Maize Maze

Paul Hicks

Paul Hicks has been farming in Charlemont just about since the day he was born 54 years ago, following in his father’s and grandfather’s steps. Now grandsons Tucker and Brody (aged four and two) are out in the barn and advising their father on how to drive the oxen. Of course, the farm has changed over the years.

Paul’s father Richard and his uncle Walter had dairy herds. My husband and I got to know them because they brought their heifers up to our fields for summer pasture. We loved watching them checking on the heifers every week or so, calling out to them to give them a bit of grain so they would remain familiar. They’d laugh as the heifers ran toward them for their treat. “Why are you so wild? Why are you so wild?” they’d ask as they rubbed their faces and slapped their flanks.

Richard is gone now and so is most of the dairy herd, but Paul still has eight milkers and he raises bull calves for four months and then sells them throughout New England to be trained as oxen. Paul has also been selling vegetables at a small farm stand right on Route 2 for the past few years, but this year there is a new reason to stop at the Hicks farm – a corn maze.

“We have a family farm and it has to support the family,” Hicks said. “We drove past a corn maze in Vermont last year and started thinking that there was nothing like that out here on Route 2 and thought it was something we might try.”

After a little research, the cornfield was planted this spring, along with an extra big field of pumpkins. The experiment had begun with a lot of help from Paul’s sons, Ryan and Gary and their wives Jess and Shannon. Sister Joanne MacLean helped with set up; she and her husband Bob, in their hats as Friends of the Charlemont Fairgrounds, will be on hand at a concession selling hamburgers, hot dogs and soda.

In spite of Irene and all the rain the cornfield has not been damaged; the maze opened on Labor Day weekend as scheduled. Traffic to the maize started slow, but they were busy on Sunday. Hicks said that people have even begun buying pumpkins.

This Friday, September 16, between 5-8 PM and Saturday between 8-11 AM entries for the Scarecrow Contest are being accepted at the maze.

Friday, September 16 is also the date of the first Flashlight Friday. “The maze is a totally different experience at night,” Hicks said. Other Flashlight Fridays are scheduled for October 7 and 21.

In addition to maneuvering through the maze and maybe buying a pumpkin, families with young children will also have a chance to visit with the chickens, the goats, a baby calf, and a miniature donkey at the petting zoo. Tucker and Brody will be selling grain for the animals. Farmers start work young!

I have become quite fascinated by the whole idea of ‘agri-tourism’ and what it can mean to small farms, and to the tourists. I like to think children in our area know that eggs come from chickens, milk comes from cows and that potatoes grow under the ground while tomatoes grow out in the sun, but on his TV series the famous chef Jamie Oliver proved that many urban and suburban children do not know these things. Agri-tourism can be as much an educational event as a recreational treat.

About three years ago two of my daughters invited us to visit a big farm in their neighborhood in the eastern part of the state. The farm offered wagon rides, pick your own apples, pick your own flowers, choose your own pumpkin, and a barn store full of farm made jams and relishes, maple syrup and even bags of kettle corn. I passed on the kettle corn but the grandchildren had a great time even though they were too old for the hay bale maze set up for the very young set. However, as I recall, all the children really enjoyed walking on top of all those circling hay bales.

Farmers need to find new ways of making their farm pay, and we all need reminders of how important good farms are to our well-being and health. Agri-tourism benefits us all.

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Scarecrow Contest Rules. Entry fee is $5 for each entry. Only one entry per person in each of the three categories: traditional, scariest and funniest. Set up for the contest will be Friday, September 16 between 5-8 PM and Saturday morning between 8-11 AM. Judging will be done during the week by popular vote. Winners will be announced Saturday, September 24, and scarecrows must be taken away on Sunday the 25^th and Monday the 26^th.  There will be cash prizes! For more information call 625-2623.

Next Saturday, September 17 is also the date of the Sunflower Contest co-sponsored by The Recorder and the Greenfield Garden Club, held at the Energy Park on Miles Street in conjunction with the John Putnam Fiddlers Reunion. How did your sunflowers grow this year? Tall? Multiflowered? Bring your entry to the Energy Park on Miles Street between noon and 2 PM. The contest is divided into two groups:  15 and younger and 16 and older. The categories are tallest, most blooms on one plant, heaviest head, largest head and best arrangement, which must contain mostly sunflowers. Additionally, judges reserve the right to create a special category should that prove necessary. Winners will be announced from The Station in the park, once the judging is complete. Contest winners get bragging rights, a nifty ribbon and a bag of local apples. Everyone who enters gets their picture in the following week’s Life & Times section. ###

Between the Rows  September 10, 2011

My Second Garlic Harvest

Garlic

Last fall my neighbor gave me several of his famous garlic bulbs to use as seed so I could plant my second garlic crop in the vegetable garden.  My first crop was not very successful, mostly because I did not pay attention to cutting off all the scapes in the spring. My harvest in July was puny. This time I planted each clove in well tilled soil and mulched heavily with spoiled hay in mid-October. You can read about Rol Hesselbart and the advice he gave me here.

Drew with garlic and scape

Having heeded all of Rol’s advice planting the garlic, I also obeyed him by carefully removed all the garlic scapes in the spring. Well, almost all of the scapes. One escaped  (pun intented) my notice and grandson Drew found it as he helped with the harvest. It is just a little taller than he is, and we all marveled to see the seed head with its tiny tiny garlic bulbules. I just found a website that explains how those bulbules can be left to ripen and then planted. This is something I might have to try next year.

The garlic bulbs are now drying in the Great Room but I assured daughter Kate that I will not have to buy any garlic for several months. I will save out six of the biggest and best bulbs and use those cloves to plant in October.

Stop Thief!

Over the past couple of days three of my 6 fancy chrysanthemums and some morning glory seedlings in my  little circle garden (which guards our mower from a huge boulder) have been eaten or pulled out. At first I couldn’t figure out who would pull two of the mum babies out and hide them, but we have got bunnies around this year – for the first time.

I never thought bunnies liked mums.  Or morning glories. When I saw that all the beets in my Front Garden were eaten, that was understandable, but a surprise. I didn’t think bunnies would come so near the house.  We are setting to work on traps, net fences, cayenne and Deer Off. I hope we can stop this thief from further depredations.

Plant a Row for the Hungry

Many farmers donate extra produce at the end of the Farmer's Market Day

The old joke goes that if you don’t lock your car doors in August you’ll  return and find the back seat filled with zucchini.  You might be happy about this if you don’t have a vegetable garden, after all zucchini is a versatile vegetable that can be used in a number of delicious ways, is nutritious supplying protein, vitamins A and C and numerous other good elements but no cholesterol, and contains only 20 calories per one cup serving.  All free, thanks to the gardener who left the zucchini in your car.

Of course, if  you have a vegetable garden and a substantial zucchini harvest of your own you might feel overwhelmed.  There is an answer to the zucchini problem, and indeed the problem of too much produce of any sort.  Many gardeners enjoy an overabundance of summer produce. The beans or tomatoes or broccoli can ripen so fast and furiously all at the same moment that we find ourselves unable to do all the freezing or canning we resolved to do in the days of early summer.

For every gardener who has extra produce, there is a person who is in need of healthy food.  It is not hard to get the two together. One in ten families in the U.S. including 13 million children suffer from food insecurity, never knowing if their food supply will last out the week.

Our Franklin County area has its share of hungry families, but it also has a number of food pantries and meal sites that serve hundreds of families who do not have enough to eat. Each organization is happy to accept a head of broccoli, a bag of green beans, a bunch of beets or whatever excess harvest a gardener might have

For years I have talked about the Plant a Row for the Hungry program that was launched by the Garden Writers Association in 1995. Over the years gardeners have donated over 14 million pounds of their surplus produce to food pantries and soup kitchens in their neighborhoods. This is not a government program, it is all about people helping their neighbors.

While Plant A Row (PAR) is the official title of this project not everyone literally plants a row of vegetables that is specifically intended for a food pantry.  Many people just know that they will have extra and plan to give that extra to the nearest food site. Sometimes a group of people will work together to plant vegetables.  For the third year the Charlemont Federated Church is planting a squash patch where lawn used to grow. That harvest ends up in the autumn Good Neighbors Food Distribution.

Dino Schnelle, Director of the Center for Self Reliance on Osgood Street in Greenfield, says that he knows of more than 700 pounds of produce that was donated last summer. “Our center got a lot of celeriac last year. I don’t know why. It was very unfamiliar to most of us, but we gave people recipes, some as simple as a slaw, and it just flew out of here,” he said.

Celeriac is one of those root vegetables that doesn’t look like much. It is all knobby and needs a fair amount of peeling, but it is prized for its subtle celery taste, both in cooked dishes or raw. “Whatever people bring in, we’ll find a home for,” Schnelle added.

Ev Hatch didn’t stop at Planting a Row last spring. Along with a crew from the First Congregational Church of Greenfield, he planted half an acre with tomatoes, summer and winter squash, cucumbers and peppers. When the harvest started coming in volunteers arrived early in the morning on scheduled harvest days and the different food pantries like the Survival Center in Turners Falls and others took their turn at pick up. When the last winter squash was picked Schnelle calculates that over 10 tons of vegetables were distributed around the county.

I always have seeds left over after I finish planting my vegetable garden, even allowing for the succession planting I hope to do.  I can use them in my own Row for the Center for Self Reliance. I’ve already paid for the seeds, and I always have a little extra space.  What about you? How many children can you help feed this summer?

I’ll be talking about the Plant a Row project as the growing season progresses.

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No one lives by zucchini or green bean alone. The Deerfield Summer Craft Festival scheduled for June 18 and 19 is holding a Vintage Container Contest. Whether you choose a handsome traditional container or a shabby chic container, possibly an unusual container never intended to hold plants, you have a chance to win a prize. Call Marcia at 772-7476 extension 17 for an entry form.

Containers must be brought to the old Deerfield Teacher’s Center on Memorial Street on Thursday, June 17 between 4 and 6 PM. Judging will be done on Saturday and winners announced on Sunday morning. Prizes include gift certificates from Megan’s Valley Garden and Landscaping, Annie’s Garden Center and Five Acre Farm. Greenhouses. Entries can be picked up the week after the Festival.

What plants would you include in a container that will be on display all weekend in the historic town of Deerfield?     ###

Apple Blossom Time

Sargent crabapple

I hope this photo give some sense of the amazing bloom of the Sargent crabapple. It is  not 15 feet tall, but it is at least 15 feet wide and was planted about 15 years ago. It thrives in the Sunken Garden even though it is very wet in the spring.  It is now in full flower – almost a single tree-sized blossom at this point.

This apple tree, name unknown, produces apples but they are not the best apples I’ve ever eaten. I do use them in apple sauce and apple pie as part of the mix.  The tree usually takes a beating from the plow when it makes the turn in front of the house.

These apple blossoms are on  the Liberty semi dwarf tree in the ‘orchard’. All apple blossoms are so lovely. I hope they were open long enough to get pollinated.  Some of our trees are beginning to leaf out.  The grass looks as though we had a big wedding today.

Monday Record 5-23

Earth Oven at Katywil

There isn’t much to report about progress in the garden. This report is full of  rain, showers, downpour, drizzle, rain, spitz and fog.   Fortunately a showery day did not deter the Yestermorrow crew who came to Katywil to hold an Earth Oven Building workshop.  The stone foundation had been completed two weeks ago and Saturday was going to see building of a wood fired oven. The workshop participants had to get deep into the mud (earth) and muddy straw so a little water from the heavens was not a problem. I will have more about this project soon.

Pollen cloud

While I was watching the oven construction a great cry went out. “Look!”  And then we were all looking down and across the hills a a great wind blew up and sent clouds of green pollen across the valley. None of us had seen anything like it.  No wonder allergy sufferers are having such a bad year.

Yesterday was the first day in two weeks that we could do anything substantial out in the garden. The grass was still damp, but Henry mowed. Now I have to rake.  I will not put these clippings in the compost, because my pile never gets hot enough to kill all the dandelion seeds. So I guess this chore isn’t quite done.

My to-do list included pruning the roses and weeding along the Shed Bed, Rose Walk and the Rose Bank.  I collected two wheelbarrows full of prunings and weedings, but I think there is more to do. I don’t like to rush into pruning winterkill, in case a branch is just a lazy leaf and still alive. I can’t cross this off my list yet either.

However, before the bugs drove me inside to get busy roasting a chicken, and getting some blueberry muffins into the over,  I did do a bit of weeding in the front garden, and put in a second planting of spinach and Tango lettuce.  It is not often I get such a good photo of a completed job.  Actually, its not often I actually complete a job to photo-worthiness.

We’ve Got a Winner!

Snow and Sleet on April 23

It may be snowing and sleeting here in Heath this morning, but many of us are thinking spring thoughts, planting thoughts, harvesting thoughts – and winning thoughts.  The Prickly Pine Cone has won Starter Vegetable Gardens! by Barbara Pleasant.   Good luck to her and her new gardens.  Maybe it isn’t snowing at her house.

No-till Gardens

The new front garden, lasagna style

The technique of gardening without digging up the soil has been around for a long time. Ruth Stout had a best seller on her hands when her book “How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back” came out in 1955. Two more recent books that explain how to have a productive garden without breaking sod and breaking your back are “Lasagna Gardening” by Patricia Lanza and “Weedless Gardening” by Lee Reich who lives right here in Massachusetts..

These three approaches are similar, but their differences show that there are many ways to go about not tilling the soil. The lesson to be learned is that there is a lot of wiggle room in starting and maintaining a no-till garden.

Several years ago I extended the size of my very small vegetable garden using what is called the lasagna method. Instead of breaking sod or rototilling the area I mowed it  as closely as I could early in the spring. Then I watered that piece of ground well because I was going to cover it and needed to begin with good damp soil.

Next I spread partially finished compost that I had in my pile. (If you don’t have your own you can now buy good compost by the truckload.)  I watered again. Then I layered on sheets of cardboard.  Many instructions tell you to use anywhere between 6 to 12 layers of newspaper to make a weed barrier, but I have never found this sufficient. Hence the cardboard which needs to overlap generously. Water again.

Finally comes a layer of soil. I bought a couple of yards of loam and spread that over the cardboard. The loam was not particularly fertile but that didn’t matter because the plant roots were going to grow into the decomposing cardboard and the compost. If you didn’t have access to soil you could order more compost for the planting bed.

The bed is now ready for planting, seeds or seedlings.  If you need to plant a tree or shrub in a lasagna bed, you will have to either leave an opening in the cardboard or cut through it to get your plant roots properly into the compost and soil.

Since the plan is to practice no till on a permanent basis you need to lay out permanent paths at the same time.  My original paths were not sufficiently wide the first time. The garden produced so abundantly that it looked like a green thicket and I hardly knew where to put my feet to harvest. Since then my paths have been nearly three feet wide.

Over the gardening season mulch with organic materials like shredded leaves or more compost. This will help maintain soil fertility while keeping down weeds.

Another way of beginning a no-till garden is to plant in bags of topsoil.  The first time I saw this system was at a demonstration garden at the Berkshire Botanic Garden a number of years ago. Recently Storey Publishing sent me a copy of “Starter Vegetable Gardens: 24 No-Fail Plans for Small Organic Gardens” by Barbara Pleasant. Not all the gardens in this excellent book are no till, but the very  first one, The Easy Care Bag Garden,  requires cardboard (or newspaper) and eleven 40 pound bags of organic topsoil to get started.

This first small garden, 8 by 19 feet, includes snap peas, regular peas, nasturtiums, scarlet runner beans, parsley, tomatoes, lettuce, basil, bush beans, thyme and rosemary.  And a compost pile. When early cops like peas are harvested, greens like spinach, kale, bok choy, and arugula can be planted in those spaces. Of course, you can always substitute crops that are more to your taste.

The plan for this garden continues for two more years. The first bag beds become in-ground beds, and new bag beds are set up. The first enlargement is to 18 by 19 feet and in the third year to 18 by 26 feet.

The trick to maintaining a no till garden is to keep mulching. The mulch will keep down weeds while slowly adding nutrients to the soil, and encouraging the worm population. Worms will enrich the soil with their castings (manure) and aerate it at the same time.

“Starter Vegetable Gardens” has plans for 23 other gardens, from the small Marinara Medley that includes tomatoes, peppers, basil, onions, oregano and parsley to much larger Sweet Corn and Company plan.  Along the way there is information about bugs, watering, short seasons, and stretching the season techniques as well as the requirements of many vegetables. This book does serve as a useful basic reference for any gardener.

Storey Publishing generously sent me a copy to giveaway to my readers. If you would like to win a copy of “Starter Vegetable Gardens” all you have to do is go to my blog, www.commonweeder.com and leave a comment at the Giveaway post. I would love to hear about your own garden plans for this season, but all you must do is let me know you want to win the book  When you post your comment you’ll have to give your email address which will not appear publicly, but which I can use to reach you if you win and get your street address. The lottery will close on Friday April 22, Earth Day at midnight. The winner will be chosen on Saturday, April 23.

Between the Rows  April 16, 2011

Earth Day 2011

Greenfield Farmer's Market

On this Earth Day I don’t want to lecture about what we all should be doing to protect the environment. I want to celebrate some of the actions I know about in my community that are being done right now, many of which will grow.

I am thrilled with the school gardens that are being planted, tended and harvested. They not only supply food, but many lessons that connect with work in the classroom.  Heath school has had its garden for several years, but other schools also have gardens. I just learned that Mohawk Trail District Nutrition Director Elizabeth Buxton’s dream is for every school in the District to have its own garden. Buckland Shelburne Elementary will set up its garden on April 30.

I rejoice in the number of small farms that have started up in the last few years, making their produce available through their own farmstands, the farmer’s markets and local supermarkets.  Monday evening I am going to be at the Greenfield Community College Down Town campus at 6:30 to hear three Farm-hers, Deb Habib of Seeds of Solidarity in Orange, Sorrel Hatch of Upinngil Farm in Gill, and and Caroline Pam of the Kitchen Garden in Sunderland talk about their life and farms.

I give thanks that CISA (Community Involved in Sustainable Agriculture) is helping farmers and helping us find more and more local food all year round.

I applaud every time I see solar panels, or windmills as I drive along my country roads.

Of course I have my own part to play. We’ve tightened the house, got a new heating system, use FCLs, carry canvas shopping bags with us, bundle our errands to save gas, grow some of our own food and we are about to plant a windbreak that will help save on our  heating bills.

What do you celebrate in your area?  Do you have an energy saving project coming up?

Leave a comment on my Give Away post and maybe you will win Starter Vegetable Gardens. Deadline is midnight tonight.

Starter Vegetable Garden Giveaway

Tis the season to start gardens. If you have been tentative about starting your first garden this year here is an opportunity to win a book that will be an immense help.

Storey Publishing generously sent me a copy of Starter Vegetable Gardens: 24 No-Fail Plans for Small Organic Gardens by Barbara Pleasant to giveaway to my readers. If you would like to win a copy  leave a comment at the the end of this post.  I would love to hear about your own garden plans for this season, but all you must do is let me know you want to win the book  When you post your comment you’ll have to give your email address which will not appear publicly, but which I can use to reach you if you win and get your street address. The lottery will close on Friday April 22, Earth Day at midnight. The winner will be chosen on Saturday, April 23.

While this book will be an excellent guide for the new gardener it also has valuable information for the more experienced gardener with sections on stretching the season, organic remedies, high value verticals. There is something for everyone.

Earth Day is the perfect day to win this book which is all about growing the most local food that can be produced -right in your own backyard – saving all kinds of energy.