Serenity

Serenity Stone Cottage entry

By the time the Heath Fair is done, the family has departed and the leftover books from the Friends of the Library book sale are taken care of, I am tired. The excitement, family noise and general chaos are all great fun, but last week I was feeling the need for some quiet. Some Serenity.

Fortunately for me, my friend Kate’s parents were renting the Serenity Stone Cottage for the month and they invited me over for tea and a tour of Heath’s most historic house.

We stepped out onto the raised porch off the living room, sat on the wicker settee and whiled away the afternoon talking about Reinhold Niebuhr who summered in this house for a number of years, part of a summer community that for years in the 30s, 40s and 50s included many clerics including the Bishop of Washington D.C., the Dean of St. John the Divine in NYC,  Robert McAfee Brown and Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.

Niebuhr has been called one of the most influential theologians of the 20th centuries. He wrote many books, but the general public is probably most familiar with a short prayer he wrote, although  they may very well not know that he is the author. During the dark days of World War II, when he concluded one of his regular guest sermon at the Heath Union Church  with the petition “Grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change/The courage to change the things that should be changed/And the wisdom to tell the one from the other.”

I like to think of him, and all the other clerics and theologians who summered here, reading, thinking and writing, enjoying the very cool Heath breezes, sending their children off to splash in Dr. William Wolfe’s pond, and dining together, thinking and talking. The world was not so noisy then, no TV, iPods, or computers, although manual typewriters clacked away in the mornings. Still, I think serenity  was easier to find here where the hills are so green, the air fresh but gently perfumed with the scent of cow barns, and the night skies are vast and dark, studded with the eternal stars.

I am sure Niebuhr’s study did not look like this in his day, but the bookshelves remain. They do include some of his works, but mystery novels and children’s books as well for those lucky enough to summer here now. This is more a cozy setting for Granny and granddaughter.

If Niebuhr needed to clear his mind or get a new perspective over a dense page, he could step out onto this porch right outside his study.

Or he might have been lured to stroll down to the pond that he created, and sit in the shade, listening to the brook that fed the pond.

This hydrangea, at the edge of the pond and somewhat diminished after last December’s historic ice storm, is old enough that he might very well have planted it himself.

The air is no longer perfumed with eau de dairy barn here in Heath, but we still have cooling breezes and quiet. Forget your cell phone (no service in Heath), although you can get hi-speed Internet at our excellent little library – even outside when the library is closed. There is good Heath water to drink, and good Heath blueberries to eat. With a little luck you can make a connection to get some farm fresh eggs.  There is quiet and space to think and reflect. What more does a summer vacation need?

Actually, if more activity is required, Heath is less than an hour from other sorts of intellectual pursuits, the Five Colleges (UMass, Smith, Amherst, Mt Holyoke and Hampshire) as well as Historic Deerfield to the East, Mass MoCA, Williams College and the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institue to the West.

If you want to know more about the Serenity Stone Cottage, and how you might rent it for your own serene vacation at any time of the year, log on to the website.

Hopeful Tendril

Grandpa Ott

‘Life will not be denied!” is the cry that often goes up when I am in the garden, especially when I’m pulling weeds that have come up in the path through layers of cardboard and wood chips.  Sometimes the undenied life is beautiful like this tendril of a Grandpa Ott morning glory that just peeked through the slats in the Welcoming Platform in front of the house. A couple of years ago I planted a teepee of Grandpa Otts in a large pot on the Platform. Volunteers crawled through the herb bed last year, but I saw nothing this year – until now.

Dahlia Season – Blooming Friday

Katarina at Roses and Stuff invites us all to share what is in bloom on Blooming Fridays.  How many more will there be before the cold shuts down the outdoor show?

I’m  sure I have the name of this dahlia somewhere.  The cosmos are from Renee’s Garden seeds.

Foxy Lady has already made her way into bouquets.

Patty Cake has just begun blooming.

This nameless hydrangea has been blooming for over a month.

I love Red! Especially scarlet zinnias.

Crimson Stargazer lilies lean up against the burgundy cotinus. I never let the ‘smokes’ form.

The surprise rose bloom was this Purinton pink rambler. A sizeable root was given to me earlier this summer. It not only survived the transplanting, it is blooming!  I can’t wait until next summer.  Other roses are still blooming (in some measure) too: Double Red Knockouts; Meideland landscape roses in red, and white; Applejack; the new Pink Grootendorst; Corylus and Thomas Affleck.

Whither My Wisteria

My wisteria 2006

My wisteria has gone wild. Tendrils are twisting everywhere. New shoots are coming up everywhere. The wisteria’s genetic vitality has never been so vigorous. I am blaming it all on the cool and rainy summer.

            My history with this wisteria is long and varied. 

            During our first year in China we saw many beautiful wisterias with their graceful pendant flowers blooming everywhere from the long gorgeous pergola in Purple Bamboo Park, to humble trellises in dusty alleys, to delicate watercolor scrolls. When we got home I insisted that we plant a wisteria.

            I ordered a wisteria sinensis in the spring of 1990. The particular variety name is long gone. We did not plant it immediately because although we had built a piazza or patio right in front of the house, the planned arbor was not yet in place.

            I planted the wisteria in a large flower pot and tended it lovingly but the arbor was not completed until August which meant the proper planting was long delayed..          

         Unfortunately I had gotten it into my head that wisteria did not need good rich soil, so I did nothing to improve the soil.  Over the years the wisteria survived, but it did not thrive. Finally my husband gave it an ultimatum. It had to reach the top of the arbor by 2000 – or it was going to be ripped out.  We not only wanted the romance of the flowers and a souvenir our Chinese sojourn, we wanted shade over the piazza and we were not getting it.

            So it was that I learned I should always check any ideas ‘that had gotten into my head.’  In fact wisteria likes good well drained soil.  I also learned that it is a heavy drinker.  Like roses, wisteria welcomes lots of water, especially in the spring.  I started adding heaps of compost every spring, and watering heavily.  By the year 2000 it just started spreading over the top of the arbor.

            Though it finally thrived and covered the arbor beautifully giving us cooling shade outside – and inside – the house, it did not bloom. This was a disappointment, but I had been questioned by so many people about their non-blooming wisterias, and had seen the non-blooming wisteria on the Bridge of Flowers that I had pretty much resigned myself to having a non-bloomer.

            I did what I could, root pruning, fertilizing and watering, but to no avail until 2006.

             It bloomed and bloomed and filled the air with subtle fragrance. I felt as though I were living in a Chinese watercolor. I’d wander outside several times a day just to sit under it, or walk away to admire at it.  I was in heaven.

            That winter was a killer, almost literally.

            When spring came a huge percentage of the wisteria was dead. We pruned out what we could but the recovery has been slow.  Even in 2008 there was little foliage over the top of the arbor. Our lovely shade was gone. I had enjoyed it outside, and even inside where the quality of light was softened.

            This year we have had odd sporadic bloom, but I am happy to report that more half the arbor is covered and the vigorous growth continues.

            Because I was not aware of many wisterias growing in our area, and so many people complained about it not blooming, I assumed it was almost too tender for our harsh climate. I was wrong.  Wisterias are strong growers.  In the south they can be dangerously vigorous.  Even in Heath I am constantly cutting back runners that are sent out from the roots. 

            Because our arbor is so high it is difficult to prune properly, but we do make an annual climb up to keep shoots from slipping underneath our metal roof. A proper annual pruning will encourage good bloom.

            Wisterias can also be trained as standards by supporting a main vine to the desired height and then pruning it to keep that height.  Side shoots also need to be pruned away.  The vine will eventually be self-supporting and should bloom heavily.

            Specialty nurseries like Bloom River  (www.bloomriver.com), Greer Gardens (www.greergardens.com) , and Rare Find Nursery  (www.rarefindnursery.com), offer a wide range of wisteria varieties, all of which need full sun and fertile, well drained soil.

            Wisteria macrostachya ‘Blue Moon’ is very hardy (to –40 degrees) and is said to bloom two or even three times a year. It is a vigorous grower.

            For those who might prefer something less vigorous there is W. frutescens ‘Amethyst Falls’ which grows much more slowly than Chinese and Japanese wisterias. It will bloom on new wood which means it will also bloom sporadically throughout the summer as well as in April and May. The controlled vigor makes it a good choice for smaller spaces.

            While my wisteria has occasionally fulfilled my fantasies, I am very aware that for some people a full belly is a fantasy.  I can help, and so can you. The Belly Bus food drive, sponsored by the Franklin County Hunger Task Force, through the joint efforts of the Franklin Area Survival Center, the Greenfield Salvation Army Chapel, the Franklin County Community Meals Program and Community Action’s Center for Self Reliance Food Pantry, will be collecting non-perishable food at the Greenfield town Common on Friday, August 14 from 3-5 pm.  The goal is to collect 6,000 pounds of food – and some cash too.  Bring your food contribution or a check ( or both) to the Common and help our neighbors who are struggling in these hard times.

August 8, 2009   Between the Rows

Pulling Together

Pulling Together was the theme of this year’s Annual Heath Fair organized by the Heath Agricultural Society and supported one way or another by just about every one of the town’s 800 residents so that thousands of area people can enjoy a day in the country and gain a sense of the abundance around us – even in these hard times.

It would not be pushing a metaphor too hard to say that it takes a lot of people  pulling together to raise our young people so that they turn out like our very adult granddaughter Tricia – a real prize winner. Now that I think about it, Tricia attended her first Heath Fair at the age of 1 month, when the official T-shirt had a big blue ribbon and said First Prize Winner.  We always have thought so.  BTW, that intricate lap robe she’s holding – it’s mine now.

The Heath Fair is wonderful for kids, and a reminder to us all, that there is a lot of fun to be had beyond the computer screen.  I believe this young woman was the winner of the Watermelon Eating Contest.  Somehow I missed the Blueberry Pie Eating Contest.

There are also Children’s Games which include competitive events like relay races to see which team can fill a bucket of water the fastest and such like, but it is amazing how long a big pile of sand, a car tire obstacle course and 2x4s set up as balance beams can entrance the young set.

Of course there are pretty girls like our friend Emma and her pals, with the Shenandoah Hoopla hoops that lured just about everyone at the Fair for a try.

And more pretty girls!  Everyone comes home to Heath from their far flung lives.  Emily (in the middle) was our neighbor for many years. This weekend she joined with her step-sisters Christina and Andrea to celebrate brother Greg’s announcement that he and Rebecca have set a wedding date. 

Ed the Wizard

Heath Fair weekend is a magic time. This year there was real magic whereever Ed the Wizard walked. Instead of a stage show, he wandered and performed his wonders where he found people willing to watch and concentrate. There was LOTS of concentration!  I was just glad there was no blood when he insisted on pulling strings through his neck and fingers.

There is a lot to learn at the Fair.  The Heath Agricultural Society tent let children learn how to make butter. There was heirloom tomato testing, wood carving, and spinning. A group of spinners used the occasion of the fair to spin and talk. talk and spin beautiful wools into beautiful yarn.

The Fair gives children many opportunities to show their skills – as the Snow Leopard demonstration team shows here in their Wu Shu drill.  In the Exhibit Hall there are prizes for their crafts, arts, and gardening skills.

Adults need to learn too.  Dave Freeman and Doug Mason talked about the formation of, and their participation in the new Hilltown Biodiesel Fuel Project. Five local farmers have received a grant to  buy the equipment to press and process oil from sunflowers and canola to make biodiesel oil to power their farm equipment.  Locally  about 100 acres of sunflowers are waiting to be harvested.  They are pulling together – and they say there is room for a few others to join the Project.

Last year there was only one ‘lecturer’ in the newly reinstituted Speakers Tent but this year, there were three of us. Ted Watt gave a great talk about Backyard Berries; I’m definitley planting black raspberries next year.  He seduced us with a jar of black raspberry jam.  Then there were Freeman and Mason and then . . .

there was me!  I have a talk about Vermiculture, which is the high class word for Worm Farming.  It was well attended, as were the other talks and I found that the auditors have a great deal to add to our general knowledge.  Here we are out in the sun where we can get a good look at the worms. There was a lot of sniffing – but worm farms do not smell bad.  One passerby noticed us and proudly said he had been successfully worm farming in Heath for the past couple of years and had such prolifically reproducing red wigglers that he had to throw some in the garden occasionally – even though he knew they would die over the winter. Then his face took on a grim cast as he told us that just a couple of days earlier he had taken his worm bin out of the house where it usually lived, and put it outside . . .  where it was ravaged by a racoon who ate all the thousands of his worms. He was bereft.

There is so much to do: admiring the exhibits in the hall and in the livestock barns, twirling with the Hooplas, dancing to the great music, shopping for jewelry and maple cream fried dough, and shopping for a lot of books and CDs at the Friends of the Library Book Tent, buying raffle tickets to support myriad civic projects and organizations, that finally you just have to sit down and gossip – I mean share the latest – with friends.  Here I am with Cheryl and Mary Ellen and we are discussing the date next month for the ground-breaking for the Buckland Public Library addition.  We all put a lot of heart and energy into that project – talk about Pulling Together.

The Fair is over. My Monday Report is a day late, but the days after the Fair are always beautiful, no matter what rain or even snow(!) may fall during the Fair. Summer isn’t quite over yet.

A Birthday

We first met Dan our first spring in Heath in 1980.  He stopped by the house to say he had come to get some farm implement that the previous owner said he could leave in the barn.  The ensuing chat revealed that he and other friends had lived in our house for a time. Although we  could not know it then, this was really a sign that our lives were already joined through the house, and would become even more affectionately entwined.

For a time I worked with BJ at Greenfield Community College where she was generous with her writing knowledge and encouragement.  The  friendship continued to grow so that when Dan and BJ finally tied the knot we lent them our house for family  guests on the wedding weekend while we went off to stay in Falmouth for a seaside vacation in BJ’s mother’s house.

in 1989 we stayed in their house while they vacationed and we waited for our visas to China to materialize.

When they were finally able to officially adopt young Samantha who had been fostering with them for several years, we joined the community of family and friends who gathered round and promised to love and support this new family in a ceremony led by the Rev. Mick Comstock.

Over these 29 (!) years We have celebrated with Dan and BJ, railed at the world with them and laughed, complained and laughed, dined and laughed, and sometimes wept together.

Birthdays are worthy of great celebration. So is the growth and flowering of a great friendship.

White for Weddings

Last weekend my cousin Jay married the beautiful Juliet in a white garden designed by Robin Kramer, the owner of the house where the wedding took place. A summer wedding could ask no more beautiful setting than a white garden such as this.

            White gardens seem to have a place all their own in garden literature.  I suppose one reason is that there are so many flowers, shrubs, vines and trees that bloom in shades of white that limiting oneself to a white palette is easy to do, while still incorporating a wide variety of plants.

            Robin Kramer looked at her difficult site with its steep slopes and dramatic huge boulders and chose to limit her white palette. At this time of the year Annabelle hydrangeas, white with a slightly greenish cast, were the stars.

            Annabelles lined the steep stone and gravel stairway that led guests from the Forecourt where the ceremony itself was held, up to a grassy walk. On one side of the walk enormous boulders loomed behind more Annabelles interspersed with white physostegia (obedient plant). The ladylike abandon of the hydrangeas and airy effect of the physostegia were held in check by the low trimmed boxwood hedges.

            On the other side of the walk was another boxwood hedge that kept guests from tumbling down the steeply terraced hill that ended at the stone piazza where guests could visit in sun or shade. The terraced hill held still more Annabelles.

            Kramer said her aim was to create hospitable spaces for people to enter and enjoy. Her skill showed in the way the piazza welcomed the 130 wedding guests, but it was not a large public space. It also allowed for intimate family gatherings of four. She said she felt strongly that “gardens are about connections”. Those connections begin with childhood memories and extend into the present, the connections shared by family and friends.

            While Annabelle stars in the summer, Kramer’s white garden begins in the spring with a mass planting of white tulips, then white alliums, followed by white peonies, and finally the hydrangeas that will be attractive into the all.  All of these perennial and long lived plants are in place on the terraced slope and need little maintenance over the season.

            While I did not get to question Kramer about her maintenance schedule we can take as given the necessity for deadheading plants when they are done blooming.  If it were my garden I would also add a top dressing of compost every autumn.

            Not all of us would want to devote our whole garden to white flowers.  Vita Sackville West, the famous British gardener and friend of Virginia Woolf, described her own white garden as essentially a large bed.  It was partially enclosed and clearly delineated.

            In a January 1950 column she wrote for The Observer she described her plan for what she described as a grey, green and white garden. She hoped for success in this experiment but said, “ One’s best ideas seldom play up in practice to one’s expectations, especially in gardening, where everything looks so well on paper and in the catalogues, but fails so lamentably in fulfilment after you have tucked your plans into the soil. Still, one hopes.”

            She goes on to describe her vision, “. . . I hope you will survey a low sea of grey clumps of foliage, pierced here and there with tall white flowers. I visualize the white trumpets of dozens of Regale lilies . .  coming up through the grey of southernwood and artemisia and cotton-lavender, with grey-and-white edging plants such as Dianthus Mrs. Sinkins and the silvery mats of Stachys Lanata, more familiar and so much nicer under its English names of Rabbits’ Ears or Saviour’s Flannel. There will be white pansies, and white peonies, and white irises with their grey leaves… at least, I hope there will be all these things.”

            When I visited this garden many years ago, I also remember a climbing white rose. Gardens rarely turn out exactly as we plan them, and always change over time.

            In her book Theme Gardens gardener and author Barbara Damrosch describes a Moon Garden. I cannot find my copy, but as I recall she suggested a crescent moon shaped bed that included a moonflower vine. This beautiful vine is similar to the morning glory in form, and in habit, except that in blooms at night.

            The plants she chose were  similar to Sackville-West’s but with the addition of annuals like cosmos and white chrysanthemums.

            I can think of many flowers that have white forms, astilbe, anemones,  veronica, phlox and shasta daisies.

            I think Damrosch was aware that white gardens, or moon shaped beds of white flowers come into their own at  dusk, as the darkness falls.  In the gloaming and by moonlight white flowers can shimmer and glow romantically in the summer night.

            None of these three women mention the ease of planning a single color garden, but for me, who has trouble working with colors, the idea of a  white garden has great appeal. The white garden might be a stepping stone to a two color garden – blue and white, or pink/red and white.  Or I can remain happy with my crazy quilt.

            Gardens of every color feed the soul, but bellies need feeding too. The Belly Bus has come and gone from the Greenfield Common, but we all still have a chance to  donate surplus produce to local food pantries and meal sites.  For a complete list of these log on to the Hunger Task Force’s website www.plantarowwmass.blogspot.com. 

August 15, 2009   Between the Rows

Babies and Lawns

My dandelion lawn in spring

Paul Tukey of Safe Lawns sent this moving letter:

“In the midst of planning movie premieres and national anti-chemical campaigns, our life as we knew it stopped suddenly when my wife went into labor at precisely 12:55 a.m. last Thursday. For the next several hours, I was either glued to a stopwatch or being gripped fiercely by my wife as her contractions grew closer and more powerful in succession.

Incredibly important questions came at us from all directions in those precious moments. We opted, for instance, to forego painkiller and intravenous tubes for my wife. We reasoned that an analgesic strong enough to sedate Katie might have unintended effects on our soon-to-be-born child. And we had long since decided to share the experience with only a nurse, Katie’s mom and a mid-wife. Medical doctors were probably only a pager away, but our goal was to replicate the simple, natural experience that had brought our older daughter, Aimee, into the world in 2006.

In the minutes after Angie Kathryn Boardway Tukey entered the world at 3:41 p.m. on Aug. 13, the profound decisions continued. We rejected the erythromycin ointment that the nurse might have applied to Angie’s eyes. We similarly turned away vaccination for Hepatitis B. We had studied these two practices ahead of time and decided that, based on our health history and risk factors, we just didn’t feel comfortable subjecting our daughter to potentially unnecessary chemicals in her first hour of life.

We live in a nation, fortunately, where parents can make those kinds of choices — and I’m not one to judge if and when parents make decisions about their children that are different from my own.  Health care is a personal and private and, by and large, we should probably all stay out of each other’s business.

As we exited the hospital two days later, however, I was immediately reminded of the health care choices that others make for us. Surrounding this beautiful facility — that attempts to fend off death just as it nurtures new life — acres of a weed-free green lawn stood as someone’s symbol of the hospital’s grandeur and excellence. With nary a dandelion, clover, plantain, bee or butterfly on site, the grass had recently been bathed in an imprecise coating of weed ‘n feed. At barely 10 a.m. on the 90-degree morning of our departure, laborers with no eye or ear protection were busily mowing and weed-whacking the grass that was already too short to withstand the heat of season.

I’m quite certain my wife and I were the only ones aware of the spectacular irony of this particular lawn. I’m sure it can be taken as a neon sign of my peculiar obsession that I was even thinking about toxic lawn chemicals on the day I was driving my daughter home for the first time.

For Angie’s sake, though, I feel the need to be more passionate than ever about this subject. Did you know that a recent study found traces of 287 different industrial chemicals in the umbilical cord blood of 10 random babies? Did you now that pediatricians are reaching near unanimity in their conclusion that these environmental exposures are the root cause of increases in childhood diseases ranging from autism to ADHD and leukemia? Did you know that lawn chemicals, in particular, are outrageously dangerous for developing minds and bodies?

So many toxic exposures cannot be controlled in this crazy world. Some that can, though, include lawn and garden chemicals. Two states, Connecticut and Illinois, have taken a look at the evidence and passed laws to eliminate lawn pesticides from schools and daycare centers. In Canada, courts have evoked the Precautionary Principle — otherwise known as better safe than sorry — as rationale for allowing lawn pesticide bans to sweep nationwide.

I’m sure the majority of the patients at our hospital saw that weed-free lawn as a sure sign they had come to the right place. I took that lawn as a symbol that — by and large in the United States — we have so much more work to do.

For Angie’s sake, the SafeLawns Foundation will keep at it. Thank you for being a part of this overwhelming, but attainable, challenge.”

Paul Tukey

Disaster!

Late blight has infected my tomatoes.  Yesterday afternoon I went out to pick more beans and noticed that the single dead tomato branch was now several dead branches on all six of my tomato plants. It is difficult to see in  the photo against the straw mulch, but the reality was very clear.

If there was any doubt, one look at the tomatoes made it imperative to take instant and radical action. I pulled up all the plants and all loose tomatoes- which three days ago were big, beautiful and healthy looking – and put them into big black trash bags. Tomorrow they will go to the dump and thence the incinerator.

So far the potatoes in my ‘potato barrel’ seem OK, but I’m watching closely, as are the tomato plants in the Herb Bed in front of the house.

The question is how to make  sure spores are not in the soil to infect plants next year.  The first attack is to make sure that no part of the tomato plant or fallen tomatoes remain.  More research is needed.

Community Support – Monday Record

The Belly Bus came to Greenfield Town Common  on Friday. When I dropped off my donations Sara Cummings of Franklin County Community Action told they had already collected  almost TWO TONS of non-perishable foodstuff and more food was still coming in.

Families First brought in their cartons of donations and  other groups were waiting to drop theirs off. The Belly Bus helps stock local food pantry shelves; at this time of the year pantries are nearly empty.  And this year, as we all know, the need is greater than ever.  Happily the response to the need was greater in amount of food collected, as well as monetary donations.

On Sunday over six hundred people lined up with their plates and cutlery  and prepared to dig in to the wonderful meal at the 9th Annual Free Harvest Supper. They might as well have been at a swanky party because volunteers walked up and down the waiting line with platters of gorgeous fruits, vegetables, cheese and hearty bread. Tom Clark and his son Ben strolled around handing out apples.

All the produce was donated by local farms and prepared by local restaurants. It was all delicious. It was also good to know that the cold rainy weather this summer didn’t destroy all the crops. There was such abundance on those tables.

Lots of eating.  And for those of the young set who might finish quickly, there was Vi Walker the clown making balloon headdresses, Janice Sorenson painting faces and Shenandoah Hoops for twirling.  For those who were a little older, we could get our blood pressure taken and shop at the Really Really Free Store.  I brought blueberries and took away cukes, potatoes and peppers.  Our ears were happy too, listening to Pat and Tex LaMountain and John Currie.

I considered Daniel Botkin of Laughing Dog Farm with his delicious peaches and stories about his squash, a kind of stand in for ALL the many many farmers who donated vegetables, pickles, fruit and flowers.  Ice cream for dessert!

Can you imagine that even with all this joyous eating, people were invited to go back for seconds?  And fill up containers to take away.  I wish I brought one.

I would have taken home some colorful tomatoes. I only have the very green variety.

There is always work to do at the front and back ends of an event like this. Karl Meyer was part of the compost/recycling crew.  Bear Path Farm in Whately was going to have more  compost makings.

The good will of this event doesn’t end when the canopies and tables are all packed away. Donations and Raffle money will go to the Greenfield Farmers Market Coupon Program that will allow low income families to recieve vouchers they can spend at the Farmer’s Market.  Families get healthy food, and the farmers get support. Everyone wins.   For more information about the Free Harvest Supper logon to their website www.freeharvestsupper.org.

There is another way to help stuggling families get healthy fresh produce. This morning I went out a picked a colandar full of beans and a quart of blueberries to donate to the Center for Self Reliance as part of the Plant a Row for the Hungry project.

It isn’t much, but it is what I have to share.  Whether or not gardeners have planted a real  row of vegetables with the intention of donating that harvest to a food pantry, or just have some extra harvest that they can’t put by, we gardeners have an opportunity to help give those in need some healthy fresh produce, the kind of thing the food pantries have trouble providing.  For a full list of organizations, food pantries and meal sites that are accepting produce, and their hours, logon to www.plantarowwmass.com. Whether you live in Greenfield, South Deerfield, Ashfield, Northfield, Turners Falls, Erving, or Bernardston there is a site near you.

As Snoopy famously queried, “Is there any reason why mealtime should not be a joyous occasion?” we gardeners have a chance to put some joy on dinner tables other than our own.