March 9
Spring has beat the calendar. My Ballerina rose, unpruned last year for lack of time, is bursting forth with young leaves and red buds. It and my head both need a haircut. Will do on Wednesday, guided by Jeff Van Pelt’s excellent advice from an interview long ago.

Two variegated Daphne odora oreomarginata, spent winter in nursery pots under my deck, found new homes today in huge ceramic pots, soon to be accompanied by either portulaca or other sedum so they can all stay fairly dry together.

Two days later, Ballerina took revenge for my negligence. However, now she stands naked and regal, soon to be a blossoming beauty. I raked my neighbor’s leaves from around the bulbs in the central 9x30-foot garden, removed last year’s flower stalks except echinacea with a few seeds left, and pruned the white buddleia down to the lowest green buds.

First, I thought I’d knock on his door and ask him to come rake them up. Then I thought I’d fill some large leaf bags (courtesy of Julian and the City of Scranton) and would ask him to dispose of them. (No leaf pick-up here. It’s “country.”) Then I asked a county road crew who was out trimming trees along utility lines if they would put up snow fence in my neighbor’s yard. They said I had to call the boss. Then I asked the guy in charge, “What would you do?” He said, “Run over ‘m with a mower.” I said, “I’d like to but I can’t do that. I’d get arrested!” Hours later I realized he meant the leaves!

There are still lots of leaves caught in the centers of perennials and shrubs, plus more garden beds and areas where they settled. I decided to leave my neighbor alone. I feel now thankful for the leaves in the garden beds that protected the plants all this frigid winter. And it’s good to see the bulbs springing up green and happy.

John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds: www.kitchengardenseeds.com/

Cris Spindler, owner of Peconic River Herb Farm in Calverton, New York, has the answers!

Basil is best preserved in pesto, she says. Put it in a blender with garlic, Romano or Parmesan cheese, walnuts or pine nuts and extra virgin olive oil. Then freeze it in ice cube trays or little deli take-out cups with lids. You can get them at a party goods store.

For strong, tough-leafed plants such as rosemary, sage and oregano, drying is the best way to preserve them. Rosemary doesn’t do well indoors, she assures me, because there is no direct light indoors and it belongs outside, so once its leaves are crispy, dig it up. She recommends growing just enough rosemary to get you through winter.

Sage doesn’t like the cold, wet winter. It’s best to harvest when lush and nice. Some marjoram is cold hardy and dries fairly successfully.

Chives dry somewhat successfully, she says, but its tender leaves lose their flavor when dry, as do tarragon, parsley and basil. They are all better used in pesto or vinegar. Or make herb salt: Combine fresh herbs and sea salt, lay the combo out and let it dry. Chop and blend the herbs with sea salt and lay on a cookie sheet in a dry place such as an oven with just a pilot light.

What to do with my Hungarian paprika chiles and cayenne peppers? Chiles dry laid out in the air in the kitchen, Cris says, or string them up using a large-eyed needle with fishing line right through the stem. This is called a “ristra.” Dried whole chiles turn brick red; black spots might be mold. Dry them whole or, if large or thick, split them open to let warm air circulate through, then, when dry, grind them up and store as chile powder.

Julian and I made lasagna for Thanksgiving dinner. Julian made the sauce and cooked the pasta; I mixed the ricotta using Italian parsley picked from our garden that morning – the last of the fresh herbs. The parsley, especially, will be missed.

Though many tomatoes rotted before they ripened, and squirrels literally ripped off the sunflower heads, we enjoyed the fresh rosemary, peppermint, thyme, Italian parsley and Thai and Genovese basil. The Tasmanian chocolate and Pompeii tomatoes were superb - better than the heirloom Pineapple, which grew slightly healthier than Cherokee Purple or Old German. Hungarian paprika peppers and cayenne thrived (some cayenne and Thai basil self-seeded from last year). Beets were pretty and delicious and marigolds shone. French red leaf lettuce and Black-seeded Simpson couldn't have been better as well as the kale that grew in the ammo box on the porch, while thunbergia on the lattice out-flowered and ran rampant over the runner beans. And the Orgegon Giant peas were deliciously sweet raw - the way to eat peas!

Our little 8-foot square garden and several pots of surprises and pleasures brought much joy and dinner.

by Mary Jasch

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July 2018
Spring Jumps into Summer



July 6, 2018

We enlarged our Scranton garden in Julian’s backyard this year to 8 feet x 8 feet and planted seeds and seedlings in May. Julian fenced it in with a double row including chicken wire to save our goodies from marauding groundhogs.

We are enjoying the bounty already. Last week we made Pasta Primavera using bow ties, heavy cream, Locatelli Pecorino Romano cheese, garlic, thyme, yellow crookneck squash and from our garden – sweet and crispy snow peas, Genovese basil, Italian flat leaf parsley and green cayenne pepper. A bit unconventional but scrumptious!

We still have our balcony container garden, which provides kale for smoothies and lettuce, arugula and chervil for salad. Thunbergia and scarlet runner beans are a delight to watch grow on the lattice.

The mixed crop of tomato plants are loaded with flowers and some have fruit. Most plants were started from seed from California-based Renee’s Garden online and were either direct planted or personally grown as transplants.

In my New Jersey sidewalk container garden, poppies are popping and going to seed, cayenne grow huge, and red French lettuce is providing its last sweet, delicious leaves. The gorgeous lettuce and new hybrid French marigolds make a magical display of electric color. Two heirloom tomato plants, given by a friend, have several fruits already. And in the fifth planter, Thai basil and petunias have reseeded themselves for the third year!

by Mary Jasch

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February 2018
Don't Mow Your Lawn

While Julian and I start to plan our veggie garden at his place, I think about my meadow - once kept regularly mowed but now let to grow and flower. At times it is splattered with the yellow blossoms of dandelion and hawkweed and purple and white violets, waving grasses, swooping swallows, butterflies and birds.

I am happy to hear that world-renowned jazz trombonist Ray Anderson and lyricist Jackie Raven offer sage sustainable advice and encouragement in their tune: Don't Mow Your Lawn!

Lyrics by Jackie Raven after listening to a lawn devotee mow for six hours when it should have taken 40 minutes! Famed trombonist Ray Anderson put it to music. Here he sings it (and plays at the end) with the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band at Jazzwochethe, an international jazz festival in Burghausen, Germany.

Get some inspiration! Click here.

by Mary Jasch

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June 2017
Into the Garden


At my New Jersey country garden, I rolled tree-sized Vietnamese ceramics from the deck through the kitchen to the front walk where I planted them with 2017 Renee’s Garden Sugar Pod Peas, and 2014 Wild Garden Frills Heirloom Russian Kale and French Flounce Oriental Poppies with a centrally-located cayenne pepper. Strangely, white petunias grew from seed instead of poppies!

In one of two smaller, columnar planters a Cherokee Purple tomato grows. The other contains a burgundy grass, two marigolds, and bacopa that I hope can handle drying.

Since i posted this, we've harvested the Heirloom Russian Kale and Thai basil that self-seeded with the mystery petunias that grew in place of poppies and the tomatoes and peas have flowers.

Let the season begin!

by Mary Jasch

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August 2016
On Mushrooms and Soil

Critters aren’t the only invaders in our container gardens, now moved to ground level against the white stucco wall in the sun. This entails schlepping lots of water but such is the joy of gardening!


Suffice it so say that everything has had a hard time growing in this soil, except for the mushrooms which appear every morning and die down by evening. They thrived among the kale and red French leaf lettuce. We eat both with no reaction, being careful to avoid the delicate fungi.

The tomatoes and peppers are catching up for lost time, though. Pompeii and San Marzano lead the pack, followed closely by poblano peppers and kohlrabi. Beefsteak tomatoes and cayenne are close behind and lettuce and kale and, finally, cabbage are bringing up the rear.

Parsley, Greek oregano and thyme are gorgeous, though one by one borage bit the dust after completely flopping every day, then standing back up again. We did manage to blend a bit in a smoothie, which was quite good.

by Mary Jasch

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August 2016
Roof-Top Critters

Just when you think it can’t happen here, it does. Interestingly, there are no deer here, being in the middle of the city, but there are squirrels, caterpillars, dogs, cats and birds.

First there was the feral cat that was set on a meal of baby starlings nested in the corner eave, just even with the floor of the balcony. The cat not only used a planter prepared with soil as a litter box, but one morning it leapt downward into the air at the birds’ nest, missed, and grazed the shoulder of a woman walking to her car as it fell to the ground.

Julian and I hurriedly filled the planter with oregano, parsley and thyme to keep the cat out, and Julian planted borage seed. The next day we found a few scattered feathers and an empty nest. No more cat – and baby birds.


Cats aren’t the only critters that pester plants on roof-tops, as we learned one morning when I pulled a half-buried candy bar wrapper from out of the pot of dill. Was it a dog on this second floor balcony? A cat? Both were highly unlikely. It had to be a squirrel, of which there are plenty.

We soon noticed holes in cabbage, kale and kohlrabi leaves and, after a little research, hand-picked them off and drowned them in soapy water, thinking they were cabbage loopers (Trichoplusia ni), a.k.a. cabbageworms, also a.k.a. inchworms. But the questions were: how did they get up on a roof garden to eat our veggies and where did they come from?



Enter Peter Nitzsche, County Extension Dept. Head, Agricultural Agent, Rutgers NJ Agricultural Experiment Station, Morristown, NJ, who quickly enlightened me. They were “Imported cabbageworms” (Pieris rapae) – not loopers or “cabbage worms” – and he offered the best Integrated Pest Management methods to control them.

Cabbage loopers do not survive the harsh winters of NY, NJ, CT and Eastern PA, but the adult moths usually migrate here by late July/early August and immediately deposit their eggs, he says. The night-flying, dark, grey/brown moths with a silver V-shaped spot on each wing rest between the plant’s leaves during the day. The caterpillars have white stripes on sides and back and feed on the undersides and tops of leaves and bore into the cabbage heads sometimes making them unfit to eat.

Imported cabbage worms have visible legs and faint yellow stripes across the back but often appear just green. They too, bore into cabbage heads, leaving dark green lumps behind. The adult is the small, white, day-flitting moth that loves nepeta and other mint family plants, Russian sage, salvia, caryopteris. These plants may be pretty and are quite useful but don’t use them near the veggie garden!