Holidays

Regardless of how you celebrate end-of-year holidays, food is probably central to your winter festivities. And a trio of spices – cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger – feature in many dishes and drinks and are an unmistakable part of the scent profile we associate with the holiday season. As a plant scientist, I was curious to know how these spices, grown in the tropics, became so closely associated with the Northern Hemisphere’s winter holidays. Just as cranberries’ fall harvest makes them a natural choice for Thanksgiving, I thought that perhaps the seasonality of spice harvest had something to do with their use during the winter months. However, this doesn’t appear to be the case. When it comes to growing spices, producers are playing the long game. Spices are prized commodities that have fueled global trade, exploration and conquest for centuries. Growing holiday spices Take ginger, which features in both sweet a...

Every year, Americans buy somewhere between 35 million and 50 million Christmas trees, and many more pull an artificial tree out of storage for the season. In all, about three-quarters of U.S. households typically have some kind of Christmas tree, surveys show. People often ask which is more sustainable – a real tree or an artificial one? It’s a big debate, and the answer depends on who you ask and which factors you consider. A more useful question is: How do I find the most sustainable tree of the kind I want to get? I’m a forestry professor who works on issues of sustainability. There are advantages and disadvantages to both cut trees and artificial trees. Here are some tips to consider for each. Cut Christmas trees require water and maintenance – and careful thought about disposal. 10'000 Hours/DigitalVision via Getty Images If you’re buying a live Christmas tree W...

For many Americans, pumpkins mean that fall is here. In anticipation, coffee shops, restaurants and grocery stores start their pumpkin flavor promotions in late August, a month before autumn officially begins. And shoppers start buying fresh decorative winter produce, such as pumpkins and turban squash, in the hot, sultry days of late summer. But these fruits – yes, botanically, pumpkins and squash are fruits – don’t last forever. And they may not even make it to Halloween if you buy and carve them too early. As a plant pathologist, gardener and self-described pumpkin fanatic, I have both boldly succeeded and miserably failed at growing, properly carving and keeping these iconic winter squash in their prime through the end of October. Here are some tips that can help your epic carving outlast the Day of the Dead. This jack-o’-lantern carved from a pumpkin with a preexisting fungal disease, southern blight, is sho...