Garden Detective
Jessica Damiano's award-winning garden blog gets to the root of things.
Jessica Damiano
Jessica Damiano is a journalist with more than 20 years experience in radio, television, print and online media.
She has worked on Newsday's interactive endeavors since 1994, and currently is senior editor of Newsday's ExploreLI.com website.
Jessica, who has trained as a Master Gardener, enjoys toiling in her garden -- an ongoing work in progress -- and helping local gardeners solve their horticultural problems in her column, Garden Detective, which appears every Sunday in Newsday.
The Garden Detective blog was awarded a 2008 Press Club of Long Island Society of Professional Journalists Online Features Reporting Award.
Jessica lives in Nassau County with her husband John, daughters Justine and Julia, dogs Maddie and Mikey, and a whole bunch of perennials, vegetable plants and weeds.
Get ready for the 2013 Great Long Island Tomato Challenge
Photo credit: Nicole Horton
It’s time to prepare for the 7th annual Great Long Island Tomato Challenge! This year’s contest will be held at 7 p.m. on Aug. 23 at Newsday headquarters (235 Pinelawn Rd., Melville.)
Give your plants plenty of tender loving care all summer long, then bring your biggest, heaviest ripe fruit to the event. I’ll weigh your tomatoes personally and crown the 2013 Tomato King or Queen.
The...
Read more »Correcting Sandy damage in the garden
Photo credit: Nick Spangler
Many on Long Island whose gardens were flooded by superstorm Sandy are wondering whether it’s safe to eat vegetables grown in soil contaminated by water that not only contained salt but might have transported chemicals, bacteria and other pathogens to their gardens. Others fear plants may not grow there at all.
Both concerns are valid, but the situation is not hopeless: In the months since...
Read more »Brood II cicadas on the way; protect new trees and pets
Photo credit: AP
Ever notice how most years, you only see a few cicadas, and you don't hear them chirping all that much? And then other years you find their discarded exoskeletons on everything from gas grills and swing sets to front doors and mailboxes? Ever notice how those are the years when it sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock movie outside your window every night around Memorial Day?
That's because after...
Read more »
