Edible Garden @ the New York Botanical Garden

Just a 20 minute train ride from Grand Central whisks you to a 250-acre sanctuary in the Bronx. Now, you can not only see the most beautiful displays, you can taste them. A fabulous array of chefs will be doing daily demonstrations featuring the spoils of the four spectacular kitchen gardens. The Home Gardening Center is where you can learn how to make your garden the best it can be, and also view the celebrity chef patches from Daisy Martinez, (who had some very intertesting choices!), Dan Barber and Jack Algiere of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Michael Psilakis and Mario Batali, with accompanying audio tours. Of interest to those without a plot of ground, the Conservatory Container Garden has a wealth of surprises coming in that might inspire you to experiment. Martha Stewart’s Culinary Herb Garden has over 50 herbs. Bring the kids to the Children’s Vegetable Garden and show them the wonders of nature. To see who’s cooking and to buy tickets click here. Special festival weekends dot the summer weekends till the harvest. Try this delicious recipe from Michele Di Pietro (see photo), for a unique pesto, whose main ingredient is zucchini. The most important part of the recipe is to make sure that you pull all the water out of the zucchini before mixing with other ingredients. To make the roasted garlic, cut off the bottom of an entire head of garlic and place in a 400º oven, roast for 35 minutes. A handy item to have around, it can be wrapped in foil and stored in the fridge. There’s more photos from the gardens and demo at this link.