I went to Tarrytown, New York to celebrate my mother's birthday, and as always we went on several walks. One was on around the farm at Stone Barns, where we have visited many times before.
I love observing the seasonal changes in their many gardens, comparing their success with crops to mine, and seeing crops I'm thinking of growing. Here's mom in the 'Dooryard Garden', their version of a kitchen garden. We had many crops in common, including moonflowers, swiss chard, bush type butternut squash, and purple pole beans. I was surprised there weren't more nasturtiums, which have been wonderful for me this year, especially 'Milkmaid'.
They also had several smaller mounded bed gardens, like this one full of bush beans (it looked like they were being left to dry for shell beans).
In the larger fields I was envious of the amazing production they got from peppers, and noted that they used what looked like a biodegradable black plastic, which made a big difference in output. I will try that next year! I also saw row of artichokes, and a few had been left to flower:
Artichokes are beautiful plants, with striking silvery leaves, but looking at the remains of the crop I felt they would not be worth starting from seed for my garden. I might put in one or two plants if I can trade with someone in the area, just because they are so cool-looking, and because they remind me of travelling the artichoke fields of California with my father, and buying and cooking up bags of baby artichokes you could eat choke and all. A delicious memory.
Finally we visited the greenhouses. Wow, what a lot of work. It reminded me of my days in the perennial plant trade. While I loved wandering the rows and seeing lots of interesting greens in person (so to speak) I never want to go back to gardening on this scale. I talked to one of the staff hard at work weeding, and asked if I could take pics for my blog. He gave me permission, and introduced himself as Jason. Then he told about his blog- 'Have you ever picked a carrot?' I checked it out later and loved it--it is a mix of science and personal musings presented in a friendly but not cute voice. Much better than a lot of the blogs I've seen. I'll be checking back regularly.
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