Terror Among the Tomatoes

  • Post published:10/31/2009
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Happy Halloween! One way to strike terror into this night of goblins and ghosts is to think of the fears that plants have generated over the centuries. Deadly nightshade was rightly understood to be a poison, but other members of the family, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and peppers were less deadly and more delicious. The large pale flower of datura, another member of the family, is beautiful but equally deadly. Not all peas (Lathyrus sativus) are benign, or all members…

Still time to plant

  • Post published:10/29/2009
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              While at the Shelburne Farm and Garden shop the other day, a woman stopped me to ask if it was too late to plant tulips.  Absolutely not! I had gone into the shop myself to pick up a package of Angelique tulip bulbs, a beautiful pink double tulip that is one of the most popular bulbs sold.             Fall is bulb planting season and it will last pretty much until the ground is frozen. However, it…

Technicolored Dream Trees

  • Post published:10/28/2009
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In my youth I only admired brightly colored maples. I don't think I am alone. When people talk about the New England fall and set off leaf peeping, it is the brilliance of the maples that they are looking for. But even maples cannot be counted on to be consistently scarlet. Now that I am older, and spend so much time driving up and down Route 8A which winds through woodlands and along a stream, then onto Route 2,…

Cleaning Up and Digging In

  • Post published:10/26/2009
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When I called Old House Gardens to order some bulbs last week I feared I might have missed their shipping season, but they reassured me  and on this perfect morning I found my order in the mailbox. It took only a few minutes before I  was out in the garden. I knew just where to plant the ivory Beersheba daffodils - right under the Miss Willmott, a white flowered lilac Jerry Sternstein gave me last year. To say under…

A Toast to the Honey Bee

  • Post published:10/24/2009
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“The Creator may be seen in all the works of his hands; but in few more directly than in the wise economy of the Honey-Bee.” Lorenzo L. Langstroth  1853               Lorenzo L. Langstroth was Pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Greenfield between 1843 and 1848. His memorial on Bank Row, placed in 1948, includes an image of the hive with moveable frames that he invented. For the first time beekeepers, who had been gathering honey since…

Compost – Cold and Hot

  • Post published:10/23/2009
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Some people curse the falling leaves. Not me. Of course, since the wind blows all the leaves off my hill, the only labor I have is to collect the bags of leaves from industrious neighbors. I can never get enough. I learned the technique of Cold Composting from the late Larry Leitner. He collected leaves and pressed them down into fence wire frames that he made in various sizes and shapes. He prepared these cold compost piles in…

Avery’s Comes Through

  • Post published:10/21/2009
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The joy of living in the country is that the men get to have neat toys. Henry has a complicated relationship with his Allis Chalmers tractor, which needs constant tinkering, born as it was in 1950, but it is good for working with a grandson and taking care of big chores. But there is that tinkering. Lately Henry has been fighting with the carbeurator and the gas tank, both of which have rusty interiors. The rust flakes off…

My To-Do List

  • Post published:10/19/2009
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The Monday Record was intended to show what I had accomplished in the preceeding week, possibly including Monday itself. However, this week I spent a lot of time looking out the window at rain, and wind, and even snow muttering that if I were a Real Gardener I wouldn't let poor weather stop me from attending to all the chores that needed attending to! After five days of below freezing tempeatures, the low temperature today was 27 degrees. After the…

Heath School Garden

  • Post published:10/17/2009
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             ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary,              How does your garden grow?             With silver bells and cockleshells,             And pretty maids all in a row.’               Illustrations of this familiar nursery rhyme tend to show proper young ladies in beribboned batiste holding colorful watering cans with clean hands, but while the students at the Heath Elementary School do all they can to make their garden grow, there is no sign of batiste.             Real modern children favor denim…

Blog Action Day – Water Here and Where

  • Post published:10/15/2009
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Our Frog Pond is beautiful. And useful. When our dilapidated barn was struck by lightning in the middle of the night, July 5, 1990, the volunteer fire department was able to pump water to help put out the fire. In fact, the previous owners had enlarged the pond which is stream and spring fed to make it a fire pond. The frogs like it, and so do the grandchildren. So do we. It's good for swimming and catching…