I have barely begun my shopping, but I admit that much of my shopping is done in the bookstore. On the other hand many gardeners like to get plants - or gift certificates for plants to be used in the spring. I did let a comment slip about how many new roses I'd like in the spring. Fountains and birdbaths attract the birds, but they are also a beautiful ornament in the garden. Of course some things wear…
Yesterday was gray and cold, but a jolly Christmas was well on its way at LaSalle's greenhouses in Whately. This is only a sample of the plants that are ready to adorn the altars of local churches. I love the creamy color of the 'white' poinsettias. I saw a couple of trays of tiny variegated poinsettias. Of course, LaSalle sells many other plants: the white azalea, white hydrangeas, orchids, Norfolk pines, amaryllis, and prostrate rosemary to begin the…
When we moved into our house I was thrilled that there was also a hen house in the back yard. The building is about 30 feet long, divided into three sections. We store the feed, kept in metal garbage cans, as well as bales of shavings, in the first section. We also brood our chicks in that section when they arrive around the first of June. There is a chicken door that allows the chicks to go outdoors into a…
Storey Publishing is helping me celebrate my Third Blogoversary by giving me three books to give you starting with Recipes from the Root Cellar: 270 fresh ways to enjoy winter vegetables by Andrea Chesman. I have been using my own copy of this book for the past month, making Festive and Fruity Coleslaw for Thanksgiving Dinner and Applesauce Crumb Cake for a weeknight dessert with friends. I can tell you that coleslaw is really good with turkey and…
Layanee of Ledge and Gardens is the winner, chosen at random by a disinterested party, of the Fiskars tool organizer. Congratulations Layanee! On the next three Mondays, December 6 (which is the actual anniversary of my first post, the 13th and 20th, I'll have a new Giveaway. Plenty of time to win a present for yourself, or for a gardening friend.
Everywhere you go there are instructions on how to be more ‘green’. The Reduce, Reuse, Recycle logo shows up on recycling barrels, and on our clothes. We organic gardeners have certainly been recycling as we turn our garden and kitchen waste into valuable compost, but a whole new level of reusing and recycling is turning up in the garden. I’ve managed to rescue chicken wire fencing and cardboard from our transfer station, but in his new book The…
Yesterday I was visiting Sue Reed, author of the excellent Energy Wise Landscape Design, to talk about her book and our local landscape. You will be hearing more about our talk soon. Before I left we walked around the house to see how she had edited and added to the elements of her own landscape. More on that later, too. As we came around the southern corner of the house we saw this energetic bunch of Johnny Jump…
With so many people interested in keeping a backyard flockof chickens for eggs, and maybe even for meat, I've been visiting local henhouses, partly to be able to assure potential hen farmers that a henhouse doesn't have to be a Palais de Poulet, and to show you some of the clever designs hen farmers have come up with to make their own work as easy as possible. Emma is the youngest hen farmer I know. She is an…
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Henry David Thoreau. I have long been an admirer of Thoreau. I remember a conversation with a friend of mine, then a student at NYU, about what Thoreau would think about returning to a simple…