It's worth it in the end By Ellen Donker Every year, as spring moves into summer, I am determined to improve my gardens. I’m aware that I should probably be saying this in winter when it’s time to start seedlings, but I can never seem to rustle up the enthusiasm or plan ahead to get a spot in the Maplewood greenhouse. Early June comes along and I’m just getting started with clearing garden beds of leaves and weeds (hoping I don’t yank a perennial by mistake) and figuring out

Inside the Maplewood Youth Gardening Program By Adrianna Donat L to R: Eden Prager holds freshly-picked spinach, Ameer Azma is getting ready to plant an eggplant seedling and Annelise Salierno with harvested radishes. Photos by Julia Maloof Verderosa. On a Saturday afternoon in Maplewood, the MapleFood Garden in the greenhouses behind Maplewood Town Hall has the pleasant, slightly chaotic, feel of a place where real work is getting done by people who are not too worried about

Local volunteers advocate for youth in crisis By Amy Lynn-Cramer L to R: CASA Essex County board president Neil Yaris, executive director Marla Higginbotham and board member Ed Schwarz. In communities like ours, where daily life moves through school pickups, coffee shop conversations, neighborhood gatherings and familiar routines, children navigating foster care are part of the everyday fabric of community life. One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding foster care is the

Language Matters By Kristen di Gennaro In response to my call for language pet peeves, a reader emailed about the “misuse” of personal pronouns, as in “Me and him went to the circus today.” Noted the reader, “It’s so simple if you remove one of the pronouns and listen to how the revised sentence sounds to your ear.” Indeed, few speakers would say “Me went to the circus” or “Him went to the circus,” so why are some of us OK with “me and him” as a subject in the same context? T

SOMA Tool Share promotes a sharing economy mindset By Ellen Donker L to R: Volunteers organize tools in the storage facility; SOMA Tool Share board members Janet Villano, Dave Helmkamp and Kenny Grossman; more tools! When you become a homeowner it seems like you inherit an endless list of repairs or improvements. Some projects, such as kitchen or bathroom renovations, are best handled by the professionals. But what about items such as adding shelving, cleaning your dryer vent

Strawberry girls: short and sweet By Ilysse Rimalovski Early in June, sweetness is smiling little faces stained with strawberry juice. Strawberry shortcake, the quintessential American pastry layered with whipped cream and sliced berries, is an ode to the start of berry-picking season. The strawberry shortcake that my grandfather knew, plucked from his bakery’s refrigerated display case somewhere in Queens, was tall and fluffy but never tasted as good as it looked. The halved