Welcome to my 10' x 9' greenhouse.  It faces south with a sliding door from the living room. When spring comes I can walk through it onto the deck where I pot up lots of fun combinations in planters. Many of the plants I use have been overwintered and propagated in my greenhouse.  My nitrile garden gloves live there too where they are close to hand. At the moment several varieties of velvety-leaved aromatic Cuban oregano (Plectranthus), a current favorite…

Womanswork hosted another evening meal at The Lunch Box in Poughkeepsie last week. On a typical evening The Lunch Box serves 150 people who need a hot meal. They also serve lunch on week days but this has expanded to include dinners whenever they can get volunteers like us to do it. The numbers of people in need of services like this have been growing here in Dutchess County, NY, like everywhere else.  Nora…

This year marks Womanswork's 25th year in business. We thought, what better time than now to say thanks to our garden glove fans with a little give away contest?  The Womanswork Story. But first some background on us. Womanswork was started in Maine in 1985 because there were no good work gloves designed to fit women's hands. A little black and white (and sepia) catalog was sent to a growing list of women who needed…

We spent the last 6 days in New York at the Jacob Javits Center, along with thousands of other people (perhaps tens of thousands). We stayed at the W Hotel on Lexington Ave and 50th Street. How appropriate. Eve was with me as we met with owners and representatives of retail stores across the country. They were all looking for new items and many of them seemed pleased…

When my husband Tom asked me why I wanted a greenhouse I said that I wanted to be able to can and pickle and preserve vegetables and fruits. He replied that those are not exactly things you do in a greenhouse. He has a point. I realized at that moment that I had constructed in my mind an elaborate fantasy that involved growing things from seed to transplant to harvest to preserving.  I pictured a factory production line in my…

We have decided to give away 3 pairs of garden gloves this week because we liked so many of your comments and gardening resolutions. We are sending a pair to Taylor who is 14, because we were inspired that someone so young dreams about gardening; we are sending a pair to LaManda Joy because we like her idea of teaching 5 people to garden and asking them to teach 5 others; and finally we are also sending a pair of…

Now that the holidays are over, in northern climates the ground is frozen. Now is the time to apply a winter mulch to keep the soil cold and insulate it from alternate freezing and thawing. The action of freezing and thawing, which occurs throughout the winter season, causes shallow-rooted and fall-planted perennials to be heaved out of the ground and roots to become desiccated. I find…

One lucky reader each week in January will receive a free pair of Womanswork High Performance Gloves! Send us your gardening resolutions for 2010 by adding a comment below, and we will pick one lucky winner each Thursday in January to receive a free pair of Womanswork garden gloves to help you with your resolution. We'll get the ball rolling by telling you ours:  Dorian Winslow's 2010 Gardening Resolutions-- Get my clivia miniata to bloom. I bought it in full bloom in Jan…

Last week I had the greatest pleasure of seeing Judith Jones speak about her philosophy of food and eating, and her new book “The Pleasures of Cooking for One.”  Judith Jones is the senior editor and vice president at Knopf.  She was responsible for publishing “The Diary of Anne Frank” and Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.  In her talk she spoke of her early years in France…

Having taken a walk around our neighborhood today after the first snowfall of the season, it is pitiful to see how some evergreens take such a beating with wet heavy snow. One's instinct is to bash the snow off as soon as you can, but beating on an already stressed branch from above is trouble. Always brush snow off gently from below with a broom…