Thanksgiving Dinner – Granddaughter Hosts

There has been a lot of emailing and telephoning among the women in my family as we plan the Thanksgiving dinner. This year, for the first time, it will be granddaughter Tracy and her husband who are hosting the feast. I got to thinking about where the makings of our holiday meal had come from over the years. When I was very young we lived on my Uncle Wally’s farm and much of our food was produced on…

First Snowfall of the Year

  • Post published:11/20/2017
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After a very mild autumn I woke up this morning to the first snowfall of the year. Or am I just jumping ahead into winter prematurely?  I have a whole month before Winter officially arrives.  We never know what the future will hold, weatherwise - or any other -wise.

World of Laura Ingalls Wilder

  • Post published:11/17/2017
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It is hard to imagine that any family with young daughters is not familiar with Laura Ingalls Wilder’s  Little House on the Prairie books which include Little House in the Big Woods, Life on the Shores of Silver Lake and the Little Town on the Prairie. Now, Marta McDowell who has written Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life and Emily Dickinson’s Gardens has come along to tell us the story of  the Ingalls family’s life in her new book The…

Fall – Time to Get a Soil Test

  • Post published:11/11/2017
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“This is the best time to test your soil,” Tracy Allen, supervisor of the University of Massachusetts Soil Test Laboratory, told me

An Early Bloom Day – before hard frost

  • Post published:11/06/2017
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Will my garden be blooming on November 15. the official Garden Bloggers Bloom Day? Maybe not. Therefore, I went around the garden today taking photos of the flowers blooming this very unusually warm November day. We have yet to have a hard frost although some plants were bitten and succumbed. This is what's left on this gloomy day with a temperature of 50 degrees at 4 in the afternoon Daylight savings left, Eastern Standard time arrived and so…

Flowers That Bloom in the Fall – Hooray!

  • Post published:11/04/2017
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If I asked a gardener to give me a list of flowers that bloom in the fall, she might sigh and run out of names after chrysanthemums and asters. But there are many plants that will bloom well into October.  Not only perennials bloom in the fall, but even a few annuals like my nasturtiums and marigolds. We are all familiar with the potted chrysanthemums that are available in September and October at garden centers and supermarkets. These…