A Visit With Joan Gussow
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- July
- 23
I’m writing about five good gardeners from around Rockland County for the October issue of our Rockland magazine (also doing five for InTown Westchester).
I wanted to be sure to include Joan Gussow, who hasn’t bought a vegetable in 10 years. Everything she eats—year-round—comes from her sweet little garden in Piermont.
It’s right on the Hudson, on less than one-sixth of an acre.
I had spoken to Joan by phone a few times in recent years for other stories, but we had never met until yesterday morning. She proved to be just as delightful as I expected: warm, wise, funny and very engaging.
And a very good gardener. Here’s Joan—sorry for the squint, very hot and sunny.
A better picture, from her 2001 book. Her publisher, Chelsea Green, says the book has sold more than 30,000 copies. Not bad for a gardening book.
For decades now, Joan has been a pioneer in the movement for more local food.
A peach tree in her garden:
Of course, she uses no pesticides. These apples look pretty good.
Back in the 1970s, Professor Joan Gussow was raising serious questions with her Columbia students about why were we eating strawberries from California, grapes from Peru and winter tomatoes from God knows where when we have such a rich bounty of produce right here in the Hudson Valley.
Though retired from the full-time faculty, she still teaches a course in nutritional ecology and she’s on the board of Just Foods, which works with community gardeners and helps to bring Community Supported Agriculture into NYC.
In her own garden, she has 22 fully loaded raised beds that measure about 3 by 15 feet, with brick pathways in between.
What’s under here, I wondered?
Blueberries!
The white fabric fools the birds and keeps them out. Apparently, if they can’t see the berries, they don’t know they’re there.
A view of her garden from the river.
I like gardeners who mix up their flowers and vegetables. Black-eyed Susans.
A stowaway dahlia in the potato patch.
Joan is particularly proud of her artichokes. Not easy to grow in the Hudson Valley, she says.
Looks like a very good year for tomatoes. She makes lots of tomato sauce to get her through the winter.
‘Aussie Sweet’ basil—delicious.
Peppers—very tasty, right off the plant. The cage keeps her from having to stake them.
Tomatillos, which reseed everywhere, Joan says.
A rabbit made off with her soy beans. Oh well.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 3:24 pm by Bill Cary.
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Bill Cary grew up in Louisville, Ky. His gardening was limited to growing parsley and impatiens on the windowsill of Manhattan walkups until the mid-1990s when he bought a rundown old chicken farm on 8 acres in the Hudson Valley. Now he spends his weekends chasing deer, hacking away at invasive shrubs and vines and wondering why he doesn`t have more meadow and less lawn.
Beautiful photos… I had the pleasure of visiting her garden once and noted that her lawn (at least at that time) was made of clover! A very inspirational woman that we can all learn something from. Her book has some great recipes too.
Yes, indeed. Many lawn fanatics work like crazy to keep clover out of their grass. Joan does just the opposite—she pulls the grass out of her clover, which doesn’t need to be mowed.