In the beginning of summer, I went a little crazy with nasturtium, putting them on top of everything for garnish. It’s a flower that tastes peppery, and makes things look tropical — what’s not to like? Nasturtium salad it is! Well, those are long gone for the season. Here’s another edible flower that’s a little [...]

This week’s Name That Plant contest is more of a food-and-music trivia question with a visual clue. You’ll name this plant, if you can figure out the following: The tree of this fruit was the subject of a Peter, Paul and Mary song. This is one of the four plants mentioned in a folk song [...]

I hope everyone had a gobble-icious Thanksgiving, and got to make your favorite side dish or stuffing for a huge group. My best contribution to the Thanksgiving spread this year? A platter of roasted romanesco. I tried a little “name that plant” game with my family when I took it out of the farmers’ market [...]

Who knew? It’s mid-November and still no frost in sight. I would have imagined a year ago that it would definitely be a done season for gardening by this time, but in fact, many plants grow best in the fall, like the crucifers — cabbages, broccoli and such — which Long Island farmer Fred Lee [...]

Before I start giving away clues about this week’s mystery plant photo, I wanted to share some exciting news. This Sunday, I’ll be talking about plants, urban agriculture, and cooking with healthy greens at WNYC’s Greenspace for a series called “Lopate and Locavores.” Fred Lee (from one of my absolute fave organic farms Sang Lee [...]

Looks like Monday flew by without posting a Name That Plant contest, so Tuesday it is! I’m really proud of this plant above. It’s come a long way since planting it in one of the bathtubs early in the summer. It looked very grassy then, almost like chives. But like the chives, too, each grass [...]

Some animal has been lunching on the Sixpoint roof garden, too. Or more likely, midnight snacking, in stealth. All the leafy greens have gotten a little chewed, including these ones, which are hardy enough to withstand the recent cold. It’s a purple variety of a “green,” so that will be the first word of its [...]

Growing edible plants has shown me, among other things, that they have so many unique parts that you can eat. Beets and radishes have tasty greens when young, pumpkin seeds are great for toasting and tossing in anything, and sunflower and corn shoots have the most delicate sweet taste and crisp texture. (Thinning these plants [...]

Gardening can teach us many hardy lessons about life. With this plant, it’s a universal mantra we’ve all heard before: it’s not what’s on the surface, but what’s inside that counts. Inside the container, or the dirt, that is. Do you know what it is?

We’ve got a lot of these peppers on the roof; for some reason, it was the most productive one we’ve grown. Most of them are yellow-green, but sometimes, purple strokes appear. This happened more frequently during the summer’s heatwaves, however, and now the peppers look more tame. Can anyone name the variety?