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Up in the northwestern exurbs of New Jersey, and down near the Pinelands, backyard gardens have to be fortresses of fencing and repellants to survive the ravages of deer and assorted hungry critters.

But in the older suburbs in the northeast, where backyard deer are less frequent (although not totally uncommon), gardeners are freer from the constraints and the spring bloom is always visually stunning.

In Montclair, for instance, gardening and landscaping are revered hobbies. Residents swap soil secrets like stock tips.

So it just makes sense that the largest Iris garden in the world is a crowning glory here.

The Presby Memorial Iris Gardens (which celebrated its 80th birthday last year) is in bloom on a gently sloped Upper Montclair hillside. Stop by and you’ll join visitors from as far off as California and Europe.

Organizers call it a “living museum” with thousands of irises — Miniature and Tall, Japanese and Siberian, Heirloom and Contemporary — carefully bedded, tended, and cultivated by legions of volunteers.

Impressionist painter Susan Marx of Orange is one of many artists who visit these gardens with easel and brush, comparing Montclair’s finery to great gardens of the world like Monet’s in Giverny, France. Still photographers wander the flower beds, looking for the most amazing displays of bloom and color.

Don’t wait, the bloom season only lasts to June 8. Bring your camera or your sketch pad and pack a picnic. It’s a great afternoon in the Garden State.

You like bargains, and you like the Shore. So how about bargains at the Shore?

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Ocean Grove hosts one of the largest flea markets on the East Coast this Saturday, with more than 300 vendors selling antiques, collectibles, jewelry and lots other stuff to bargain over. If you can’t make it, maybe you can be at the next edition, the Saturday after Labor Day.

More Shore: the 11th Annual Barnegat Bay Festival in Island Heights on Sunday. Artisans, beach-y gifts, music, food and at the heart of it all exhibits on environmentally responsible ways to enjoy Barnegat Bay. Kayak the local creeks or ride the pontoon boat across the Toms River as naturalists talk about the ecosystem.

Another celebration with water in mind is the Crawfish Festival at the Sussex County Fairgrounds in Augusta, Friday through Sunday. The flavor is Louisiana in Enn-Jay. Music is Zydeco, Cajun, New Orleans R&B and Delta Blues. Food includes fresh boiled crawfish, jambalaya, shrimp creole, fried catfish, grilled alligator sausage.

At Millbrook Village in the Delaware Water Gap National Park, the celebration has to do with history — the history of children playing. On Saturday, volunteers will reenact how kids kept busy in the days before video games and YouTube. Did you ever play marbles, shuttlecock, lawn bowling, horse shoes, ring toss, pick-up sticks, croquet, yo-yos, sack races, ball and jacks, put ‘n take, rope skipping, hopscotch or cup and ball?

A different group of re-enactors will give demonstrations of Civil War military drills and camp life at Long Pond Ironworks in West Milford. Battles by day, campfire in the evening. Friday through Sunday.

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The real, modern day military is putting on a show too on Saturday and Sunday. It’s the 2008 Air Expo at McGuire Air Force Base. The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds are the major attraction. There will also be demonstrations of the F-15 and F-18 fighter jets, and a flyby of the tankers and refuelers from McGuire’s own 305th Air Mobility Wing.

And it’s the first weekend of Mozart in Madison. Amadeus, the play about the young genius Mozart and the older and jealous Salieri takes the stage at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in Madison. Show runs through June 22.

That’s more than you bargained for.

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You need a pretty big frying pan to cook an egg from Fossil Farms in Andover. They weigh three to four pounds, and were laid by ostrich.

Our Garden State is home to the East Coast’s only commercial ostrich farm. Todd Applebaum and his brother Lance have been in the business for about 10 years, selling ostrich meat and fresh eggs to individual consumers and restaurants including Tim Schafer’s in Morristown and the Fromagerie in Rumson, owned by David Burke, one of America’s top chefs.

Todd Applebaum says if you put an ostrich steak next to a beef steak, it’s hard to tell them apart. “You can grill it, you can pan-sear it. You just need to cook it medium to medium rare,” he explains. “Ostrich is a red meat. It tastes like beef but doesn’t have the fat.”

It’s also lower in calories and cholesterol than beef or even chicken and turkey. And Fossil Farm’s ostriches are fed only organic alfalfa and corn.

Right now the farm is busy with the hatching of ostrich chicks. That, plus feeding the rest of the birds, is a seven-day job for Todd. He handles farm chores while Lance manages sales.

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There are about 60 adult ostriches at Fossil Farms. These are huge birds, six to nine feet tall and about 250 pounds. On the plains of their native Africa the ostrich are prey for lions, but here in the rolling hills of northwestern New Jersey coyotes know to stay away from powerful adult birds, Todd says. Coyotes have taken some chicks, though.

The brothers left the construction business to breed ostrich because they wanted to raise something, and learned from the American Ostrich Association that besides providing healthy meat, ostrich need a lot less land than cattle and “one hen will lay 50 eggs,” says Todd. This year, he hopes to bring to market about 800 birds. Not all become food: the Bronx and Philadelphia zoos bought ostriches too.

Fossil Farm also sells more than a dozen other exotic game meats (although it only raises the ostriches): alligator, kangaroo, rattlesnake, yak. Restaurateurs and adventurous members of the public can order at their website, and download recipes like Alligator Marsala and Ostrich Steak with Sun Dried Blueberry Chutney.

Not that adventurous? You can still get organic specialties like kobe beef and Piedmontese beef.

And if you have some extra space, the Applebaum boys will also sell you a live ostrich. Feed it, and they will buy it back from you when it’s all grown up.

You see them on their mountain bikes, speeding downhill on a steep dirt path and you say to yourself, Sure, I could learn to do that.

Then somebody tells you they’re just practicing, and when you make your way to the real competition trail, with 12-foot jumps and boulders that rest on giant headlong slabs of granite, what you say to yourself is, No way a human being can take a bike over that.

But they do. Like one participant noted, “When you watch the top guys, it looks like a video game.”

This past weekend the top guys and gals from all over the world were at the U.S. Open of Mountain Biking, in Diablo Freeride Park, part of the Mountain Creek Ski Resort in Vernon. It is the largest downhill mountain bike event in the United States, with some 550 athletes from 41 states and 15 countries competing for $50,000 in prize money.

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Canadian Steve Smith was the top finisher, racing down the 1,040-foot mountain in 2:36.737, about one second faster than world champion Sam Hill, an Australian. There were also professional women racers competing, and amateur men and women.

Aficionados look up to the big names. But the heart and soul of mountain biking is the amateurs who spend thousands of dollars on equipment and take to the rugged slopes with no realistic shot at beating the pros — but come back and do it again and again, whether in a tournament or just for the fun of it on weekends.

Like David Perry, who has been riding for 10 years but did not make the cut for the finals round. “The World Cup crowd showed up today,” he said. “You get into the Rock Garden section and the rocks get huge…you just can’t flow it. You try to keep up your speed but it just breaks you down every chance it gets.” He was not complaining. He was sweating and smiling with satisfaction. That day, in that little town in Sussex County, he was the center of the mountain biking universe.

You can bring your bike here; Diablo is open for mountain biking until November, when snow arrives and the skiers follow. Start on one of the easier dirt trails if you are new to the sport. Don’t take on the more challenging trails until you are ready. Either way, you’ll enjoy the ride.

You may be reading this from your laptop as you “work from home” this morning at the beach house. Or you may be considering heading down the Shore to soak up the first real sunshine of the season this long weekend. Consider us your guide to the summer season, with plenty of ideas and new sights to keep you busy off the beach.

Atlantic City is popping with new construction; it is re-inventing itself as a destination for everyone, including non-gamblers. You’ll want to make waves at The Water Club, the trendy new hotel about to open adjacent to the Borgata. Designed around a huge spa, the guestrooms are enticing with great views and voluminous showers.

And do not overlook The Pier At Caesars, which is absolutely one of the best shopping centers in the entire state.

For the kids, there’s a new tropical rainforest exhibit at the Atlantic City Aquarium. They’ve got a variety of wildlife from jungles around the globe, and some hands-on freshwater pools for close-up encounters.

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Asbury Park is another Shore town rebuilding itself. Although the spectacular Esperanza condo project was put on hold last winter, beachfront developer Madison Marquette is moving forward. Convention Hall refurbishment continues with the expected opening in the arcade of a new clam bar and the Irish pub Caroline O’Toole’s.

Another Shore restaurants that looks very promising is Gertrude’s in Ventnor. Owner-chef Neil Elsohn used to run the Water’s Edge in Cape May, considered one of the state’s best until it closed in 2003.

Further north you can bet the ponies at the state’s newest Off Track Wagering hotspot in Toms River. Join the crowd at the sports bar and restaurant operated by the McCloone family, just in time for the Belmont Stakes.

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Back down south, Cape May’s touristy Washington Street Mall has a $4.5 million facelift that should impress even the seasoned veterans of this Victorian resort. The official ribbon cutting is June 21, but you can enjoy it now. And the town’s classic beachfront movie theatre — a rainy day tradition — has a new interior.

But let us hope for not too many rainy weekends this summer. We are taking a long weekend, and will not publish Monday. But we will be back in your mailbox Tuesday.

It’s Memorial Day weekend, and all of New Jersey is heading down the Shore. Or are we?

Some of us will be shopping. Up in Sussex County the specialty shops of rural Lafayette Village are having their annual Memorial Day event, which this years includes a sale of heirloom tomato plants. In Central New Jersey, the outlets in Flemington are having a sidewalk sale. And in South Jersey, cool Collingswood has its 29th annual May Fair on Saturday, with music and art exhibits along Haddon Ave.

Some of us will be spectators. Saturday is opening day for the Cowtown Rodeo down in Pilesgrove — it’s New Jersey’s own Western-style professional rodeo with cowboys and bucking broncos. Or you can watch professional cyclists: the four-day Tour of Somerville Cycling Series, first held in 1940, is one of the top competitive cycling events in the country; it gets off tomorrow and culminates Monday with a 50-mile race through town.

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It’s also a big weekend for a another kind of bicycling, with the U.S. Open of Mountain Biking at Diablo Free Ride Park, part of the Mountain Creek Resort in Vernon, Friday through Sunday. Last year, nearly 450 racers from seven different countries and 37 different states competed.

Maybe you just want to relax. One place to do that is at the Blues and Wine Festival sponsored by the Garden State Wine Growers Association Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. at Natirar Park, in the Somerset hills. There will be hundreds of bottlings to taste from New Jersey wineries, a live blues bands, artisan vendors, gourmet food and kids’ activities.

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You can do good, too, this weekend. On Saturday starting at noon The Glen Rock Poverty Project is holding a Water for Africa Festival at Wilde Memorial Park. There will be music, fair trade shopping, games and educational activities to raise funds to buy PlayPumps, devices that double as a water pump and a merry-go-round for children (top picture). Organizers hope to provide 12,000 people with clean water, a precious commodity in Africa.

Water is precious in here, too, specially when it comes to our very own Jersey Shore. The Shore is more than the beach, of course — and this weekend just about every restaurant or shop that had not opened yet will open. It’s summer, starting now. Look for our NJ My Way story tomorrow with a rundown of what’s new and what’s hot at the Shore.

Also, our partners at New Jersey Monthly are out with their annual Shore issue, which includes two features by our own NJ My Way editor in chief. He spent time running around the Shore, finding the last of the secluded beaches in New Jersey, and then went looking for what people who in the 1980s hung out in classic twenty-something Shore bars like The Osprey are doing on their Shore vacations now that they are fifty-something.

He cannot believe he gets paid for doing this.

By Daniel Santacruz

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You get your bagel with a schmear, but also Salmon Japonico with caramelized miso glaze and grilled vegetables.

Where? On what once was an insignificant street on the west side of Teaneck. The neighborhood centered on West Englewood Avenue, including Palisade Avenue and Queen Ann Road, is home to kosher restaurants and food stores that range from homey to upscale. And from inexpensive to unexpected.

There’s cheap sandwiches from Chickies. Want Chinese take-out? Go to Chopstix. Burgers and steaks? Try Dougies BBQ.

In the unexpected category, there’s sushi and Japanese grilled fish at Sushi Metsuyan, plus shish kebab and ghorme sabz, an Iranian stew, at Royal Persian Grill (201) 833-1555).

If you just want bagels or candy, stop at Poppy’s Bagels TCBY (201-862-0800) or World of Goodies (201 833-9950). For fresh fruit and vegetables, across the street from Chopstix is Big Apple Farm (201 833-1214), the Korean-owned kosher greengrocer.

If you are looking for an intimate place that serves pasta and fish, try Rabica (201 837-7558). Or, around the corner on Palisade Avenue, you’ll find The Pasta Factory, an upscale restaurant that specializes in fish, vegetarian, dairy and pasta dishes.

At the end of the summer you’ll be able to eat at the first kosher Subway restaurant in Bergen County, scheduled to open next door to The Pasta Factory.

Check out Teaneck Deals for coupons and menus for restaurants without websites.

The first kosher restaurant on West Englewood, Chopstix, opened in January of 1997, at a time when the vacancy rate on the street was 40 percent. “It was an untapped resource with plenty of parking,” said Elie Katz, Chopstix owner.

Other restaurants followed, offering an alternative to older establishments on Cedar Lane, Teaneck’s main thoroughfare, a mile-and-a-half away.

These establishments are under the supervision of the Rabbinical Council of Bergen County, which has a list of kosher restaurants and food stores in Bergen. But the restaurants are not only for observant Jews. You can find people from different cultures and religions eating there, Katz says, from all over the tri-state area.

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This Thursday at 8 p.m. NJ My Way teams up with Emmy Award-winning anchor Steve Adubato for a new edition of Corzine on the Line, a one-hour interactive program that lets the citizens of New Jersey directly question the governor about the most pressing problems facing the state.

NJ My Way subscribers, and visitors to our website, can submit email questions by clicking here. The program’s producers will pick the “toughest, most relevant” questions to ask the governor live on the air, Steve said.

In northern New Jersey the program airs on WNET, channel 13, and on WBGO Jazz 88.3 radio. In South Jersey, it’s WHYY, channel 12, and sister radio station 91 FM. You can also listen online at www.nj.com.

With the state budget crunch, there is no shortage of issues to ask the governor. “People don’t talk about the debt, but about the impact of decisions made because of the 36 billion dollar hole,” Steve told us.

“They are concerned that property taxes are going up because state aid to the cities is flat. They are going to want to know which state parks are going to open and which are going to close. They are going to have questions about college tuition because state aid to higher education was slashed. They are going to ask about hospitals in urban areas closing because state aid for charity care is being cut by hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The program will feature about a dozen emails and another dozen phone calls. During the last edition of Corzine on the Line, producers received some 700 emails. But readers of NJ My Way can expect a response even if their question is not read on air — after the previous show, the governor’s staff replied to everybody who wrote in.

“It is very exciting in this in age of Internet-dominated politics to be able to use the technology as a tool to make democracy work a little better,” said Steve. “The NJ My Way partnership is a very good thing because there’s a whole new group of people engaged with the site who might not know we have the governor and can now participate.”

Submit your question. Let our top elected official know what you think, whether he likes it or not.

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I am at the Osprey, Manasquan’s quintessential Shore bar for beautiful twenty-somethings, except that tonight most people here have not been twenty-something for two decades. I came with Pat, one of my college fraternity brothers who hung out at the Osprey the first few summers after graduation, all those years ago.

What brought us back is Salvation, the band that in the late 1970s and early 1980s packed the house with young men and women singing, sweating, drinking and, like Springsteen sings, Growin’ up.

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Actually, it’s not the real Salvation; the band, two of whose members died, is down to brass player and singer Denis Qulligan in a one-man show to benefit Special Olympics. It’s not the real Osprey, either, not with this middle-aged audience.

Last summer Pat and I stopped in on a night with the regular crowd, my first visit since 1982.

Some things had changed. The “World’s Longest Bar” was gone, replaced by smaller ones. The crowd seemed dressier than in the days when we walked in off the beach, bathing suit and sandals. These twenty-somethings also seemed more responsible. When we frequented the Osprey it was, let us say, the pre-drunk-driving-awareness era. Now, limos and taxis park on Main Street, waiting to take revelers home.

But the essential does not change. Young men still lean on the bar, drink in hand, eyeing the groups of young women.

I interview Kristen, from Morristown, who says her parents met at the Osprey 33 summers earlier. Another young lady in a tight blue dress takes the dance floor. She is a show stopper. Before long, the whole club is looking at her.

When the song ends, I go over and tell her I am writing an article about the Osprey. The music makes it hard to hear. She takes my reporter’s notebook and scribbles, “Carolyn.” From Cherry Hill, she says, 25 years old. Then Carolyn writes, pretty explicitly, what she really wants tonight.

I’m flattering myself to think she is interested. Still, it feels good. But Pat and I are twice her age, and we leave early. Walking to the car, we talk about the uncertainties of health after 50. “We’re at the age where anything can happen,” Pat says. He is graying, as am I. But his eyes still have that mischievous twinkle.

We also leave the Denis Quilligan benefit early, and go eat. These days nothing is more enjoyable than dinner with the wife and kids. Pat and I laugh about Carolyn’s note: a beautiful blonde writes sexual suggestions — but I leave the Osprey that day feeling sorry for the poor father who has no idea his daughter is flirting with a 52-year old guy.

We are all grown up. Now we are just trying to put off growing old.

A personal essay by NJMyWay editor Roger E. Hernández

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It’s a tough economy. But New Jerseyans are a tough bunch. So Tuesday and Wednesday the state’s business leaders will show why they believe the Garden State is still a good place for business, even with gas prices up and home prices down.

More than 150 exhibitors from nearly every industry in the state will be at the NJ Biz Expo ‘08, a two-day business-to-business gathering at the New Jersey Convention and Expo Center in Edison, sponsored by NJ Biz magazine.

“Attendees get to spend time meeting exhibitors, and exhibitors get the opportunity to meet potential business partners,” says Tom Curtin, who a month ago was named publisher of NJ Biz after coming here from the trade publication American Banker. “It’s definitely a challenging time, a lot of companies are leaving New Jersey. But there is still a vibrant business community and what we aim to do is bring it together at the meeting…small and mid-sized businesses can learn how others are doing it.”

In addition to the exhibitors, NJ Biz Expo will feature speakers and workshops. CNN anchor Lou Dobbs will talk about “The Political Economy” at the Monday breakfast. At lunch the same day, Steve Adubato, author, motivational speaker and Emmy-winning host of Caucus and One-on-One, broadcast on public television and cable networks, will speak on “Making the Connection.”

Tuesday there will be “Get Motivated” seminars presented by Giants quarterback Eli Manning and Giants head coach Tom Coughlin. They might know a little about motivation after winning the Super Bowl last winter.

Admission is free to the exhibition hall with a business card. But you have to pay to hear the speakers and seminars. There’s a full schedule on the Expo website.

It’s prime networking opportunity. In a slow economy who you know may make all the difference!