The View From Wilder Hill

Lilian Jackman, owner, grower and general factotum of Wilder Hill Gardens, invited me over to see the late summer garden. I found her at her shady potting bench, situated so that she could keep working in the heat of the day. I admired the thought that went into the design and siting of the potting bench, but did not feel up to the concept of working all morning, having a little lunch and digesting time and then setting out to work in the heat of the day. “When do you rest?” I asked, but she assured me she had all winter to rest. Knowing Lilian I doubt that this is the truth.

Lilian grows and sells plants at Wilder Hill Gardens. She has recently been adding shrubs and trees to the perennials she has been selling for a number of years. Before I left I had to buy a pot of northern sea oats, a fountain juniper, a pot of artemesia lactiflora and I even took a flyer on the beautiful blue caryopteris which might survive at least a winter or three now that the winters seem a bit milder. These will surround the sourwood tree I just planted.

A walk along the sunny to shady border shows what beauty and structure shrubs bring to a garden.
Most of the garden is sunny with lots of space given over to a cutting garden to provide the flowers that Lilian sells at the Ashfield Farmers Market and for the arrangements she makes for weddings and other events. Right now the State Fair zinnias are in full bloom – along with sunflowers, white David phlox, rudbekia and asters. Lilian’s advice about buying annual plants in the spring is to avoid anything in bloom. “By the time it blooms it is ready to die, which it will then do in my garden,” she said. She also pointed out that if you want to cut flowers for bouquets you want tall flowers. State Fair zinnias are one of her favorites.

Her customers love the red State Fair zinnias best of all. Not hard to understand. Red is my favorite color, too.
There are some real showstoppers in her garden. This castor bean plant, a tender perennial, grows next to her chicken house door.

The rest of the chicken house border continues in a riotous manner, zinnias, hollyhocks, sunflowers, asters and a tangle of morning glories that stayed awake, just for us I am sure.

Have I mentioned that Lilian has gorgeous soil, carefully built and cultivated, the secret of her success?

This is just a sampling of the 2 acres she has under cultivation. The newest project is a half acre of pick your own blueberries. “This is my retirement plan,” she said with a smile. “I’ll sit here when I’m old and greet people when they come to pick the berries. They’ll do the harvest, and bring me a few vegetables and all the town gossip while I sit in the shade”.

The Sourwood Is Finally Planted

Earlier this summer I bought this sourwood tree at the New England Wildflower Society’s (NEWFS) nursery at Nasami Farm. It was an impulse purchase, but I was sure we would find a place for it. No brilliant ideas until a couple of weeks ago when we decided that our ornamental plum is diseased and needs to be taken out. The sourwood would be a perfect replacement, but it meant breaking sod and enlarging the Lawn Bed to give this spready native tree sufficient room.

No time for sod breaking, but yesterday I had access to a strong young man with a need for some extra cash. He broke the sod. We planted the tree in the shade of the plum which we’ll take out when we decide we can give up its shade this fall.

Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum) will slowly grow no taller than 30 feet, according to NEWFS. It is hardy in zones 4 to 9 and is not much bothered by pest or disease. It does have tiny florets, similar to lily of the valley, in midsummer, and is noted for its showy autumn color. We have planted it in full sun (once the plum is gone) and will keep it well watered until fall. We were astounded to see how dry the soil was even though we have had a good amount of rain this summer. Not for the past couple of weeks though.

There is a substantial pile of sod to deal with. My young man is gone, but I can handle it once I decide how to compost it. In a pile of its own covered with black plastic? Or shall I use it in a lasagna bed to extend the vegetable garden enough to give myself adequate paths?

Eating the Blues Away

One of the many joys of blueberries is that they don’t have to be picked the instant they are ripe. We’ve been picking since early this month, but there was something of a hiatus during the days of the Heath Fair, and immediately after. It takes us a while to recover from the Fair, but since we are regaining our energy my husband joined me at the blueberry patch yesterday where the berries hang thickly, all big and blue.

In about 20 minutes we picked over two quarts. Most of them went into the freezer, but some have been kept for blueberry muffins and other berry treats. This morning, on my way to the Heath Free Public Library where I use the high speed internet, I met my neighbor who was putting out quart baskets of peaches, fresh from his fairly new orchard. I can’t get over people who are able to grow peaches in our climate, but have no desire to emulate him at this point. I bought a quart and tonight we’ll have peach-blueberry crumble. Hardly any work, very nutritious, and totally delicious.

International Kitchen Garden Day

I’m celebrating International Kitchen Garden Day, August 24, by picking beans in my garden and then eating them. The celebration would be even more festive if I had a ripe tomato but up here in the higher elevations there is no such thing. Yet.

It is a sad comment on our times that there has to be an organization to encourage people to plant a little kitchen garden so they can enjoy many days of harvesting food, grown with their own labor and the blessings of sun and rain, and then entertaining their friends over a delicious meal.

Kitchen Garden Day was invented by the people at Kitchen Gardeners International who are connecting people who grow some of their own food all around the world. I know I have always felt connected to the people who have farmed and gardened through the ages, my Swedish and Italian forbears among them, but in spite of having those Swedish and Italian forbears it never occurred to me to identify myself with all those Swedes and Italians currently taking shovel and seeds out to the garden. And on a hot day like today I should certainly be able to imagine myself out under the Puglian sun.

Fortunately, the new technologies are helping us all to connect with like minded folk everywhere. Maybe they will even connect us with a presidential food garden. Wouldn’t that be something!

In the meantime, there are few delights to compare with picking succulent lettuces for my salads, unbruised raspberries, crisp haricot verts, fragrant dill, juicy tomatoes of every hue (eventually), petite courgettes and lovely blueberries. This is my daily kitchen garden celebration.

Annie Cheatam

Pam Porter (R), co-president of the Heath Agricultural Society, arranged for Annie Cheatam (L) to come to the Heath Fair and talk about local agriculture. As the former owner of a garden center, and most recently retired after 9 years as the Director of Community Involved in Sustainable Agriculture (CISA) Annie knows a lot about local farms, local gardens, local gardeners and farmers and what they, we, and our communities are doing and what we need.

CISA developed the Local Hero project, that highlights local growers and agricultural producers, and the consumers who support them. That has been a very successful program, supporting local farms, farmer’s markets, farmstands and stores that sell local produce. It has also helped to get local produce into local schools and hospitals and business cafeterias.

But CISA does more than promote the use of local products. One of its initiatives is to work with local communities to build a local agricultural infrastructure including dairy processessing, cheesemaking, wool processing and slaughter houses. This sometimes includes working to change local regulations.

I have seen local resistance to building a small animal slaughterhouse locally and I think that resistance hasn’t thought the issue through. I doublt that many of the people who don’t want a slaughterhouse are vegetarians. If we are going to eat meat, we each have to take responsibility for the death of those animals, doing it as humanely as possible.

A local slaughterhouse makes it easier for us to eat local meat, beef, pork and poultry, that we know has been raised in a healthful humane way. It would also make it easier for some of us to raise our own meat animals. We raise meat chickens and have slaughtered them ourselves, but it is hard time consuming work. Now we take them to a part-time operation, but it means at least a 50 mile drive each way. It is getting harder and harder to do this, and we still have to prepare the chickens for freezing when we get them home.

There is a rumor going round that someone is trying to set up a mobile poulty slaughtering house, a trailer that could travel from town to town, or central locations so that people who raise their own chickens and turkeys could bring them in and have access to a humane killing system, as well as efficient plucking and quick cooling. With a small operation like this the waste could be sensibly disposed of. I hope this is a good rumor. I would take advantage of such an operation.

A slaughterhouse doesn’t need to be any more visible to the community at large than any other business. Properly run it doesn’t need to present any unpleasant smells or sights. A slaughterhouse is a part of our agricultural production. How much better for the animals, the farmers, the consumers and the environment to have it operated on an appropriate scale right in our own backyard.

A Double Celebration

The Exhibit Hall with its displays of sewing, knitting, canning, baking, quilting, flowers, vegetables, fruits and assorted collections is a center of activity all through Heath Fair days. These exhibits are one of the ways that we celebrate life in our town, the skills of the residents, the creativity and purposfulness of our children, the fertility and beauty of our landscape, and our devotion to the town and its institutions and organizations. The grandsons and I won lots of prizes – for art, knitting, cookies, leaf prints, and maple cake. It came as a surprise to some that you could win a $3 First Prize. There may be even more exhibits next year.

As vice-president of the Friends of the Heath Free Public Library I spend a lot of time working at or visiting at the Book Sale tent. This is our big fund raiser for the year and this year, we almost doubled our take. This was good for the exchequer, but also good because we passed along many many good books on to happy readers.

The Elementary School also had a fund raising booth with children’s games, a raffle and a dunking booth. The volunteer fire department puts on a chicken barbecue both days with homemade root beer! And the Agricultural Society itself sells food including homemade pie, a la mode if you wish, all through the fair.

Mechanical rides will no longer come to our tiny fair so we have returned to those simpler attractions – watermelon eating contest, blueberry pie eating contest, and a big pile of sand for the youngest fair goers to play in.

Slightly older fair goers found delight in Shenandoah’s Hoopla Hoops. Thirteen year old granddaughter Colleen kept 2 hoops going. Who needs a Ferris wheel?

But this year we didn’t only have Fair festivities. My brother Tony was celebrating his 65th birthday and all our children and grandchildren got to celebrate with him.

Here is my brother the lawyer reading the tiniest contract as put together by daughter Diane. She made the kingly birthday crown but we all placed birthday wishes on the Wishing Wand in the background.

This is the second birthday celebration the Cottage Ornee has seen this year. Lucky cottage. Lucky us to have so much to celebrate at the Heath Fair.

Do You See the Problem?

A Perfect End. . . .

A perfect end to a perfect week with grandson Tynan Matthews. Even the heavens put on a farewell show his last night in Heath.

The weather has been tropical with storms almost every day. Will we ever be able to mow the lawn again?

Happily it doesn’t take good weather to have a good time.

We went to Mass MoCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) and saw lots of Badlands exhibits about the depredations of Man and Nature of the landscape, but this exhibit by Vaughn Bell is titled Personal Home Biospheres. They are natural environments in a plexiglass dome that you can put your head inside. Little stools are provided for young people. Tynan said they smelled really good inside.

After we enjoyed lots of Art and supported Mass MoCA by buying a big fancy chocolate bar, we were off to the Heritage Park where they have exhibits all about the Hoosac Tunnel, a 5 mile railroad tunnel straight through Hoosac Mountain. It was finished in 1877. Some people in our area used to take the train from Charlemont, through the tunnel, to North Adams to go to high school. Ty and the Major really liked the model of the tunnel and its entry into North Adams.

Tynan returns to his house today, but he’ll be back with Everyone for the Heath Fair!

Boy Number 4

Tynan Matthews arrived for his turn at End of the Road Farm. Anthony and Drew took him out into the field to show him the tree fort. Tynan made himself right at home.

Of course, Tynan wanted to do everything the other boys did. He made chocolate chip cookies. Why is it that boys always want to bake chocolate chip cookies. Ty made one that was six inches across. We ate it so fast we didn’t even get a photo.

There were also chores. The other boys left (but will return for the Heath Fair) and Ty has to take over the chores, like feeding the worms. They like apple peels and cores, and they require crushed egg shells. Did you know that worms need grit to digest their food? Egg shells give them grit AND the calcium carbonate that is necessary for them to reproduce. Our 1000 worm population should double in 3 months.
Right now it is raining and pouring so we are off to Mass MoCa (Museum of Contemporary Art) in North Adams. Tynan wants to see those upside down paintings made from spools of thread.