she can afford all the garden help she needs, and can play/putter in it when she chooses. i used to garden for folk who did such - i enjoyed doing all their dirty work and planting at 12-15.00 per hour, so they could come on the weekend when not working to harvest in "their" gardens!! Such a deal for me.
still Glad

You are just a cynic, Ruthie. You know that she was bound to learn a lot in prison about keeping things clean and orderly ! ! ":^)

Maybe we need a Reality T.V. program called Ruthie's garden, kinda like the survivor or fear factor ones. For the brave at heart, we could have them crawl up and down the rows in the blazing sun without any sunscreen (that would probably mess up their manicures too, or even break a nail), and for the fearless maybe come up with a plate of big gooshey horn worms and stink bugs for them to eat.

Bottom line, I would bet that there is a lot of "staging" before rolling the cameras, cause everyone can not stay as neat, clean, cool and composed as Martha and I do. ":^)
Just my thoughts. If she really has a garden, they probably let the hired help tend to it, wonder if they are migrant workers.
Bill P.

Well, in her garden book, she talks about working out in the garden sometimes at 5:30 in the morning. She admits to having help, which at her old Connecticut property would have been essential, with all the book photos and TV shots (she shot her old TV show from a barn/studio on her property). Some of the pics in her garden book show ground-in dirt on her knees.

Not to hijack this thread into celebrity gossip, but whatever you may think about Martha Stewart, at least she took her jail time with some semblance of grace.

I know that after a weekend of gardening and yard work, I am definitely grungy and sweaty. And I have little tanned dirty circles on the tops of my feet from my holey shoes.

I have to agree with that one...she took the punishment and took it head on ...no whinging or groaning and moaning...I was just kidding really about MS...truth is..if I had a gazillion dollars, I'd have lots of help too...

I have to chime in on this one.....I think everyone likes to dish MS cause she's such an easy target and makes everything look so darn easy and fun....but given all the money in the world, I would still want to tend my flower beds and veggie garden, may be just have the hired help till it up but that is about it.... :)

LOL, it must be a "GOOD" thing. Gee does she still say that anymore? I don't watch her shows anymore, so I really don't know. LOL
Alberta

She's never said she doesn't have help. She was a gardener long before she was accused of something many males in business do everyday. Even those who didn't like her before admitted she was being targeted unfairly. I have no doubt she works in her garden on a regular basis. She loves it and is extremely knowledgeable in the area of horticulture.

If every one of us humans were defined by one very negative even in our lives, none of us would like any human. I've learned more from Martha than I have just about anyone else about a wide range of topics at more than a simple level and I can't say this for anyone else.

Cheers Martha!

Well I use to subscribe to Her magazine and I never found any thing very useful in it. Beautiful pictures and that was it..so I cancelled my subscrip...but that is just me.

Actually, I was kidding too. I also admire her for doing her time, and think that there are many, many more that deserved it a lot more than she did. She has taken a lot of kidding as well as abuse probably but came through it on top. She may be worth more now than she was before all this came up and someone decided to make an example of her. I took Ruthie's thread as kinda light hearted tongue in cheek and basically kidding from the beginning.

I will have to say that I could vote for her as president easier than I could most of the other candidates, with the possible exception of my Law and Order guy. I am Bill P. and I authorized this statement.

My statement was as you detected made in jest mostly because I always come to the house looking so pathetic and dirty ...hot...sweaty...but then I live, work...that means garden...in Texas where summer is one notch below hades...Bill..you are so much fun to have around....I hope you know how much you mean to this forum....

My fingernails are permanently stained black, and are butt-ugly, even though I use gloves (how does THAT happen?). And although I think MS gets down and dirty in her garden, does the fact that I've never seen her with black fingernails mean she doesn't work as hard as I do? I think it means she works harder..... I can just picture her scouring the continents for the most useful gardening glove, discovering one made in Bora Bora, and adding a simple seam to them with her sewing machine so that she can use the gloves to sow fine seeds as well as prune thick blackberry patches without getting a molecule of soil under the nails. She is very funny sometimes.

lelia,

What type of garden gloves do you use? FYI, my favorite tried and true secret to keeping nice, clean hands, fingers and nails as a gardener is to use Noxema cold cream to clean them (with the help of a nail brush). I actually don't use it on my face, only my hands. It's the one thing I've found that actually works.

Never in a million years would I have thought of Noxema! Will get some for sure, thanks. My gloves are West-something. West Country, maybe? Mail-order is probably what I'll have to do.

Shoot, if I had her money my garden would be big and spotless too, because I could devote all my time to it. :)

The only help I would need is a young, tanned poolboy names Hanz *grin*

I have to add something too!! I beleive she does have a true and sincere love of gardening. I saw her interviewed before she went to jail, she had decided to go ahead and do her time so she could be out by March because of her vegetable garden. I respected that.

Who is Martha Stewart?

I will start read MS's magazine again when she is on the cover with as good as a "gardener's tan" as I have. It's like a farmers tan, but better, cuz I wear gardening gloves...It's so cute, I see people staring at me in public sometimes, just wondering how it happened.

This is a funny thread.......when I come in from gardening and look in the mirror on the back porch, sometimes I thank God no one stopped by to see me! I am not a pretty picture and I always manage to get dirt on my face...

I think I have read that Martha's dad was a big gardener and they canned lots or all of their food and were made to work in the garden (as was I). I do admire her but always am amused at all the gardening shows where the ladies are wearing large lovely straw hats and simple little cotton shifts or khaki shorts and tees.......not a scene you will find in my yard and garden.

I liked her old TV show, but hated her Yuppie magazine.

My hands are always protected by Atlas gloves and a kind that violet recommended (I probably forgot to thank you violet) at our local farm supply store by Kinco for $2.95 which are a bit more heavy-duty. Hats make me crazy.

I do gloves most of the time because I got stung last year by some undiscovered critter..probably a scorpion or spider....and have several pair depending on the job I am doing...I always wear a hat too....a big wide brimmed straw...I did a lot of radiation and for some reason since then I can't stand the sun on my skin...

I had this sort of thought on Sunday as I was weeding the strawberry patch in 90 degree heat and I was sweating so badly that I kept slipping off the foam rubber kneeler.

Only I was thinking of all the lovely illustration art from the cover of the 1932 Planet Jr catalog of the housewife who looks so fresh and happy in her yellow dress holding her bushel basket full of veggies.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:65540}}

I came to work at the office with my fingers all stained from our red clay, grass juice from fixing the lawn mower, and with black/purple from deadheading daylilies. My business manager suggested I dip my fingers in bleach. I suppose Martha might use Clorox? I think I would rather soak in Palmolive. Will try Noxema next time.

I buy MS Living occasionally at the magazine counter. I actually bought one where EVERY article was interesting to me.

lelia,

I find West County Gloves good for landscaping with materials other than plants.

I highly recommend with confidence Atlas Gloves and I explain why here. I'm pretty sure that if you start using this glove, you'll find your hands are more clean in general, relatively speaking.

Martha might get just as grungey as the rest of us, but she has a team of people to do her hair and manicure her nails.

I have a brush and a nail clipper. That's it.

It amused me, though, that she got into trouble in jail for picking crabapples off the trees in prison. She used them for crabapple jam.

Now that is SO Martha Stewart!