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Tag: Quick Takes

  • Claire Ratinon: An Interview with the Organic Gardener and Writer

    Claire Ratinon: An Interview with the Organic Gardener and Writer

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    Claire Ratinon is a self-described “career changer grower,” a former documentary producer who fell hard for gardening after a chance visit to the Brooklyn Grange (a rooftop farm in New York) led her to trade in the cameras and lights for compost and loppers. She went on to grow edible plants in a range of roles, including growing organic produce for the Ottolenghi restaurant, Rovi. Today, she lives in rural East Sussex, where she finally gets to tend her own vegetable patch. She writes about her gardening journey in a regular column for the Guardian’s Saturday magazine and in books, the latest being Unearthed: On Race and Roots, and How the Soil Taught Me I Belong, a memoir that explores how working with the land has connected her to her Mauritian roots. Last month, Claire debuted her online course, “Grow Your Own Food,” via the Create Academy.

    Read on to find out why the organic gardener and writer thinks “growing plants is the only thing that genuinely makes sense” these days. 

    Photography courtesy of The Create Academy, unless otherwise noted.

    Above: Claire shares her gardening wisdom in her columns for The Guardian. You can find them here.

    Your first garden memory:

    I’m a career changer grower, so although I have early memories of the sunny, blousy marigolds and fragrant roses that my mother grew in the garden where I grew up, my most important plant memory was stepping out of an elevator onto the rooftop farm, Brooklyn Grange, to see rows of crops basking in the sun. The orientation of my life changed in that moment.

    Garden-related book you return to time and again:

    Joy Larkcom’s Grow Your Own Vegetables is a bible for vegetable growing. I go back to it to double -check myself all the time and direct people towards it if they’re looking for guidance.

    Instagram account that inspires you:

    A Growing Culture shares fascinating and important content speaking to global issues around agriculture, food sovereignty, and land justice.

    Plant that makes you swoon:

    A July harvest of tomatillos. Photograph via @claireratinon.
    Above: A July harvest of tomatillos. Photograph via @claireratinon.

    Currently, I’m eagerly awaiting the return of the tomatillos. We grew them on the farm where I work last season and the plants yielding an abundance of delicious fruit so I ate them pretty much every day. I’m hoping to do the same this summer!

    Plant that makes you want to run the other way:

    Can’t get on board with celeriac.. sorry!

    Favorite go-to plant:

    Above: Claire practices the “no-dig” gardening approach, mulching her vegetable beds with a layer of compost every year and leaving it for the soil life to incorporate.

    Tomatoes. Not exactly original but homegrown are simply better than anything I’ve ever bought in a greengrocer or supermarket. I grow the varieties ‘Black Cherry’ and ‘Purple Calabash’ every year.

    Unpopular gardening opinion:

    That most edible plants can’t be grown indoors. Not really an opinion as much as it’s a fact, but people don’t like to hear it!

    Hardest gardening lesson you’ve learned:

    Claire attempted to grow margoz, also known as bitter melon, a vegetable she grew up eating in her Mauritian household. “These two are off in the post to my mum and dad and maybe next year I’ll do better than two small bitter melons,” she wrote in an Instagram post. Photograph via @claireratinon.
    Above: Claire attempted to grow margoz, also known as bitter melon, a vegetable she grew up eating in her Mauritian household. “These two are off in the post to my mum and dad and maybe next year I’ll do better than two small bitter melons,” she wrote in an Instagram post. Photograph via @claireratinon.

    That no matter how much you know, how hard you try, how desperately you want it, some crops just won’t thrive under your care that season and the causes of that failure will often be beyond your control—so it’s not worth getting too upset about.

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  • Alan Calpe and Christopher Crawford of Gardenheir: An Interview with the Shopkeepers

    Alan Calpe and Christopher Crawford of Gardenheir: An Interview with the Shopkeepers

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    We didn’t know we needed quietly stylish workwear and Italian garden clogs in our lives until Alan Calpe and Christopher Crawford’s Gardenheir came along. Now, like many others who’ve discovered their website or wandered into their chic shop in Windham, NY, we’re obsessed. The pair founded the business “after becoming more and more consumed as we made our first garden in Upstate New York,” says Alan, who has a background in visual arts and art education; Christopher comes from fashion design. Next up for the enterprising couple: “We recently purchased the property next door and much of it is quite wet land, so we are slowly working towards creating a wild, meandering bog garden.” 

    Ready to find out what they wear when they garden (spoiler alert: it’s not Crocs) and how they use dryer sheets to fend off bugs?

    Photography courtesy of Gardenheir.

    Above: Christopher and Alan (right) in their moonlight garden.

    Your first garden memory:

    Alan: One of my oldest friends’ mom was an avid gardener and made a beautifully jungly Florida garden that welcomed you through the front door. I wish I could’ve told her just how much of an influence she was, from peeking into her floral arranging workshop to her once making me a gift of a large strawberry pot dripping of herbs to accompany me to college. I’d consider it my first garden, actually.

    Book/show/movie/art that has influenced your work:

    The couple knew nothing about gardening when they purchased their 4-acre property in Upstate NY—but they were diligent students, reading everything they could on plants and garden design. See Lessons Learned: The Founders of Gardenheir Share the Highs and Lows of Designing Their First Garden.
    Above: The couple knew nothing about gardening when they purchased their 4-acre property in Upstate NY—but they were diligent students, reading everything they could on plants and garden design. See Lessons Learned: The Founders of Gardenheir Share the Highs and Lows of Designing Their First Garden.

    Christopher: Early on, reading other’s accounts of making their first gardens, like Margery Fish’s We Made a Garden and Jamaica Kincaid’s My Garden. The unknowing, the failures and pleasures, resonated with us as we fumbled through our beginning gestures.

    Alan: Gilles Clément’s The Planetary Garden and Other Writings shapes a philosophical approach to gardening that I think about often. There’s still much of his work that I don’t think I completely grasp, but it challenges us to look deeply, think more deeply, into the decisions we make in the garden.

    Garden-related book you return to time and again:

    Alan: We have a copy of Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature in plain view in our home. Because it’s written as diaristic entries arranged through the passing of a year, we often will pick it up to read the chapter that coincides with our own time, to bring him and his garden at Dungeness close to us.

    Instagram account that inspires you:

    Christopher: Dan Pearson @coyotewillow. Monty Don @themontydon, of course.

    Plant that makes you swoon:

    Iris fulva.
    Above: Iris fulva.

    Alan: Iris fulva (copper iris). A native iris with a perfectly simple form and seductive rusty tones.

    Plant that makes you want to run the other way:

    Christopher: Burdocks, Japanese knotweed.

    Favorite go-to plant:

    Ornamental grasses planted in their landscape include Deschampsia cespitosa and the Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Album’.
    Above: Ornamental grasses planted in their landscape include Deschampsia cespitosa and the Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Album’.

    Christopher: Still a sucker for heirloom roses even if they’re finicky in our garden. Pycnanthemum (mountain mints) for sure.

    Alan: Also, our garden would be nothing without the structural ornamental grasses.

    Most dreaded gardening chore:

    Christopher: Picking off Japanese beetles.

    Unpopular gardening opinion:

    Alan: We have a hard time getting rid of plants that we’ve fallen out of favor with or might not even be thriving so well. It’s sort of like a bad tattoo that you refuse to remove because it reminds you of a particular time in your life. (Even if it’s relegated to a far-off corner somewhere!)

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  • Quick Takes with Margaret Roach: An Interview with the Garden Writer

    Quick Takes with Margaret Roach: An Interview with the Garden Writer

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    …water feature that stays accessible, with at least a portion of the surface unfrozen, even in winter. The power of water to support increased diversity is unmatched in the garden; from dragonflies to amphibians to birds and mammals, the water garden is where the action is. My two in-ground pools were one of the first things I created here, and thanks in large part to them 70ish species of birds visit regularly, for instance.

    Tool you can’t live without:

    Why over-effort by using a too-big pruner when for most jobs a smaller, lightweight one will do? ARS HP-300LDX stainless steel needle-nose fruit pruners, meant for working in vineyards and orchards, are my hand-saving go-to for most daily chores. I have a pair of lightweight, scaled-down aluminum loppers, too, for making bigger cuts.

    Go-to gardening outfit:

    My yoga gear from 20 years ago, rubber boots, and un-fancy gloves with nitrile-coated palms and fingers.

    Favorite nursery, plant shop, or seed company:

    Cannot name just one, but I am a longtime champion of farm-based, organic seed companies—people who grow some or all of the seed they sell, and are happy to tell you who grew the rest, and how. In this age of such terrifying consolidation of the seed industry into the hands of a few giant companies who regard and patent it as intellectual property, these often small “seedkeepers” in the organic movement are where I see hope.

    On your wishlist:

    Above: Amsonia tabernaemontana. Photograph by Kerry Woods via Flickr.

    After reading Mt. Cuba Center’s just-published Trial Garden research on all the different native bluestars, or Amsonia, I almost want them all. Beautiful flowers, and graceful foliage with great fall color—plus they are super-tough and long-lived.

    In their New Jersey garden, my friends Louis Bauer and Ken Druse use columnar trees really effectively—both conifers and deciduous ones such as European beech—and I’m trying to identify a couple of spots here for such distinctive exclamation points.

    Not-to-be-missed public garden/park/botanical garden:

    In just 10ish years, the historic estate called Untermyer Gardens Conservancy in Yonkers, NY, has risen from the ashes, thanks to a crew of artistic and energetic horticulturists. Breathtaking. Speaking of transforming historic estates, Stoneleigh in Villanova, PA, is being transformed with a natives-only mission—unusual in such a formal setting, and very exciting.

    The REAL reason you garden:

    In The Backyard Parables, Margaret writes about why gardening is about so much more than plants.
    Above: In The Backyard Parables, Margaret writes about why gardening is about so much more than plants.

    I always say that I garden because I cannot help myself. It’s not about outdoor decorating for me (though I do think the yard looks better for the efforts). More powerful, though, I experience the garden as part meditative space, part science lab. It’s a place where I slow down and where my curiosity is constantly aroused—and not just about plants, but birds, moths, lichen, you name it, and how all the pieces of the food chain and the ecosystem fit together.

    Thank you, Margaret! Follow her @awaytogarden.

    For other interviews in the series, see:

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  • Summer Rayne Oakes: The Plant Educator Shares Her Plant Wisdom

    Summer Rayne Oakes: The Plant Educator Shares Her Plant Wisdom

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    You may remember Summer Rayne Oakes from her incredible, plant-filled Brooklyn apartment that went viral in 2016. Since then, “I set out on a mission to bring people closer to plants by bringing plants closer to them,” she says, via her YouTube channel “Plant One On Me” and her Houseplant Masterclass series. During the COVID pandemic, she and her friends decided to buy a former plant nursery in the Finger Lakes region of New York, “with the goal of turning it into a communal homestead and botanical oasis.” They document their progress on their new channel Flock. 

    Summer shared her plant wisdom in our newest book Remodelista: The Low-Impact Home. Here, she goes deeper, revealing the tool she can’t live without, her favorite method of deterring weeds, and more.

    Photography courtesy of Flock.

    Your first garden memory:

    Above: Summer and her friends are currently transforming 90 acres in the Finger Lakes region into a communal homestead.

    My mom kept the most beautiful flower gardens on the street, and we had a large veggie garden and small orchard, too. Towards the back of our land, we had gargantuan rhubarbs that grew around the red currants. I would hide under the rhubarb leaves, like they were folious umbrellas. And I would break the stems and eat them raw—even though they were quite sour. My mother would make French-style crepes with the currants too, which were my favorite. And how can I forget the lilacs! My bedroom was on the second floor of the house and every summer, the lilacs bloomed outside my window and the warm breezes would blow the scent all through my bedroom. It was decadent. Sadly when we left that house, I asked my mother if we could take the lilac bushes, but I would have to wait when I was adult to enjoy the scent of lilacs again.

    Book/show/movie/art that has influenced your work:

    I think Rick Darke’s and Doug Tallamy’s book, The Living Landscape, really encapsulated creating a garden that selflessly extends beyond yourself to one that focuses on promoting biodiversity and maintaining ecosystem function. Piet Oudolf’s landscape creations are also so soothing to the eye, and I find myself referencing his textures and painterly approach to landscaping.

    Garden-related book you return to time and again:

    Perhaps not gardening books per se, but I’m constantly reaching for my pollinator identification guides and caterpillar books, for which I have several, because I’m always seeing never-before-seen insects in my garden, especially now that I’ve been focusing on planting insect host plants.

    Plant that makes you swoon:

    Above: The pollinator garden at Flock.

    Symphyotrichum ericoides ’Snow Flurry’; Muhlenbergia capillaris; Eragrosis spectabilis; and All things Liatris, including Liatris microcephala.

    Plant that makes you want to run the other way:

    Reynoutria japonica (Japanese knotweed) and vinca vine.

    Most dreaded gardening chore:

    Removing grass from garden edges.

    Unpopular gardening opinion:

    Above: No space between plants = no space for weeds.

    Don’t follow the plant spacing recommendations on the back of plant tags. I like to plant close together to suppress unchosen plants early on and create a carpet of foliage.

    The one thing you wish gardeners would stop doing:

    Planting only non-native species.

    Old wives’ tale gardening trick that actually works:

    Composted manure brings big veggies!

    Favorite gardening hack:

    Plant densely to avoid weeds, plant diversely to bring life.

    Tool you can’t live without:

    The 8-Tine Poly Mulching Fork is $82.98 at A.M. Leonard.
    Above: The 8-Tine Poly Mulching Fork is $82.98 at A.M. Leonard.

    A.M. Leonard’s gardening fork for wood chips and mulch.

    Every garden needs a…

    Healthy soil ecosystem.

    Favorite hardscaping material:

    Local stone—we have one called Llenroc. I absolutely love the way native stone looks in the garden.

    Go-to gardening outfit:

    Above: Summer in her favorite gardening uniform.

    My olive green overalls.

    Favorite nursery, plant shop, or seed company:

    The Plantsmen; Rare Roots; Ernst Seeds.

    On your wishlist:

    Castilleja coccinea (Indian paintbrush) and Rheum nobile.

    Not-to-be-missed public garden/park/botanical garden:

    Gothenburg Botanic Gardens in Sweden.

    The REAL reason you garden:

    Above: All wildlife welcome.

    I love the life my gardens bring to the land—from the birds to the bugs. Seeing wildlife utilize my gardens is truly fulfilling.

    Future projects:

    I’ll be taking up more non-native grass from the landscape and doing several different approaches to growing more natively and diversely.

    You can find Summer on YouTube here and follow her on Instagram @homesteadbrooklyn and @flockfingerlakes.

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  • Quick Takes: Gardenista’s and Remodelista’s New Sunday Columns

    Quick Takes: Gardenista’s and Remodelista’s New Sunday Columns

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    This just in: We’re excited to announce the launch of Quick Takes, a brand-new subscriber-only Sunday column appearing on both Remodelista and Gardenista.

    Above: Who will we be chatting with in Quick Takes? The shopkeeper/tastemaker/designer behind this considered kitchen, for one. Find out who this Sunday.

    Each week, we’ll ask top designers, influencers, shopkeepers, and tastemakers for their insider dos and don’ts, faves and raves, from best house upgrades and design tricks to gardening advice and what’s on the bedside table. We kicked off the new series on Sunday: On Remodelista, trendsetter Kai Avent-deLeon shared her go-to sheets and best thing to bring to a party; and over on Gardenista, landscape designer Molly Sedlacek revealed the out-of-print gardening book she returns to time and again and the one plant that turns her off.

    Above: Gardenista’s next Quick Takes respondent is building a communal homestead on 90 acres in upstate New York. Check the site this Sunday to learn who she is.

    Quick Takes will be free and available to all through the month of March; after that, it’ll be reserved for paid subscribers—so if you like what you see this month, consider upgrading to a paid subscription to keep reading. (One subscription works for both sites.) Subscribers also have access to full-text newsletters, delivered daily, as well as an ad-free viewing experience. A paid subscription is $9.99, paid monthly, or $59.99 paid yearly (a 50 percent savings) and helps support our team and keep our sites going.

    Whether you become a subscriber or not, we’re so grateful for your continued readership and support all these years. Thanks for following along.

    N.B.: Have someone you’d like to see featured in Quick Takes? Let us know in the comments.

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