn how to look at my surroundings.”
Below, Samin takes us on a tour of her courtyard garden, a place for gathering together and growing things. (Curious about her home kitchen? Head over to Remodelista for a peek.)
Above: The courtyard is where the neighbors come together for shared meals. Above: “I don’t have much room in the front of my house and there is a lot of shade, too, so I took a maximalist approach and tried to pack in as much of a cottage garden here as I could,” she says.”Lots of moody oxalis, hellebores, and heuchera, as well as different types of ferns, including a beautiful bronze fern…. I’ve got chocolate akebia climbing the front, and added a clematis this year. There are a couple different abutilons, a few silver-leafed Japanese camellias, and some oak leaf hydrangea. I also always have Minoan lace and Dara Daucus planted, and then I add annuals throughout the year.”
The next plant I plan to buy for myself (and not for a garden client) will definitely be a fig tree. I usually harvest figs from my clients’ trees, and any fruit that goes uneaten I turn into yummy fig jam, but transporting delicate, thin-skinned figs home is a tenuous and messy activity. The solution is simple: it’s time to grow my own.
Native to the Middle East and parts of Asia, figs are one of the oldest known fruits (they were one of the first trees to be cultivated in Egypt) and came to North America by Spanish missionaries in the early sixteenth century. The fruit, to some, represents the womb, and more generally, fertility. (Interestingly, fig flowers hide inside the fruit.) And the expression, “fig leaf,” is used figuratively to describe an object used to cover up something embarrassing—obviously a Biblical reference to Adam and Eve using fig leaves to cover their nakedness.
More than 700 named cultivars of the common fig exist, and they flourish in areas with a Mediterranean climate, meaning mild winters and hot, dry summers. If you live in USDA Zones 8 to 10, you can grow an attractive fig tree in your garden without needing protection from freezing winter temperatures. If you live outside of those zones, pick hardier cultivars or grow your fig in a large container, top dress with compost, and bring into an unheated garage for the winter.
Above: A sampling of figs grown in the orchard of the University of California at Davis. Photograph by Marla Aufmuth for Gardenista, from Stalking the Wild Fig.
Relatively fast, fig trees can soar from about 10 to 30 feet tall if planted in the ground. Grown in containers, the tree’s height and width will be much smaller. With many varieties available, and with such a broad range of fruit color, shape, and taste, choosing the best option can be intimidating. I always recommend starting with a variety well-suited to your climate, then go for taste and color second. Also, a reassuring fact is that common fig trees grown in home gardens don’t require another fig for pollination, and because they don’t need an opening for pollinating wasps to enter, they are less vulnerable to rot caused by rainwater or other insects. The best option is to visit your local nursery and see what varieties they carry or what they recommend.
Above: Potted fig trees won’t grow as tall or wide as those planted in the ground. A 3-gallon pot of Ficus carica ‘Little Miss Figgy’ Tree is $71.95 at Fast Growing Trees.
In the right conditions, and on some varieties like San Pedro, your fig tree could produce two times a year. The first crop, called a “breba” crop (from the Spanish word Breva, meaning ‘early fig’), is the fig produced on last year’s wood and ripens in late May or early June, and a second will be ready to harvest in late September to early November.
While it’s the fruit that is commonly eaten, and well-known to be rich in calcium, B-vitamins, and important minerals, the young mildly fragrant fig leaves are also edible, and they add a nice vanilla flavor to food. The first record of fig leaves being used to wrap food is in third century BC.
Brown Turkey: Large, sweet figs with few seeds emerge over a long season.
Purple Genoa (also called Black Spanish or Black Genoa): Large, deep purple figs with sweet red flesh. Great for turning into jam.
Alma: A late season fig, this tree produces rich tasting figs.
Celeste: This moderately sized tree to 15 feet tree produces smaller fruit and earlier than most. This tree is popular in the southeastern United States because it can tolerate heat and cold better.
Mission: Sweet purplish black fruit ripens in summer. This fig was used in historic California Missions and can live a long time.
At first sight, there’s nothing extraordinary about Alice Fox’s allotment in West Yorkshire, England. In fact, her garden community neighbors are “mostly oblivious” to the magic she weaves there. The addition of a flax crop may have been a novelty when she first rented the plot, but the size and layout of the land, sheds, and greenhouse seem pretty standard—until you look closer.
Peek through the window of the main shed and your eyes will be drawn to a wonderful organized jumble of plant pots, trays, tools, jars of homemade botanical inks, sketches, scribbles, samples, fragments of ceramics, wire, plastic, and other unearthed objects, as well as an ever-changing assortment of plant fibers in various stages of drying and hand-processing. This is where Fox’s uniquely beautiful and thought-provoking textile art begins to take form.
Alice took on Plot 105 in Autumn 2017 when she started her practice-based master’s program to explore ways to achieve greater self-sufficiency in her art. Although she’d had a share in an allotment previously, with a young family, she never really had the time to give to it: “The only way I could justify it was to make it part of my work,” she says.
In 2020, Alice self-published the story of her relationship with her allotment Plot 105 and how her engagement with the site has unfolded since taking it on. Today, her book sits in a shed, alongside the encyclopedia of gardening left by the previous tenant. Looking back, she acknowledges that her year of research “marked a fundamental shift in how I source my materials. It allowed me to grow as a gardener, giving a particular focus. It provides a space to be amongst nature, get my hands in the soil, and think while working there.”
We met Alice in West Yorkshire this summer to learn more about her allotment, her garden, and home studio, and the evolution of her sustainable creative practice that’s deeply embedded in land and place. Let’s dig deeper:
Photography courtesy of Alice Fox. Featured image (above) by Carolyn Mendelsohn.
Above: In keeping with Alice’s local approach and quest for self-sufficiency, Plot 105 is a working garden providing fresh home-grown, seasonal produce. Few changes have been made to the overall structure of the plot, except for planting a couple of trees and some fruit bushes. Most of the growing beds are used for vegetables, and there are about 12 fruit trees, taking up approximately one quarter of the space. Photograph by Carolyn Mendelsohn. Above: Alice introduced a flax crop in 2017 and, since then, has learned a lot about this wonderful plant through growing and processing. Recently, she applied her knowledge to projects in new places, such as Kestle Barton in Cornwall. This experience culminated in her flax-focused exhibit Flaxen, shown at Northern Ireland Linen Biennale. Photograph by Carolyn Mendelsohn.
Strike one: a house in need of a major renovation. Strike two: a garden in need of love. Strike three: a remodel that left the surrounding landscape decimated. Such were the conditions that Emilia and Anna DeMauro, the sisters behind DeMauro + DeMauro Landscape Design & Gardens, encoutered when they first met with their client in North Haven, a hamlet north of Sag Harbor, New York. “When we came on the property, it was essentially a construction site,” remembers Emilia. “It really was just exposed earth—just dirt. And further back it was so overgrown in some areas it was difficult to even walk.”
With a main house, a barn, a pool and a pool house, the two-acre property was not quite a blank canvas. There were also mature oaks dotted across the property, which abuts both woodland and wetland. In addition to repopulating the landscape with native plants, the client, an avid cook and gardener, hoped to add vegetable and cut flower beds (she also wanted to keep the peach trees planted by the previous owner). Last, the client wanted to highlight several sculptures by her late husband.
To tackle the large project, the DeMauro sisters created distinct gardens within the property, including two pollinator gravel gardens close to the house, a wildflower meadow near the wetland, grassy meadows on either side of the driveway, three cut flower beds, and fourteen vegetable beds—plus, on-site composting and even a chicken run.
Take a tour of the revived and diverse bayside landscape:
Photography by Doug Young, courtesy of DeMauro + DeMauro.
Before
Above: Before the landscape redesign, the land surrounding the house was nothing but compacted, post-construction dirt. Anna saw the sunny spots between the two house wings as the perfect opportunity to create a dry gravel garden inspired by Beth Chatto’s celebrated garden in Essex.
After
Above: Two years after DeMauro + DeMauro’s installation, the pollinator gravel gardens are coming into their own.
This week, we’re revisiting some of our all-time favorite stories about gardening in New York City. Cultivating plants in the Big Apple comes with challenges—yards tend to be small and shady, and privacy is rare—but if you have the patience, these urban gardens can produce some big-time magic. Behold…
High levels of arsenic and lead in the soil, a decrepit factory building, a courtyard roofed over with half-rotted plywood and tarpaper and paved in concrete—we’ve all heard this Brooklyn story at least once. But surprise, there’s a happy ending for one garden on an industrial block in East Williamsburg.
When FABR Studio + Workshop partners Thom Dalmas, Bretaigne Walliser, and Eli Fernald discovered the skeleton of a 700-square-foot courtyard while remodeling a building for clients, they were able to see beyond the grit. They decided to site their company headquarters in a first-floor studio space (see the interiors on Remodelista) and—in a genius move—to install steel factory doors to connect their office to a courtyard garden. (N.B.: FABR has since disbanded, with Dalmas and Walliser starting TBo Architecture.)
The problem? The plan required them to create a courtyard garden from scratch, which required a leap of faith. “We dug up the whole concrete floor—broken slabs and dirt—and removed layers of plywood and tarpaper, and rebuilt a garden wall,” said Bret. “At that point we tested the soil—and it was shockingly high with lead and heavy metal. It was essentially a brown field site.”
The solution? They remediated the dirt below the concrete with ground-up fish bones and fish meal (to render the heavy metals inert) and carted topsoil one wheelbarrow at a time to create a healthy foundation for plants. “It took a week and smelled like low tide for days, but the plants are absolutely thriving,” said Bret.
The result? Magic. Read on and see if you agree:
Photography by Matthew Williams.
Above: “We’ve been building up and layering the palette out there,” said Bret. Potted plants clustered at the edge of a koi pond include tropical caladiums, a decorative orange tree, and a lime tree.
In a neighborhood where rusting construction cranes and corrugated sheet metal are far more common sights than butterflies and bees, Fabr Studio created an oasis both for themselves and for the next generation of insects and humans (Bret and Tom are partners in life as well as in work, and have two young children who have named all the fish).
This week, we’re revisiting some of our all-time favorite stories about gardening in New York City. Cultivating plants in the Big Apple comes with challenges—yards tend to be small and shady, and privacy is rare—but if you have the patience, these urban gardens can produce some big-time magic. Behold…
October…strawberries? That would have surprised me, too, before I grew them myself on a tiny terrace in New York City.
Several years ago I bought two strawberry plants at GRDN, a pretty garden shop in Brooklyn. The cultivar name was Fern, and, said the label, these were “everbearing” strawberries. That sounded good. Standard strawberries will bear fruit in early summer only. But as a gardener with space issues, I ask a lot from a single plant. More is more.
I had never grown strawberries before and it sounded hard. Talk of mounding, and rows, and straw, and runners, and renovating…? All I had was some small pots, a lot of sun, a small terrace, and the desire to grow my own. Turns out that’s all you need to enjoy fresh berries till hard frost.
I put the plants in full sun on my terrace edge, and a month later I was eating the first ripe fruit. Soon, the plants made new flowers, and about four weeks later, more strawberries. And so it went, till the pots froze and snow fell. And they returned in the spring, with no extra protection. They weren’t kidding about the everbearing.
Soon I was picking handfuls. And in high summer the plants sent out runners—long, tender feelers with a tuft of leaves at the tip, searching for new land to occupy. Wherever they touched down they set down roots. I dug them up and potted these offspring in even smaller 6-inch pots.
Within a year I had a small strawberry farm, blooming into November. Eventually the reproduction by runners got so out of hand that I was sending the extras to friends, by mail. The parent plants do get tired after a few years, but by then their offspring have risen to the challenge. Life lesson?
Read on for step-by-step instructions to make a strawberry shrub cocktail called the Ingrid Bergman:
Above: Is there a more appealing summer arrangement? Above: My 66-square-foot terrace. Above: Because of space constraints, I housed the strawberries in terra-cotta pots no more than 8 inches in diameter. Above: Sweet harvest. Above: The Fern strawberry plants bloomed into November. Above: When we moved from a sunny top floor in Brooklyn to a shadier parlor-level Harlem with just four hours of direct sun, Fern languished. I sent the sulking survivors to sunnier gardens. But the surprise performer was the other strawberry I had been growing all this time, an Alpine cultivar called Ruegen.
Are you growing purslane yet (I mean, deliberately)? Its claims to fame are split, 50-50: invasive weed versus superfood. As the latter, it is delicious, and it hollers of summer. Browsing my photograph archives recently, I found bunches of purslane being sold at the Union Square greenmarket in Manhattan for $2 in 2018; in 2011, they were being sold for $2 per pound. Last week I bought loose, perfect purslane stems from my local Brooklyn farmers’ market. They were $20 for a quarter pound. I laughed out loud. But I bought some, because I don’t grow it. Luckily, you don’t need much purslane to benefit from this summer annual’s juicy, omega-3-rich fatty leaves, and their succulent crunch. And if you have weeded the uninvited plant from your garden beds and are now snickering at a person foolish enough pay for purslane, just simmer down and be thankful that you have at hand a plant whose nutritional numbers may silence dissent.
Above: Purslane for sale at a farmers’ market.
To some people, purslane is essential. It was lauded by the Romans. And, in Sylvia Townsend Warner’s The Corner that Held Them, a novel I’m reading, set in a 14th century English convent during the Black Death, a nun laments: “It is bad enough to be without a priest. Surely we need not be without purslane.”
Aside from its tremendously high levels of fatty acids, including omega-3‘s, purslane (Portulaca oleracea) also contains Vitamins A, C, and E, calcium, potassium, magnesium, and melatonin. It has been studied for its antidepressant effects, as well as for its neuroprotective qualities, with positive results.
Now, is it worth $20 for a quarter pound? The minute you put a price on something, the sticker shock can make people sit up and take it seriously for the first time.
Above: Circa 2011, purslane sold for just $2/lb at Union Square.
At the same market where it was selling for $20/quarter pound, a man asked me with friendly interest, How do you eat purslane? I started rattling off the ways: raw, in salads; raw, with flaky salt; raw in tomato sandwiches; pickled; cooked slowly with lamb; cooked in vegetable curry. He looked a little surprised. He didn’t buy any. Maybe I was overzealous. Or maybe he had a gardenful at home. I hope so.
You don’t need a huge yard, a greenhouse, or a picture-perfect setup to start growing food—and you certainly don’t need to grow everything all at once. Sustainable gardening is less about having it all up front, and more about growing over time and adding things little by little. In fact, it’s often better that way: Starting small keeps things manageable, minimizes waste, and helps you build a relationship with your space and the land. Grow what you can, where you are, with what you have, and let that be enough.
Gardening or design trend that needs to go:
Gardens designed solely for human pleasure. If our gardens are not feeding an organism or contributing to something greater than aesthetics, then there’s room to grow. Beauty is important, of course, but it can coexist with purpose, ecology, and stewardship.
Old wives’ tale gardening trick that actually works:
A trick my grandfather taught me that works is to hold off on watering your watermelon vines once the fruit begins to mature. It forces the plant to focus its energy inward and draws sugars into the fruit. It’s one of those practices that sounds like folklore but actually has some science behind it.
Favorite way to bring the outdoors in:
I like to create little green pockets throughout my home whether it’s a philodendron trailing from a shelf, a vibrant peace lily in a sunlit corner, or a handful of cut culinary herbs in a jar by the sink. The herbs not only release a wonderful aroma, but they also remind me of what’s thriving just outside in the garden.
Every garden needs a…
Above: Ashlie amends her clay soil with “compost, leaf and wood mulch, and other organic matter to loosen up this soil and boost microbial life,” she wrote in a recent Instagram post.
A compost system. Whether it’s a three-bin setup, a simple pile, or a tucked-away tumbler. Composting is a reminder that nothing in nature is ever truly wasted. All the scraps, clippings, and garden remnants eventually become nourishment.
Favorite hardscaping material:
My favorite material is wood chips from local oak, pine, and cedar trees. I usually get them from a nearby arborist, and I love this material because this helps retain moisture and adds a rich yet grounding texture to the garden paths. Plus, over time, as they break down, they nourish the soil (and microbial life) while also improving soil structure.
Tool you can’t live without:
My hori hori knife, which digs, cuts, weeds, and measures. It’s truly an all in one tool. If it’s not in my hand, it’s definitely somewhere close by.
Go-to gardening outfit:
Soft, breathable overalls or sometimes a loose, flowey dress paired with rubber boots and a wide-brimmed hat. I like to feel cute yet comfortable and ready to dig, haul, or harvest when needed.
On your wishlist:
A large greenhouse or high tunnel for our new garden would be an absolute game-changer. It would allow me to extend our growing season, protect our crops from harsh weather, and create a space for seed starting, propagation, and greater food production. But more than that, it would serve as a learning space where community members, children, or guests could step inside and learn how food is cultivated.
Not-to-be-missed public garden/park/botanical garden:
The North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill. It’s a lovely space that honors native plants and ecological stewardship in a way that is accessible and engaging.
The REAL reason you garden:
Above: Ashlie’s harvest from her June garden.
For reconnection and reclamation. To return to the land, to my roots, and to a way of living that nourishes more than just my body. I don’t just want wellness for myself; I want it for my family, my community, and the generations to come. I believe gardening is one of the most powerful ways to bring that vision to life.
Thanks so much, Ashlie! (You can follow her on Instagram @the.mocha.gardener)
I have a Meyer lemon tree and a lime tree on my property. Where I live, in Marin County, CA, it feels like everyone has a citrus tree of some sort—or at least knows someone with an over-productive citrus you can mooch off of. All of which is to say, I didn’t think I needed another citrus tree in my life. But that was before I met the kumquat tree.
The other day at my gardening client’s house, I passed by her kumquat tree, did a double-take on the dangling tiny oranges, and found myself scheming to bring one home for my own garden. I’d always thought I wouldn’t like the fruit. I guess I thought it would be too tart, too seedy, too something of what I had no interest in. But as soon as I popped one, then two into my mouth, I changed my mind. The next day I set out to the nursery to buy my own kumquat tree.
Please keep reading to learn if this is your next citrus tree, too:
Above: A potted kumquat tree can be top-dressed with mulch or gravel. Just remember that potted citrus, like most plants grown in a container, will require more frequent drinks of water than they would if planted directly in the ground. Photograph from Urban Oasis Landscape Design’s Vibrant Mediterranean Front Yard.
Kumquat trees are evergreens that produce small, oval or round fruits that are about one to two inches wide. Depending on the variety, the citrus will generally bloom in late spring and into summer, followed by fruit that ripens mid-winter, with fruit holding on well into spring. Native to southern Japan and China, kumquats were introduced to Europe by Robert Fortune, a collector from the London Horticultural Society. Soon, this tasty citrus traveled to North America and in 1915, their classification changed from Citrus japonica to Fortunella.
What is especially lovely about the tree is that most of them bear a heavy crop even at a young age. And the vibrantly orange fruit has a sweet peel that is delicious in its own right. Inside, you will find slightly tart flesh and a few seeds. I eat the peel and the pulpy insides separately, but many people pop the whole thing in their mouth for a burst of beauty that is simultaneously sweet and tart.
Cheat Sheet
Above: A favorite: ‘Nagami’ is a medium-sized evergreen tree/shrub growing to about 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide, with a low canopy that produces fruit in mid-spring to late summer. Photograph via Fast Growing Trees.
Where cold temperatures persist, consider growing your kumquat indoors in a container. Just make sure to situate your container close to a warm east- or west-facing window.
Even if you’re in a warm climate, you may want to consider growing it in a container; the sweet citrus fragrance coming from the white blossoms should be appreciated up close.
Bees love, love, love the blossoms.
Also great for adding to a vegetable garden among other edibles.
High in vitamin C, this citrus can be eaten fresh or cooked for a jam or jelly. You might even try baking them in a chicken dish.
While not severely toxic, the fruit’s sugars and acidity could cause digestive upset to pets if an excess is eaten.
Keep It Alive
Above: The trees tend to bear abundant fruit. Photograph by Lesley B. via Flickr.
Plant your kumquat in the spring to avoid any risk of damaging frost.
Water regularly during the hottest months and feed often in the spring and summer. An organic fertilizer formulated for citrus is perfect.
Select a sunny location with at least six to eight hours of direct sunlight a day for best fruit production.
Prefers loamy soil that is slightly acidic (pH 5.5-6.5) and well-draining. If planting it in the ground, avoid heavy clay soil.
If growing in a container, use the largest one you have, ensuring it has drainage holes to prevent root rot. Also, consider filling your container with soil formulated for palm/citrus trees.
Prune to control the growth and shape. The plant should be bushy and have sturdy branches to support the fruit.
Be on the alert when you have a grafted kumquat. Unwanted shoots can develop below the graft union on the root stock. Remove these immediately or they will take over the plant and your cute kumquat will barely grow.
Culinary herbs add freshness and flavor to our meals. Growing them at home means that a quick trip to the garden or to the pot at the front door can yield a handful of aromatic goodness. It is often assumed that herbs require full sun to thrive, but many herbs prefer to grow in shade, or at least in partial shade. These shade-loving herbs include plants native to regions as diverse as the Mediterranean, North America, and Southeast Asia. Some of them are deeply familiar, and others may be more surprising.
Here are 13 herbs for shade that are staples in my kitchen. (If you have a favorite shade herb that you don’t see here, let us know in the comments.)
It took me years to learn that basil appreciates shade where summers are very hot. It begins to make sense when you realize that Ocimum species are native to tropical Asia and Africa, which conjures leafy forests. While basil will grow in full sun (with adequate watering), in hot summer climates it thrives in either full shade, afternoon shade, or dappled shade. The most shade-loving basils in my experience are purple, Thai, and Greek, in that order. Lemon basil also likes shade, while sweet (so-called Italian) basil will take more sun. Purple basil relishes shade, where it is as ornamental as it is delicious. During this very hot July my Thai basil planted in full sun is tall and full of flowers, but wilts twice a day, while the pot in full shade has remained more compact, is bushy with fragrant leaves, and has not bloomed yet; plus, it does not require double watering.
Mint
Above: This mint is Mentha spicata.
The mint we buy in grocery stores is Mentha spicata, a semi-aquatic perennial native to Eurasia and Southwest Asia. With a tendency to proliferate when planted in-ground, contained in a (large) pot it loses its invasive potential. This mint thrives in shade, where it will also guzzle less water than if it is planted in sun. Harvest it by pinching or cutting it back to another set of leaves, and water it deeply, rather than sprinkling the surface of the soil.
Coriander, or Cilantro
Above: Bolting ain’t bad—cilantro’s flowers turn to delicious coriander seeds.
The herb cilantro (Coriandrum sativum, native to Southern Europe and the Mediterranean) is also known as coriander in English, while in the United States, the seeds are always called coriander. Grown in shade, cilantro is slow to bolt and you will be harvesting its succulent leaves for longer than from a plant in full sun. When it does bloom, the pollinated flowers form citrus-forward seeds, which are an ephemeral delicacy while still green.
Parsley
Above: Parsley dislikes humid heat and will appreciate shade.
Parsley, another soft herb, will flourish in half a day of shade or in high, bright shade. Whether it’s curly or flat-leaf, Petroselinum crispum, native to Europe and parts of the the Mediterranean, will be slower to bolt when shaded.
Truthfully, I drink no less than five cups of tea a day. I rotate between different blends, depending on the season and my health needs. So when I learned that my favorite organic tea company, Traditional Medicinals, was just a short 20-minute drive from my house, I knew I needed to visit their demonstration garden to learn how to grow herbs for making my own teas. I have no intention to stop buying tea; I simply want to be more experimental and self-sufficient—and have a little farm-to-cup experience of my own.
I asked Abbey Ramirez, head gardener at Traditional Medicinals (which, by the way, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year), about the best herbs to grow in the home garden. Her response:”I picked eight herbs with feasibility, seasonality, safety, and frequency of use in mind. These herbs are all beginner-friendly to grow, generally safe to use, can be cultivated in containers or in the ground, and are relatively easy to dry and store for later use.” Sounds perfect to me. Please keep reading to learn more.
NOTE: Although these herbs are generally known to be safe, always doublecheck the safety of consuming any plants if you’re pregnant, breastfeeding, or have any medical conditions.
“Calendula is tougher than it looks!” says Abbey. “It grows in a variety of soils but will fare best in soil with good drainage and does better with a weekly deep watering rather than frequent light water.” It prefers full sun but tolerates part sun, requiring at least five hours a day. And even though this plant grows in zones 3-11, it is considered an annual in zones 3-8 and behaves as a semi-evergreen perennial in zones 9-11. If you’re lucky, your calendula could bloom year-round. Bonus: Bees adore it.
Good for: digestive issues such as heartburn and peptic ulcers Plant part used: flowers Tea: fresh or dry How: 1-2 tbsp or 2-4 flowers in 1 cup of hot water for 10-15 minutes Food: fresh (petals only) or dry How: Use in salads, soups, cooked greens, baked goods, or as a garnish (best uncooked for nutritional value).
“Marshmallow has a soothing and lofty presence in the garden,” says Abbey. It needs moisture-retaining soil but also good drainage to avoid root rot. “If planted in full sun, this plant needs more water, but if it is in partial shade, one could get away with less water (this depends on your soil’s drainage and water retention).” Marshmallow grows as a deciduous woody perennial in zones 3-9, and Abbey recommends pruning back two-thirds every winter after it reaches maturity.
Good for: throat, respiratory, and digestive troubles Plant part used: roots, leaves, and flowers Tea: fresh or dry (roots only) How: 1-2 tbsp ground or chopped in 1 cup of hot water for 10-15 minutes (or same ratio in room temperature water overnight) Food: fresh or dry How: Use flowers in salads, baked goods, or garnish; use leaves in soups or sautéed with other greens.
Above: Photograph by Kier Holmes, taken at Traditional Medicinals.
Says Abbey: “Chamomile is a joyful and bee-friendly addition to a medicinal garden.” Though it craves full sun, this plant needs well-draining soil with decent water retention and consistent light drinks of water. Chamomile grows in zones 4-11 and can continuously bloom from April to August. Abbey adds, “This plant is strictly an annual, but I have found it is a prolific re-seeder and will likely propagate itself year to year if left alone to drop its seeds and complete its full lifecycle.”
Good for: sleep, relaxation, and digestion Plant part used: flowers Tea: fresh (stronger, more bitter) or dry (traditional, lighter, and more floral) How: 1-2 tbsp or 6-12 flowers in 1 cup of hot water for 10-15 minutes Food: Fresh or dry How: Use fresh as garnish only, as the flowers are quite bitter; ground dry flowers into powder for baked goods.
Flipping through The Food Forward Garden, the first thing you notice isn’t the fruits and vegetables—and that’s intentional. Landscape designer Christian Douglas has been creating backyard kitchen gardens in Northern California for more than 12 years; in that time he has learned that clients are much more likely to tend and harvest from the garden, if it’s also a beautiful and inspiring place to spend time. So it is no surprise that each garden in his new book is as pretty as it is productive.
From a small city backyard bordered with raised beds to chef Tyler Florence’s elaborate, terraced kitchen garden, Douglas shows us the wide range of what he calls “food forward” gardens—gardens in which the food is brought forward rather than being hidden away in a back vegetable patch. Douglas believes that vegetables, fruits, herbs, and berries should share the prime real estate in our yards with patios, pools, and even the front walk. “By learning how to integrate food into our outdoor spaces, we can make better use of our time and resources,” says Douglas. These gardens aren’t designed to feed a whole family, he adds: “We are looking for people to engage more and grow something.”
The breathtaking landscapes in this book are also an invitation to readers. Douglas believes that people might be more swayed by images of beautiful, aspirational yards than a workaday, how-to guide. This is not to say that The Food Forward Garden is not packed with practical advice—it is, especially the second half of the book, which covers growing tips and specific plants—but in this book visual inspiration is always hand-in-hand with the science of growing food.
Here are 7 ideas to steal from this new book that blurs the line between backyard farming and high-end landscape design:
Above: Douglas learned through experience that his clients were much more likely to harvest the food in their gardens if they could see it from their windows.
The kitchen garden should be close to the kitchen. If it’s far away, it’s much less likely to be used. But perhaps even more important, Douglas says it should be right in sight of where you cook. “When it’s in view from the house, you can see when your strawberries are ready to harvest, you’ll know exactly when your broccoli heads are ready and not three days later when they start to go to flower,” he says. “People tend to eat more from the garden and learn faster when they’re seeing the garden several times a day.”
Many home gardeners associate tomatoes only with summer. And after Labor Day, many move on to fall things, like apple picking and leaf peeping. But the weather is still warm and there are many green tomatoes on the vines. What’s the gardener to do when they have mentally moved on? It seems like such a waste to compost them with the plants. Leaving them on the vine to ripen, though, pushes cleanup into late October, which adds to an already long list of fall chores. Can tomatoes be harvested while still green and then ripened on the counter? Yes, they can! Here are a few pointers to make sure you have the best chance of success.
Photography by Joy Yagid.
How to Pick the Perfect Green Tomatoes
Above: A great candidate for indoor ripening.
Before the first frost (or sooner), choose fruit that is undamaged or has damage that has healed over. They should be firm and have no soft spots. Compost any that have open cracks, soft spots, or pest damage, which will lead to mold growth.
Choose lighter green fruit and not dark green fruit. The light green can signal that the tomatoes are closer to ripening. However knowing what varieties you planted is key. Tomatoes that are green when ripe, or have green shoulders when ripe, can make this difficult to tell. You have nothing to lose by trying.
Pick shiny fruit over dull fruit. Shiny tomatoes are closer to being ripe than dull ones. The dull ones tend to shrivel up off the vine. Compost those.
How to Ripen Green Tomatoes on the Counter
Above: About a week into the ripening process. Two are nearly there.
Inspect and place the tomatoes in a brown paper bag. You want to make sure it wasn’t damaged on the way from the garden to the kitchen.
Do not wash them. Some guides suggest this, but I feel it’s safer to gently brush them off with a soft cloth if they’re dirty because if they aren’t completely dry, mold can grow.
Place them in a paper bag and give them room. Don’t double them up. Do not use plastic bags since they will trap moisture and can cause rot.
Add a ripe banana or apple to the bag and close it. Bananas and apples give off ethylene gas. This helps the green tomatoes ripen more quickly. Those brown spotted bananas destined for banana bread are perfect for this—put them in the tomato bag to help speed things along.
Place the bag in a warm but not hot spot. And check the tomatoes every day. The ideal temperature for ripening tomatoes is around 75°F. Do not place the bag, or the tomatoes themselves, in the sun. Sun-ripened tomatoes refer only to those on the vine. Depending on your room temperature and how ripe your tomatoes were when you started, you should be able to start enjoying ripe tomatoes between a couple of days to two weeks.
On a quiet side street dotted with older homes and industrial buildings in downtown Petaluma, California, is a secret garden: the unexpected Balinese-inspired “backyard” (you’ll understand why this is in quotes as you read on) of commercial photographers Stephanie Rausser and Lawrence Cowell. The space is thoughtfully named “Alchemy,” for the way it seamlessly combines gardening, cooking, and design. “Each element enhances the others to create something greater than the sum of its parts,” explains Lawrence.
Join me as we take a tour of this magical space:
Photography by Stephanie Rausser and Lawrence Cowell.
Above: Lawrence, Stephanie, and their rescue dogs, Stan Lee (smuggled in from Bali) and Chicqui, in front of Alchemy. Their actual home is just a block away.
Alchemy’s slender 34-by-100-foot lot was weed-infested and bordered by droopy fences when Stephanie and Lawrence purchased it in 2005. Originally, the couple intended to build an office there for their photography business, but life and work and kids have a way of slowing—and altering—plans. Not to mention, the space lacked basic essentials like electricity, sewage connection, and water hookup. So, instead of building their office, the couple bought a two-story townhouse a block away that is now both their home and office. “It was a big decision as the townhouse has no outdoor space, but we convinced ourselves it could work if we could make Alchemy work as our ‘backyard’,” remembers Stephanie.
Above: Stephanie and Lawrence remodeled a 1966 Airstream so that friends and family can stay here during visits. It also serves as the property’s restroom, as there is no other bathroom on the property.
Over the past three years, the once neglected space has evolved into more than just a yard. Today it exudes a thoughtful combination of beauty, productivity, and sustainability.
Above: Lawrence feeding the chickens in the homemade coop, complete with a festive disco ball.
Alchemy has become a place to harvest fruits and veggies, collect eggs—and do some serious barbecuing with friends and family. “Our neighbors often see us carrying eggs, flowers, and vegetables from Alchemy to our home down the street,” says Stephanie.
Above: The meandering pathway, according to Lawrence, is a metaphor for life: Things get rocky, life is a bit unpredictable, and you don’t always know what’s around the bend. At the end of it is the gladak he and Stephanie had custom-made in Bali. The pieces were numbered so that the couple would be able to easily assemble it according to the artisan’s instructions. A large patch of comfrey grows on the left and towering sunflowers skirted with California native white yarrow borders the right.
The Javanese design accents were inspired by the couple’s three-year sabbatical in Bali. They, along with their two children, moved to the island in 2017 and promptly fell in love with the region’s unique design elements that are now peppered throughout Alchemy. “We had furniture built in Bali and in October 2o2o, our 20-foot container from Bali arrived. Several of the pieces in the container were especially made for Alchemy, the most important being the gladak [a traditional Javanese wood house] and pergola,” shares Stephanie. The gladak stores all of their utensils, cups, plates, and tools so that they don’t have to haul items all the way over from their home kitchen when they want to dine outdoors. “We have an actual kitchen at Alchemy, with a sink with running water and a propane stove, and the lights run on solar power.”
There are many reasons to visit Cape Town at South Africa’s southern tip in spring. It’s a so-called shoulder season, so there is no crush of summer visitors. Flights are less expensive. And flowers: One of the most awe-inspiring floral displays in the world unfolds along and adjacent to the South African region of the West Coast in the Western Cape and Northern Cape provinces, from late winter through September. For a forager, there is one more incentive to travel: Veldkool (pr. FELT-khoowill). This native vegetable is the flower bud of several species of Trachyandra, a strappy-leafed geophyte that grows in sandy soil along beaches, in the veld, along roadside verges, and in a few enterprising urban gardens.
Join me on a culinary foray along the edges of a Capetonian spring.
Above: Veldkool buds (this is Trachyandra ciliata, sometimes known as slaaikool).
Veldkool’s unopened buds are reminiscent of asparagus and are sometimes called wild asparagus, which is no more accurate botanically than the more common Afrikaans name, which translates as field or meadow cabbage. The buds’ tender season spans several weeks, as different species of Trachyandra bloom. These unobtrusive, resilient plants have every potential to become a cultivated seasonal crop in South Africa’s winter rainfall regions, even as their natural populations succumb to development.
Above: Veldkool beside False Bay, in Cape Town.
On a recent visit to Cape Town, my first glimpse of veldkool was within spray-splash of the sea on a walkway that connects the communities of Muizenberg and Kalk Bay along the False Bay coast. Squeezed between railway tracks and the kelp-fringed blue water, remnants of coastal vegetation persist in the rocky and sandy shoreline, beside a path that skirts tidal pools and rock pools brimming with sea urchins and anemones, benches where people sit looking out to sea, and rocks where red-beaked African oyster catchers patrol exposed mussel banks for dinner. It is scenic. Among blankets of semi-succulent dune spinach (Tetragonia decumbens), the slender buds of Trachyandra ciliata, historically called slaaikool (salad cabbage) had just begun to bloom. Dark-bodied Cape honeybees buzzed the scented flowers.
Above: Trachyandra ciliata above Kalk Bay, post-burn.
Two weeks later and a few hundred feet higher, this veldkool species was blooming profusely above the bay, in sooty sand. Above its lush leaves stood the charred skeletons of burned pincushion proteas. Two fires swept these slopes last January and February. Now, after the wettest winter on record, green life is surging. While the fires can be devastating to humans, the fynbos biome—like California’s chaparral—evolved to burn, and its vegetation depends and thrives on it.
Above: A few plants can produce dozens of flowers. Above: The edible stems and tightly closed buds of T. divaricata emerging from the sand.
The other useful veldkool growing locally is T. divaricata. I think of it as smooth veldkool, because its stout stems are glossy, but it is known as sandkool—apt because it thrives in the deep sand of dunes, although it can also emerge improbably from rocky recesses where just enough grit has accumulated to sustain the plants.
An allotment is the British English term for community garden, but it means more than that: it is a European concept of growing food where space at home might be limited. It has currency in the UK and Italy, where landscape architect Stefano Marinaz grew up, taking stock of his grandfather’s allotment and learning the business of seed-sowing and nurturing plants from a young age. Now based in Chiswick, West London, the landscape architect has been able to fulfill his dream of owning a glasshouse, while dividing the 30 square yards available to every allotment holder between his interest in food and a desire to experiment with plants. It is also a place for his colleagues to get some dirt under their nails, and to show eager clients a bit more about the business of growing.
Above: In the greenhouse. Allotments are often messy but highly organized. This one in Chiswick is beautifully organized while still being recognizable as an allotment.
“Our apartment didn’t have any outdoor space, therefore the idea of an allotment was perfect,” explains Stefano. “When we got it [there is often a long waiting list] there were brambles everywhere, with rotting timber around raised beds. After roughly a year I realized how much space we actually had. I didn’t need to feed 50 people. So I decided to allocate roughly half of the allotment for edible plants and half for flowering perennials and annuals that I wanted to test and see how different plant combinations worked together. In particular, I was interested in seeing how the perennials would establish with very little care, and which plant communities would be the most resilient, with an idea of adapting these planting schemes for our clients.”
Above: The glasshouse is surrounded by personal touches like a habitat for insects on a bamboo frame, and woven edging along the dirt path.
“The allotment then started to became an interesting project, as bit by bit we were putting in vegetables beds, with new perennial combinations, and growing in pots, and adding the glasshouse. Every season there was so much to look forward to.”
Above: Glass cloches provide warmth for young cucumbers in an uncertain climate.
“It became also an opportunity for us to bring clients along and show them how a naturalistic planting can be integrated with vegetables,” he continues. “The allotment is a way to show clients that it is not impossible to grow vegetables, and to work with nature within your own garden—and that they should give it a try.”
Above: “By showing real examples, it is easier to educate people to make changes in the way they live in their garden,” says Stefano. “The allotment is also a place where we do design work and plan projects, bringing over laptops and sketching paper.” Above: Rusted metal arches provide structure in a wild-looking garden featuring wildflowers and edited weeds such as teasel.
All week, we’re republishing some of our favorite Garden Visits that have a personal connection to our writers. No public gardens here, no vast estates, no professionally designed landscapes—just the backyards, vegetable patches, and flower beds that remind our writers of home. This story by contributor Kendra Wilson is from October 2017.
Sometimes a distant but well-loved place is even better than you remember. Weston, CT, has reached mythical status with the younger members of my family ever since we were uprooted to live in London, England, signaling the end of long summers, muggy evenings, and the sounds of crickets (and mosquitoes).
Going back to Connecticut from Grand Central Station this summer was hardly an ordinary commute; fortunately our destination included Dirt Road Farm, the 5.5-acre home of farmers Phoebe Cole-Smith and her husband, Mike Smith. With lunch in the barn overlooking the garden and circa-1830 saltbox house, the dream of a perfect Connecticut setting was very much alive.
Above: A grapevine shelters the kitchen patio of chef and farmer Phoebe Cole-Smith in Weston, CT.
Like many residents of Weston (and Westport, where commuters got off the train), Phoebe found Connecticut by way of New York, needing more space for her family. With a background in food and a training at the International Culinary Center, Phoebe’s days in publishing in the city were left behind as she made country life work for her. The small farm that she runs with husband Mike Smith offers something for local people, or those chasing a dream of New England, in the form of brilliantly conceived barn suppers.
Above: A sturdy pergola supports the grapevines.
Weston in the 1960s and early ’70s was a small town of farms and an “artist’s colony” that included New Yorker cartoonists, authors, and actors. The ratio has changed but this is one farm that has been added, not subtracted, having achieved farm status in 2011.
