Daylily Tour

Hyperion

Now that I have begun a Daylily Bank I have been paying more and more attention to the daylily family.  Hyperion is a tall classic bright yellow daylily. Mine was given to me many years ago by my dear friend and mentor, Elsa Bakalar.

Ice Capades

Ice Capades, a pale icy yellow, joined Hyperion on my new Daylily Bank last summer.

Siloam Double Classic

The Daylily Bank was my excuse for buying several new daylilies like Siloam Double Classic. This grows to about 20 inches and is frillier than most of my daylilies.

I bought Crimson Pirate from Lorraine Brennan on Route 10 in Northfield last year. She sells beautiful clumps of beautiful daylilies two weekends a year. You can see the daylilies in bloom and know just what you are getting. This weekend, July 17-18 she will be open again, 10 to 1 pm. Needless to say I have lost the names of some of the daylilies I bought; I might just have to call them Brennan daylilies. Not all of them are in bloom yet.

Daylily from the Buffalo Botanical Garden

I have a red daylily that is very similar to this one that I admired at the Buffalo Botanical Garden, but I don’t know the names of either one.  Now I just want to show some of the beautiful daylilies I saw last week, a preview of the Buffalo Garden Walk. If you want to see photos of many of the gardens we visited on our preview weekend logon to Buffa10 for many links.

Daylily at the Buffalo Botanical Garden

I had to look twice at this. I’m wondering if it Siloam Double Classic that I have in my own garden.

Daylily at Buffalo Botanical Garden

I am mostly using red and pale colors on my Daylily Bank but this fiery gold is really tempting. If only I knew the name.

Daylily at Buffalo Botanic Garden

Lavender is not my favorite color, but in the garden it appeals.

Lemon Madeline

It’s sad that I took the train to Buffalo and couldn’t buy this beautiful Lemon Madeline daylily I saw at Lockwoods Greenhouses. The graceful form would be unusual on my Daylily Bank.

Stephanie Returns

I also saw Stephanie Returns at Lockwoods.  I just learned that Dr. Darrel Apps is the hybridizer who created several reblooming daylilies.  I already have Rosy Returns and yellow Happy Returns.  There is a Red Hot Returns and Big Time Happy. I’ll be keeping my eyes open for these.  These are not the only daylilies I have in my garden, or that I saw in the other gardens of Buffalo, but you can count on others showing up here now and then. Daylilies are about the most carefree flowers you can grow and hybridizers have made it possible to have daylilies in bloom from spring to fall.

Buzzin’ of the Bees

The bumbleebees are buzzin’ in the wisteria blossoms, and all kinds of bugs are biting me around my eyes, behind my ears and in the middle of my back where I can swat or scratch. It got so bad that in the heat of the day yesterday, I retired to the house for iced tea and a dip into Insectopedia by Hugh Raffles (Knopf $29.95).

I was entranced the first time I picked up this book and began at A  for Air. In 1926 a little monoplane took off from Tallulah, Louisiana to collect insects from the high altitudes. That was the first attempt to use an airplane, but not the last. While statistics tend to put me to sleep this chapter counts the amazing numbers of insects, some as common as ladybugs, at 6000 feet. Some are wingless, but carried by air currents. At 15,ooo feet a ballooning spider was found.  ”Think of 26 million little animals flying unseen above one square mile of countryside. . . . a vault of insect laden air.”

But that is just an introduction to the insect world, which for Raffles in an introduction to many other facinating topics and a spur to his own thoughts and point of view as an anthropologist. He is interested in how humans interact with all manner of animals, including insects.

The twenty-six chapters or essays range between 2 to 44 pages, and cover insects from a variety of perspectives. In Chernobyl he writes about Cornelia Hesse-Honeggers painting of mutations in insects caused by radiation; in Fever/Dream he writes about malaria and his own attack; and in The Sound of Global Warming he writes about pinon engraver beetles.  Chapter headings like The Ineffable, Temptation and Zen and the Art of ZZZ’s take us to unexpected and fascinating places.  When the grandsons visit this summer I’ll be full of weird and wonderful facts. They love weird and wonderful things.

Raffles has said that writing this book as an ‘encyclopedia’ is bit of a joke, making fun of the idea that you can gather all the information about anything and put it in one place. But he is an anthropologist, not an entomologist, so he comes at insects in myriad ways, with references to artists, philosophers, novelists and the ways they approach the world, not only insects. The book (well footnoted if you are interested) ends with this: “Learn to live with imperfection. We’re all in this together. The miniscule, a narrow gate, opens up an entire world.

I am still going to put on insect repellent when I go out in the garden today.

Foliage Follow-Up April 2010

This ornamental plum, planted around 25 years ago, struggled for many years, but it is finally a real tree. Today in stands in for all the trees that are leafing out at a gratifying rate.

Catkins on weeping birch

I love weeping birch and planting a tiny seedling a number of years ago. It was hardly more than 6 inches tall and was already trying to weep. I kept trying to  get it to grow up a bit first but the result is not graceful. It’s lack of grace is one problem, but in addition to that it weeps to the east, into the center of the Lawn Bed where it embraces the Moth Light hydrangea. Oh, well. I still love it. Right now the catkins are in full bloom. Do they count as foliage?

Horseradish

On a more practical note, the horseradish is well up in the Herb Bed. My husband loves horseradish. My grandfather said he could never get horseradish to thrive, but he must have been the only one in the world to have trouble. I can tell you I have done nothing special.  However, the Herb Bed does have good deep soil, easy to water since it is right next to the spigot.

The most important foliage right now is edible foliage. I  started seeds indoors and put three six packs of lettuces and broccoli  out in my impromptu coldframe three days ago. So far they are doing very well. Right now I’m debating whether I should bring them back in the house because snow is predicted!  Other six packs of seeds that I started are up on the southern windowsill in the guest room. Spinach that I seeded directly in the ground is already sending up fine shoots.

Primrose

The primrose that I bought years ago at the supermarket continues to thrive. It is not quite blooming so I am happy that we now have Foliage Follow-up to celebrate. I put other primroses in the bed with the rhododendrons, but they are getting crowded by the rhodies that have foliage right down to the ground. My friend the primrose expert told me I was not putting them in a good spot. I should have paid attention.

I don’t remember when or why I planted autumn crocus next to the wisteria (and there maybe really bad news about that wisteria soon) but this is not a good spot. By the time they bloom in the fall this spot in the Herb Bed is full of lemon balm and bee balm. I’ve been saying I will move them, but the area is so full of lemon balm and bee balm that when the proper time arrives in July I just throw up my hands. Next year. Maybe I’ll pull it off this year. I really will try.

Autumn crocus

Finally, a warning, which I have given before. The tansy is up. It is even coming up through layers of cardboard and wood chips.  Do not plant tansy. I’d say you could plant it in a pot, but the seeds will fly who knows where.

Do not plant tansy!

For more beautiful foliage visit Pam at Digging and see how the season is going across the great U.S. Thank you Pam!

Our Sustainable Home & Landscape

Jan over at Thanks for 2day is asking us to write about our current and or planned efforts to garden and live sustainably by April 15. There are prizes!  And a chance to learn more about each other, and more ways to live a greener life. Check out Jan’s blog for all information and don’t forget –  Earth Day is coming up – for the 40th year!

I have been documenting, to some degree, our attempts to live more lightly on the earth beginning with a couple of my first posts about Changing One Thing, and switching to cloth grocery bags; and our changing our Christmas lights to LEDs. Since then we have changed many light bulbs to CFLs and replaced our old (29 year old) washer with an energy and water efficient front loader. I now also use the Quick cycle for many types of laundry which uses less electricity and means less wear and tear on the laundry. During as much of the year as possible I use the solar clothes dryer out in back, but I confess that I do still use the electric dryer for several of our New England months every year. We also had to replace our old refrigerator with a more efficient model.

The biggest energy saving project we completed last year was an efficient heating system using propane gass instead of oil. This was a major investment, but it did away with electric water bills as well as oil for heating the house. Part of our heat is supplied by our woodstove. Local wood! We recycle glass, paper, plastic and everything else we can think of. Of course.

I told my husband that I didn’t see how we could join the 10% challenge and lower our electricity bill by another 10%, but he said Yes, we could!  So, there are more CFLs and a new tighter more efficient door in our future. I have solar LED lights out in the garden.

That brings us to the garden which has always been an organic garden. No chemical fertilizers, pesticides or insecticides. I make and use compost. The chickens help by providing us with manure and bedding, as well as eggs. The only other soil amendments I use are  greensand, rock phospate and lime.

We live on 60 acres of woodland and field. Lots of natives to maintain the local ecosystem, without any effort on our part. I have planted some natives, but it is because I want plants that will do well in our area, without a lot of effort on our part. We have been working slowly on eliminating some of the lawn – my husband is all in favor of lessing the lawn mowing effort.  Henry doesn’t mow the field (in the interest of less effort?) until the meadow larks and bobolinks, should there be any, have raised their young.  Can you tell we are not in favor of unnecessary effort?

We are at the point now when the garden is coming to life. Today a friend dug up a Larch (Larix) seedling from his land and gave it to me.

We planted it in back of the Cottage Ornee. We haven’t done much cleaning up back here, but the soil is quite good. We dug a wide hole so the shallow spreading roots would not be crowded and watered the young tree well. The Larch, a deciduous conifer, is a remarkable tree.  The needles turn gold in the autumn and then fall. In the spring they appear in tender green bundles along with the tiny pine cones. The tree is very tall when mature, and very beautiful at every stage.

Scillas and Glory of the Snow

The grass around the newly planted larch is beginning to bloom with scillas and glory of the snow.

Rhubarb shoots

The rhubarb is well up, and the first fine leaves of spinach are up in the herb bed in front of the house. I can see the leaves of the lilacs and roses starting to open and all manner of perennials and herbs are making their presence known. I walked through the garden today with my daughter who was visiting, and working with us on a DVD project for our big upcoming Family Reunion. She was doing all the work but needed us for historical background. Later, friends with their year old daughter joined us for lunch and conversation about Water. Andrea works for the Connecticut Watershed and our daughter Betsy works for the Mass Water Resources Authority – both of them concerned about and working to protect our water.

It struck me as the glorious sunny day progressed that while I work to make the garden, and our household, as sustainable as possible, I am sustained by the garden in turn. The garden feeds our bodies and souls, with vegetables and fruits, beauties for the eye, a sense of our connection to all living things from the weeds in the lawn, to the birds and bugs of the air. The garden is a safe playground for grandchildren and all the friends who visit here, a delightful underpinning for our sustaining family and community life. The Annual Rose Viewing is coming up!

Don’t forget to visit Thanks for 2Day.

Real Pickles

When I met Dan Rosenberg, founder and owner of Real Pickles at the newly renovated building on Wells Street I got a shock. Looking into the bright new kitchen I understood the reality of what raw, fermented food means. There is no stove.

I have made pickles, which require no cooking, just brine, vinegar and seasoning. Then I’ve spent hours with the canning kettle to finish the preservation process.

Rosenberg has built a substantial pickle business in less than ten years using an ancient system that requires no vinegar, no stove, no canning.. For centuries, cultures all over the world have preserved food by pickling using a fermentation process. Instead of vinegar, ancient cultures learned that brining vegetables and allowing them to ferment for a few days created lactic acid which was a preservative.

Rosenberg follows that process, fermenting organic vegetables in big blue food grade plastic barrels, then puts them in glass jars. The filled jars are stored in the new cooler until time to ship them out to the 300 stores in the northeast selling Real Pickles.

How did a New Jersey boy, growing up in Morristown, and attending Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island end up in Greenfield making pickles?

Rosenberg majored in geology at Brown. He said his interest in environmental issues led him to think about our food system.

His interest in contra dancing, led him to Greenfield, “a mecca for contra dancers. There is no place like it in the world!” Rosenberg said.

While in town for contra dances he learned about Upinngil Farm and spent one summer working for Cliff Hatch who now grows cucumbers for him. That same summer he attended a workshop on pickling at the annual Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) meeting in Amherst. That was the beginning of his interest in naturally fermented pickles that have health benefits, as well as good flavor.

While he worked at other farms, and later as a manager at Iggy’s Bread in Boston he kept making pickles at home. It was while at Iggy’s, gaining business experience, that he got the idea for Real Pickles.

Rosenberg and his partner Addie Rose Holland moved to Montague in 2001, tending a big garden that supplied herbs for Real Pickles for five years before the farms took over. The Community Development  Corporation (CDC) provided the commercial kitchen necessary for the business until last year.

Last March, with the help of. Greenfield Savings Bank who gave them the mortgage, as well as financing help from the CDC and Equity Trust, Real Pickles bought a 12,000 square foot building on Wells Street, across from the CDC. Grants from the USDA and rebates from the utility company helped fund the substantial renovation. Rosenberg said, “It was exciting to see this 100 year old industrial building reveal its heavy timber post and beam construction.”

Rosenberg and his crew moved into the new energy efficient building last July, the same week the cucumber harvest arrived to be processed.  “It was a little nuts around here, but we made it happen. Fortunately we only had to move across the street.,” Rosenberg said.

Real Pickles has a staff of ten (including Rosenberg), who work year round, although the work schedule fluctuates with the seasons. During the busiest seasons part-time people are added. During the 2009 harvest  the crew processed 120,000 pounds of local organic produce in the new certified kitchen.

Rosenberg explained that Real Pickles is a certified food facility with permits from the Greenfield Department of Health and the State Division of Food and Drug, as well as registered with the federal FDA.. They receive periodic inspections from every level.

Rosenberg is committed to supporting a local healthy food supply which supports local farmers and a local economy. To do this he has to be a good businessman. “We do major sales forecasting, looking ahead nearly two years, because we have to work with our growers. They need to know how much to plant and we need to have enough pickles to get us into the second fall when new pickles will be available for sale.”

Of course there are inevitable crop failures or shortfalls. “Every year since we’ve started, we’ve run a tiny bit short of cucumber pickles. Last year Dave Chamutka in Whately said he hadn’t had such a bad year in 35 years of growing cucumbers. “It is really hard to find organic pickling cucumbers in the northeast. If we can’t find them, we just make less product,” Rosenberg said.

We have enjoyed Real Pickles at our house, and I like knowing that there are health benefits. Eating Real Pickles has similar advantages to eating yogurt. All those good bacteria working in our gut. Full information can be found on the Realpickles.com website.

I’m not ready to emulate Rosenberg and have saurkraut and hot sauce with my eggs every morning, but my husband is always ready for sauerkraut and kimchi at lunch and supper.  I’m especially fond of the ginger carrots. Real Pickles are available at Foster’s, Green Fields Market and Hager’s Farm Stand.

Like Rosenberg I am happy to be able to eat locally in every season.

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We may be buried in snow, but the Annual Spring Bulb Show  at Smith College opens on March 6 and runs until Sunday, March 21. Over 5000 bulbs of every variety will be in glorious bloom at the Lyman Plant House, open from 10 am to 4 pm every day.

Between the Rows    February 27, 2010

Monday on Tuesday

It has been a busy busy week – and not only in my garden.  Let me begin with last Tuesday.

Plant A Row Squash Patch

Pastor Cara Hochhalter of the Charlemont Federated Church with several helpers, husband Jeff, and Deacon Erwin Reynolds behind her, turned a piece of church lawn into a winter squash patch. You’ll notice that we are using the lasagna garden method.  The squash will be harvested in the fall for the church’s food distribution program.  The Federated Church is just one of the organizational and individual gardens growing for for the Plant a Row for the Hungry Program.

Friday was Grounds Day at our Heath Elementary School.  The kindergarteners had already dug a trench around their sandpile where they were going to plant sunflower seeds and morning glory vines. But they still had strength and energy. And a good thing too.

It takes a lot of real soil to make a sunflower seed grow. These Wonder Girls were fully capable of moving their share.

Dave Gott with Heath Students

Dave Gott, owner of the Benson Place Blueberry Farm and orchardist,  worked with older students to weed, prune and check the  school’s fruit trees. Nature and the local envirnoment play a big part in the school’s curriculum at every level. On Grounds Day it is clear that they understand how much care is needed to keep a landscape healthy and productive. And very beautiful.

Dictamnus albus

Saturday was a day with the Ladies. A friend from California was in town and we visited Esther’s garden before setting off to Williamstown and the Clark Insitute to look at the Dove/O’Keefe exhibit – which was fabulous.  Esther has a gas plant. She said the foliage had kind of a gassy scent, and I said I had read that on humid summer nights the plant produces a gas that can actually be ignited.  I don’t know that Esther was ready to give that a try.

Esther loves blue and there is lots of blue in her spring garden, baptisia, salvia, perovskia, Johnson’s Blue geranium, and I’m sure others.  I liked this photo I took of blue Siberian iris and red poppies. I love red.

There is also a vegetable garden, maintained by her son and his family who live next door. They all like upside down tomatoes, and I was reminded of the iconic upside down trees at Mass MoCA. I have the same reacation to  both. Poor plants. Trying so hard to reach toward the sun.  Esther said the harvesting is very easy and once the tomatoes form I suppose they will pull the stems down a little so they don’t look quite so tortured.

Japanese drumstick primroses

A Heath neighbor invited me over to take a last look at his primroses. This rosy mass planting is right near the edge of the road, there for all who pass to enjoy.

Then I was off to Woodslawn Farm in Colrain to get a preview of the yellow rose the Purington family gave me on my last visit.  This is a rose that has been on the farm for generations, as has the pink rose they gave me. I am honored to have a lovely bit of the Purington family history on my own hill. And it is a reminder to me of how many plants travelled from hill to hill and farm to farm in the old days as neighbors shared the prettiest or most admired things in their gardens.  I didn’t leave empty handed this time either. Dave dug up a pink rambler root, and Mrs. Purington Sr. had alread dug a shoot of the rose outside her kitchen window.  I also got to visit with Carol Purington, our famous haiku poet. We didn’t discuss haiku much. It turns out we are both mystery readers. Among other things.

On Monday, yesterday, I did spend a little time at home and was glad to welcome the first peony of the season. Name lost, of course.

McEwen iris

I have beautiful blue, and white, Siberian irises, like every one else around, but this McEwen iris is very special.  I think it might be something like Black Prince.

Yesterday afternoon I also visited Pam Oakes whose garden is on the 21st Annual Franklin Land Trust Farm and Garden tour. She has sun and shade. Trees, shrubs, perennials, vegetables and berries. There is something for everyone and every appetite in her beautiful gardens.  One of her showstoppers is this American ironwood tree, rarely seen in a residential garden, “mostly because it is such a slow grower,” Pam said, but the unique trunk and grace of the canopy make this a real treasure.  Tickets are still available for the June 27 & 28 Tour which includes other wonderful gardens and some surprising farm.

Harvesting the Savor

              If any edible garden is going to be a cost saving endeavor, thought has to be given to preserving the harvest. The labor in harvesting and preserving herbs is not onerous, but it must be done in a timely fashion.

            Timeliness is essential. Harvest your herbs before they bloom, while they are at their most flavorful.  Cut them in the morning, after the dew has dried, but before the heat of the day.

            For  hundreds of years farmers and gardeners have been drying herbs. Before they knew about UV rays, they did understand that sunlight will diminish the flavor of herbs, and often discolor them as well. Hence the general direction to dry any herb in a dry area, out of the sun.

 I have harvested herbs like mint, parsley, rosemary, lovage, oregano, marjoram, tarragon and sage, washed them and let them dry off before bundling a few stems together. I putt the whole bundle in a paper bag with the stems coming  out the open end, then tie the bag shut and hang it where it will be out of the sun and out of the way for two or three weeks.

            I also use this technique for herbs whose seeds I want, like dill, caraway, and chervil. After drying for a time the paper bag just needs a bit of whacking to knock the seeds loose. The collected, dry seeds can then be stored in a small glass jar. Don’t forget a label.

            Herbs, like thyme with its small leaves, can also be dried on a drying tray placed in a dark warm place.  A window screen works well. If you have a lot of herbs to dry this way, you can put spacers, perhaps 2×4s, between the trays and stack them.  When thoroughly dry, store the herbs in small glass jars.

            Many people have herb and spice racks near their stoves. Very handy for cooking, but actually not very good for the herbs which degrade from the light and heat.

            Some people like to dry herbs in the oven. I have never done this and I think you have to be careful not to dry them too quickly, or at too high a temperature, or you’ll lose the volatile oils, and the reason for drying the herbs in the first place.  Don’t have the oven any hotter than 180 degrees, and keep an eye on the herbs which should be adequately dry in 3 or 4 hours.

            Those who really want to be done with the task fast can use a microwave oven. Place the herbs on a paper plate and turn the microwave on for 30 seconds, stir them up, and repeat. Do this for 1 to 3 minutes until the herbs are dry.

            Herbs must be dry before storing or they could turn moldy.

            Chives and parsley can also be frozen. Wash and dry them, snip the chives and chop the parsley, then spread on a cookie sheet and freeze, just as you would a harvest of berries.  When they are frozen they can be put into freezer bags. Since they are frozen separately, the few can be removed as needed.  They will not be useful as a garnish, but will add their flavor as well as fresh.

            Actually, any herb can be washed, then chopped and mixed with water. Take that mixture and freeze in ice cube trays.  When the ice is frozen, remove the herbal ice cubes and put them in a labeled freezer bag. A single frozen herbal cube can be added to a dish as needed.

            I don’t think basil dries terribly well and it discolors when it freezes. I harvest a good amount of basil, put it in the food processor with an appropriate amount of olive oil. The flavor stays fresh. I take the resulting puree and put a spoonful or two in plastic sandwich bags, twist shut, and then put several of them in a labeled freezer bag.  When I need basil for a sauce, I just pull out one little bag and add it to whatever dish I am making.

            While most of us think of culinary herbs as those we use in flavoring stews, marinades, and rubs, a glance at any herbal tea mix will tell us that we could very well be putting up our own tea mixes as well.

            We use fresh black stem peppermint for tea during the growing season, and dry the leaves for winter use. Some people like to add a leaf or two of lemon balm or lemon verbena to a pot of black tea.

            I’ve known mothers who swear by a tea made with fennel seeds for soothing a colicky baby.

            Peter Rabbit’s mother made a chamomile tea, and chamomile is an ingredient of many soothing teas.  On the other hand, borage tea is said to give one a lift, and comfrey tea will cure what ails you.

            However you use them, herbs are beautiful in the garden, and useful in the kitchen. All year long.

I’d also like to remind everyone that The New England Wild Flower Society’s Nasami Farm Nursery in Whately opens its 2009 Spring Season Thursday, April 16 and will remain open Thursdays through Sundays until June 14. The Society’s nursery propagates and features over 450 native plant species for sale. For more information logon to www.newfs.org.  

April 11, 2009

Monday Record April 20

Gray and chilly. Temperatures in the 40s with winds gusting at 14 miles and more. There is still one pile of snow in The Sunken Garden.

Van Sion hiding behind a rose bush

Still, I got a lot done over the past week.  First I found out that the old daffodils growing here when we bought our house in 1979 are Van Sion, a heritage variety.  I have Kathy Purdy of Cold Climate Gardening to thank for the ID. Van Sion is a beautiful frilly double daffodil dating back to 1620. It is available at Old House Gardens where the description “explodes into a froth of green and gold” includes the information that it is often found at the site of old homesites. Multiplies.  And multiplies.

Now under the old apple tree

I also moved some daffodils that I planted in the lawn years ago.  My thought was to turn the lawn into a golden sea.  Could have happened, but since the foliage needs to ripen before cutting, it meant I couldn’t mow the lawn until just before the Annual Rose Viewing. Not good. This isn’t the best time, obviously, to move a plant about to bloom, but it had to be done, and I think they will settle in and bloom. They were only out of the ground for a few

minutes.

The scillas, Siberian squills, are in full bloom, not only the ones that have self seeded in the weeds that came up earlier. 

Lots of cleaning up. Brush from downed trees.  Weeds and wild raspberries in the rhubarb bed where I added compost.

I started building a new compost pile next to the slowly evolving Potager. Still moving cardboard and wood chips for paths.

The seeds that I moved into a temporary cold frame are thriving.  I also planted sweet peas on the White Trellis, crib sides I pulled out of the metal bin at the Transfer Station, and Sugar Snap peas on a piece of fencing from the shed.The photo shows the plastic compost bin filled with fall leaves. I also planted Detroit Red Beets, Green Ice Lettuce and Neon Lights Chard. My seeds came from Fedco  and Renee’s Garden.

Stalwart lettuce starts

The lettuce starts, Red Fire, planted in front of the house in a new bed have suffered from being planted too early, and being bitten by frost a couple of times, but it is holding on.  I planted lettuce and spinach seeds next to the starts.

Buds are swelling on the lilacs, tree peonies, rhododendrons, and even one early peony. Last fall I moved division of Joan Elliot campanula to the new cellar door bank and it is up, as is alchemilla.  Rain is promised. Spring is here!

Winter Wonderland

Again! Another 5 inches.

Groundhog Day

Yesterday, February 2, was the day the whole United States celebrated the groundhog. TV cameras were set to watch Punxsutawney Phil come out of his burrow to determine whether or not spring is upon us, or whether we will have six more weeks of winter
It is recorded that about 90 per cent of the time Phil does see his shadow which means spring is only six weeks away.
While the United States, or at least readers of the Punxsutawney Spirit have been watching for the groundhog’s weather predictions since 1887 when Clymer Freas, the newspaper editor, turned it into a ritual event, February 2 has been a day for weather predictions for centuries.
Before it was called Groundhog Day, it was called, and still is called in the Christian liturgical calendar, Candlemas Day. This day, halfway between the shortest day of the year (winter solstice) and the spring equinox (when day and night are equal) used to be the day when all the church candles for the year were blessed.
The English have an old verse, “If Candlemas be fair and bright,
winter has another flight. If Candlemas brings clouds and rain, winter will not come again.”
The Scots have a similar verse, and the Germans watched for the badger’s weather prediction. It was apparently the Germans who brought this custom with them to Pennsylvania when they settled there. No groundhogs in Europe and no badgers in the new world, but we all make do.
The Delaware Indians who had a settlement in Punxsutawney considered the groundhog their ancestral grandfather and revered him I don’t know whether they used him for any weather predictions.
All this groundhog lore has its own fascination and charm – until one realizes we are talking about woodchucks!
The woodchuck (Marmota monax) is the largest member of the squirrel family and reaches a weight of about 14 pounds. It is how he gains all this weight that is of interest to me.
For the most part woodchucks live solitary lives. During the mating period, male and female share a burrow, but when it is time for the chucklets to be born, Dad is sent away to resume the life of a hermit.
Thirty days after conception woodchuck babies are born blind and naked, only four inches long and weighing a bare ounce. After a month, when they weigh 8 ounces, they begin to make forays away the burrow, and make a tasty morsel for many predators from foxes and owls to large snakes. Before long they are weaned and depart to set up their own burrows.
Woodchuck burrows could be considered a marvel. Woodchucks move about 400 pounds of earth to create the average burrow. Each burrow contains a nest, lined with leaves and grass, and a separate latrine. There is the main entrance that is often marked by a pile of dug earth, and at least one escape, but sometimes as many as five.
I don’t see how the woodchuck who took up residence inside my Sunken Garden last summer could have moved 400 pounds of soil. We never found much of a mound of dug earth outside the burrow. In fact, our first warning of his presence was our view of the woodchuck admiring our garden from the lawn.
Last year was a bad year for the vegetable garden. First there was all the rain. Then there was the woodchuck. We found the entrance to the burrow – inside the Sunken Garden, built into the old stone barn foundation that makes the garden – and barely a dozen feet from the vegetable beds.
Woodchucks are herbivores and their diet is said to consist of dandelions, clover and grass. I wouldn’t mind their eating all the dandelions in my lawn, or even the clover in the lawn, which would leave me with very little green. But, I can attest to their liking lettuces and broccoli as well. And beet greens.
I’d be willing to share dandelions and clover, but our woodchuck was not willing to share lettuce, broccoli and beet greens. It takes a lot of vegetables to get a woodchuck up to that weight of 14 pounds.
We tried bombing the woodchuck. As night was falling, we plugged up the one escape we found, threw smoke bombs into the burrow entrance, plugged that with grass clods, and ran. The next day we stood at the door to admire the early morning sun. The woodchuck sat tall on the stone wall – and laughed at us.
We tried shooting the woodchuck. But by the time we got the rifle, loaded it and aimed, the woodchuck had ambled to his burrow with a giggle and disappeared.
This year we will try biological warfare. Remember, woodchucks provide themselves with a separate latrine.
We have a cat who uses a litter box during the winter. She shudders at the thought of setting her aging feet on the cold snow. This spring, early spring, we will empty the litter box into each entrance and let his own fastidious nature evict him.
I do not begrudge Punxsutawney Phil his electrically heated burrow. I do not begrudge him his fame and fans, after all, Punxsutawney is some distance from Heath.
I do begrudge his cousins the run of my garden. The battle is joined. ###

I wrote this screed against the woodchuck in 2005. I can’t say the litterbox strategy worked, unless it was the mere threat that somehow became known to our woodchuck, but he never reappeared. The garden has been safe. At least from woodchucks.