Last night the Heath Gourmet Club celebrated its 27th Anniversary – 27 years of serving ourselves really good food, lots of it very local. I made an apple tart with homemade applesauce from our own not very beautiful apples spiced with Calvados and topped with thin slices of Cortland apples from a new orchard in town. There used to be a number of orchards in Heath and the remnants are to be found everywhere, including our own fields where the deer happily feast.
Here we are at dinner (most of us are in the
picture). For appetizers Sheila (barely in the frame on the left) who milks three goats made goat milk cheddar, marinated
chevre, and fried goat
mozzerella sticks along with mustard pickle. You should see Sheila’s cheese cave! Liz (final cook on the right) made a pear salad using her own pears. Our host Paul at the end of the table made a steak pudding with Stilton pastry in individual dishes. (We had leftovers for lunch today.) And then apple tart with whipped cream.
We used to stay up late, but after 27 years we are all ready to roll home by 10.
While browsing through the garden blogs this rainy morning I came upon the Human Flower Project and this recent post about the Books in Bloom garden created by St. Michael’s College (Burlington, VT) education professor Valerie Bang-Jensen and biologist Mark Lubkowitch and their students. All the plants in the garden have a connection to a children’s book. There are lupines for Miss Rumphius, poppies for the Wizard of Oz and blueberries for Blueberries for Sal.
Of course, there are more modern books referenced in the garden. Guess what Harry Potter plants are included? Aunt Petunia and the family live on Privet Lane.
This is one of the teaching gardens on campus as part of their trans-disciplinary learning approach. To me it was just another reminder of how many paths there are in the garden, leading through the pages of literature, history, science and almost any discipline you can think of. No wonder gardeners are readers.
We have finally begun mopping up after spending the summer putting a new cement foundation under the eastern end of our house and installing a new heating system. We hope we’ll be a little warmer and dryer this winter.
This stone retaining wall, one of two, is the attractive bonus of the project. The thicket of blackberries, invasive pasture roses, asters, weed trees and goldenrod has been removed so that we can have access to the new basement wall and door. Yesterday I moved 6 wheelbarrows full of compost to the narrow area between the old white lilacs (greatly thinned) and the top of the stone wall to make a reasonable planting bed for purple Siberian irises that were in great need of thinning.
The irises are the first step in replanting what seems like acres of excavation. Fortunately the timing is pretty good. Fall is the perfect time for seeding a new lawn. It is also time to divide the perennials who will be needing a new space to flourish. It’s a good thing I got 4 yards of beautiful compost from Bear Path Farm. We need lots of soil improvement.
My autumn crocus (Colchicum) is blooming at the foot of my wisteria. I cleared away the lemon balm that had totally overrun that area. Autumn crocus, sometimes called Naked Ladies, send up their blossoms in the fall with no stem or foliage, hence their naughty common name. The leaves come up in the spring; the bulbs can be transplanted in late summer when the foliage starts to fade.
I intended to move the bulbs where they could be more appreciated. But I missed my chance. Next year. I hope.
This is our old stove, a Magic Chef c.1930s. It was in our old farmhouse when we bought it, and I used it for the first couple of years. It only has three working burners, but the oven worked and as the cook I was happy. But we worked on the house and moved the kitchen space and I got a modern stove. After renovating the old kitchen space (some years later) the old stove was moved and currently resides against my kitchen sink, no longer functional except as a horizontal space to put things.
One recent morning I came down to find a spider web covering the old oven outlet and attached to a mason jar on the sink drainboard. There was an odd hole/tunnel in the web, unlike anything I had ever seen.
After consulting an old children’s paperback about spiders, and the Wikipedia, I determined that the web was spun by Tegenaria domestica or the barn funnel weaver spider. We have seen the spider come up to the top of the stove pipe, but it is very shy and retreats quickly. I guess its’ web has been successful because it has been a week now and the spider is still lively.
I did give the web a swipe, but it was rebuilt the next morning. This spider is active at night. What to do? Getting rid of the web means getting rid of the spider, and that means cleaning out the oven. Hmmmm.
By the way, the stove is for sale. The enamelwork is in excellent shape. Anyone interested?
There was a serious frost warning last night but the temperature was 36 degrees when we woke. Not even the basil was nipped.
However, it seems that it is only prudent to give the houseplants that have been vacationing on the piazza an insnpection for disease or pests, a watering and a good shower. This task done they are certified safe and I bring them back into the house.
The census this year is a giant jade plant, a jasmine, a maidenhair fern, two scented geraniums, three Christmas cactus, a cyclamen, an angelwing begonia and a sad looking spider plant. I also brought in the fuschia because it is still blooming. We’ll see how long it lasts inside. Most of the plants are in our Great Room which is very bright with big south and west windows, but rarely heated. I can vouch that it never goes below freezing and on days when it is sunny it gets up to 60 degrees even in coldest winter. The jasmine always looks dead by the end of the winter, but with longer days it dependably sends out new shoots. All the others don’t seem to mind the cold. Or temperature shifts.
It’s Dahlia Season! So far, only three of my dahlias are blooming (I got 2 of the tubers in very very late) but they suggest to me that what I am developing is a garden that is full of bloom in June with our ‘famous’ Rose Walk and rose collection, the peony border and a few other spring perennials, and then not too much bloom until the fall. This is a concept I will try and build on. Patty Cake, above, is a very pretty pinky-apricot that has been producing flowers for the house for about three weeks.
Funny Face has gotten lots of comments for the brilliant color and splotching.
I really do love the pink-cream-yellow combination of Foxy Lady. Those colors are the reason why I love the Abraham Darby rose. Here Foxy Lady is growing slightly tangled up with a purple aster and a pink yarrow. All my dahlias are from
Swan Island Dahlias.
Of course, it is aster season and who could live without the dependable and beautiful Alma Potschke? I think it will be time to divide her in the spring, but the big clump is so beautiful and artless.
This is the circle garden in the middle of the lawn, on an axis (kind of) with the wide path that separates the two Lawn Beds. It is there because there is a big boulder in the middle of the lawn that is a problem for lawn mowers. I keep adding compost every year so it does grow flowers without too much trouble. I’ve done different things, but I really like the circle of zinnias this year. I think I will make the circle a little bigger next year and do zinnias again. As I said, building on the idea of late summer/autumn bloom. The bird bath in the center was a gift, as was the metal sculpture of the praying mantis. I don’t have too many ornaments in the garden, but these were perfect additions to the zinnias.
I can’t really take credit for these plants, blooming when I put them in the new bed, but I’m happy to have them as place holders. The small plant between the yellow mum and purple aster is a caryopteris. I am visualizing the way it will look next year, more abundance and more late summer blue.
Other plants in bloom right now include an annual salvia, and a perennial salvia, chelone, autumn clematis, potentilla, cranesbill and even a few stray rose blossoms: Betty Prior, Double Knockout Red, and a red and a white Meideland landscape rose.
Squash blossoms still. Do they count? What about the the marigolds in the vegetable garden? And I mustn’t forget – a few sweet peas are still blooming on the vegetable garden fence.
Yesterday’s New York Times had a story about how a group of Californians were harvesting unwanted fruit from old orchards and homewoners who had ornamental fruit trees and bringing it to local hard pressed food banks.
I told this same story on Saturday in my Between the Rows column about how local farmers here bring leftover produce to the Center for Self-Reliance on Osgood Street (413-773-5029) in Greenfield after the Saturday Farmers Market! And then I learned that it is not only the Center that is getting and needs – excess produce.
Peggy Rockwood at the Salvation Army on Chapman Street (413-773-3154) says they accept any amount of fresh produce from home gardeners. If the head of cabbage or two tomatoes can’t be used in the noonday meal they serve five days a week, it will go into a bag of emergency food.
Mary Cavanaugh at the Survival Center on Forbes Street (413-863-9549) in Turners Falls says they now distribute up to 23 THOUSAND pounds of food a month and welcome fresh produce. No amount of fresh produce, vegetables or fruit is too small.
Of course, if you have no produce, you can always make a monetary donation to help these organizations whose need increases every month. All of them report serving more people in need as the economy continues to falter. With produce or money we can all help sustain the health of our community.
How can it be? The leaves are turning and the other night there was a frost warning. I had a fire in the wood stove the past two days.
This year, as we approach the heating season with some trepidation, and a new (efficient we hope) heating system, we are still getting our firewood ready and hoping that the Farmer’s Almanac’s prediction of a very cold winter is wrong.
Marion Ives, the metalsmith (and Hawley neighbor) calls this copper and brass garden gate, currently on display at the
Norman Rockwell Museum Good Morning Glory. I think of it as Good morning. Glory! which is the way I feel when I walk into my garden early in the day.
This detail shows not only the morning glories, but the dragonfly which I find so charming.
Although Marion has shown her work at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge before, public exhibits are rare. She is usually passed along from one client to another. It is the vitality and charm of the animals that are the usual subjects of her work that keep her in demand for custom work. Her last showing at the Museum a couple of years ago was a weather vane, a rabbit with a watering can amid the veggies. I was personally acquainted with the miniature dachshund who was immortalized in another weather vane, tail high and ears flying as he was in mid-romp. She can be reached by email: ivesvane@gis.net.
I have to say that I do not have a real garden gate. I enter the vegetable garden through a bent length of chicken wire fencing decorated with white milk bottles, and the other parts of the garden are set in the lawn. No fences and no need for gates. But a gate, and a fence worthy of such a gate are definitely on my list.
This different rendition of a morning glory gate by Susan Carty Treat is just one of the other numerous garden gates on exhibit on the Norman Rockwell Museum grounds until October 13, Columbus Day weekend. Her gate made of steel conduit wire, wire mesh, wood and paint shows flowers at their fullest.
The Museum is a perfect destination for an autumnal weekend in the Berkshires.
Last night the Heath Gourmet Club celebrated its 27th Anniversary – 27 years of serving ourselves really good food, lots of it very local. I made an apple tart with homemade applesauce from our own not very beautiful apples spiced with Calvados and topped with thin slices of Cortland apples from a new orchard in town. There used to be a number of orchards in Heath and the remnants are to be found everywhere, including our own fields where the deer happily feast.
Here we are at dinner (most of us are in the picture). For appetizers Sheila (barely in the frame on the left) who milks three goats made goat milk cheddar, marinated chevre, and fried goat mozzerella sticks along with mustard pickle. You should see Sheila’s cheese cave! Liz (final cook on the right) made a pear salad using her own pears. Our host Paul at the end of the table made a steak pudding with Stilton pastry in individual dishes. (We had leftovers for lunch today.) And then apple tart with whipped cream.
In the Kitchen and At the Table | Pat September 28, 2008 | 
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