Anne of Carversville

Surely plans for the New York Botanical Garden’s “The Edible Garden” were on the drawing board before Barack Obama became president of the United States. Inspiring Martha Stewart to redesign such a city park herb garden takes more than a couple month’s notice. Please note that Martha will be at this weekend’s festival.

If timing is everything in life, then “The Edible Garden” exhibit — including a dozen vegetable gardens, a flower show in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory called “Tropical Fruits, Roots and Shoots;” Thursday evening events with music, and wine and beer tastings; celebrity food presentations; cooking demonstrations in a new outdoor kitchen; and two festival weekends — coincides perfectly with America’s new passion of celebrating local and sustainable food.

Visitors to the Botanical Garden can enjoy two Festival Weekends—June 27 & 28 and September 12 & 13—that celebrate local, sustainable food choices and global cuisine, respectively; seven Thursday evenings, July 9-August 20, including wine and beer tastings, and food-related programming; and exhibitions such as Martha Stewart’s Culinary Herb Garden, Beginner’s Vegetable Garden, Seed Savers Heirloom Vegetable Garden, Tropical Fruits, Roots, and Shoots, among others.

An overarching theme of the exhibit, spread throughout the 250 acres of the Bronx location of the New York Botanical Gardens is to bring us back in touch with our food and how it’s grown.

Reponding to the Obama Administration’s challenge of involving kids in food growing, “Good Food Gardens”, sponsored by Food Network, uses gardens as a nutrition-education tool that provides kids with affordable access to the food they need to live active, healthy lives.

After “The Edible Garden” ends, Food Network will donate the Good Food Garden on display in the Home Gardening Center to a local school.

Follow all the events of The Edible Garden blog.

New York Botanical Gardens Martha Stewart herb gardenVisit Martha Stewart’s website for a tour of her new herb garden. A