Welcome to fall, and the start of some major downtime for the rooftop garden. We’re still getting tomatoes, peppers and leafy greens — and for some reason, strawberries still keep ripening on the vines — but much of the summery stuff like cucumbers and zucchini seem to have spat their last fruits for the season. [...]

This plant has been crawling towards the sky all summer and it’s just begun to blossom in recent weeks. What a triumphant way to end the first summer for the rooftop garden on Sixpoint! Can you guess what it is? Hint: this plant is used to make a beverage, rather than a food; no, I [...]

It’s the last week of summer, so to speak, with Labor Day around the corner. Hope everyone’s had a blast. This is one of the plants I’ve been looking forward to eating the whole time, and it’s just about ready to harvest here. Know what it is? I won’t give up any clues, but the [...]

We haven’t spoken too much about herbs yet, and this one’s a real zinger. It looks a little bit like dill, except for its signature color (hint: this is a descriptor in the plant’s name), and it tastes distinctively like something else, something that is eaten commonly, too. The first person to correctly the guess [...]

Sometimes, one can fall into trap he or she smirkingly set. So it happened when I completely MIS-named my last Name That Plant plant! This Monday, I showed a photo of what I told folks soon after the guesses began was stevia; it was not. It was actually horseradish, which was right next to the [...]

It’s tall, it’s bushy and green, and if I gave away how it tastes, you might guess this one right away. So let’s see who can name that plant just by sight — it is edible, by the way. Speaking of naming that plant, on September 6th, I’ll be doing a lot of that for [...]

Here we are in the home run of summer, already! It’s August, and the roof garden is crawling with plants at all stages and sizes. The swan lake melon that was successfully named a few weeks back grew full-size and was eaten up, but here’s a distant relative that’s on its way. Hint: It is [...]

I’ve never grown nor have seen this plant being grown before. So this one was really fun to watch for me. It might not be the most difficult plant to name, but check out how huge and torpedo-like it is. (The flowers of the plant are also really pretty.) And the first person to comment [...]

It’s been exceptionally hot this summer, reaching ninety degrees for hazy stretches of days so often. So many of the plants aren’t enjoying all the heat, no matter how much watering they get. (It also hasn’t rained much; the rainwater harvesting bins have been tapped for weeks.) But some plants seem to thrive, and these [...]

Happy Monday, and hope everyone’s had their share of sangria in honor of Spain’s World Cup win. I got to pay a visit “upstate” this weekend — to the Bronx, where the New York Botanical Garden is located. (It might not that far, but if you’re coming from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where I live, it’s [...]