Outside snow is blowing across my hill. Inside the greenhouses at Mt Holyoke and Smith College tulips are beginning to bloom. On March 2 the greenhouses welcome the public to the Annual Bulb Shows. For more Wordlessness this Wednesday morning click here.
Yesterday I drove into the valley to see tulips, and many other bulbs and flowers, blooming at the Mt. Holyoke College Talcott Greenhouse and the Smith College Lyman Plant House. Both institutions are preparing for their annual Spring Bulb shows which require attentive and scientific handling of the potted plants, cool and then slowly warming so that they are at the perfect moment for spring-hungry flower lovers to visit them when the shows open on Saturday, March 2. Both…
Almost March, but it still feels like deep winter. Everything is white and still. The Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls is icy. And closed. Salmon Falls and the Potholes are frozen. Winter has not lost its hold
Douglas Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in our Gardens, one of the best books ever written on how the food web works in our gardens, is coming to our part of the world. He will be the keynote speaker at the Annual Western Massachusetts Master Gardeners Association Spring Symposium scheduled for Saturday, March 16 at Frontier Regional High School in South Deerfield. In his book Tallamy powerfully and engagingly explains how important…
Winter is for time with 16 year old grandson Rory. And sledding. And bowling. And movies. And philosophical, economic and history conversations. Whew! For more (almost) Wordlessness this Wednesday click here.
I have never forced snowdrops before, so I decided to experiment. Early in November I got my late order of bulbs from Brent and Becky's Bulbs. Some of them went in the ground, but I potted up some tulips, my paper whites, and a few of the snowdrops. I left them all out in the unheated Great Room. All of the indoor…
I just attended my sixth Winterfare ! got to do my small part, giving a talk about the basics of extending the growing season, but mostly I just enjoyed the crowds, visiting with people I haven’t seen in a while and marveling at all the fresh produce that is available in February in Franklin County. Of course I shopped, too. Carrots, onions, salad greens, apples and salad toppers, a flat of arugula that I can snip over the…
On this Bloom Day the ground is covered with snow and the plow drifts are still substantial. My indoor blooms are modest. These paper whites, a bonus from Brent and Becky's Bulbs, have been blooming for over a month. A couple of the stems collapsed, but I cut the blooms off and they continue in a little glass vase. This little pot of primroses was a door prize at the annual meeting of the Greenfield Garden Club. I…
We have a winner! Catherine, who has a new house and will be putting in a new vegetable garden, wins this useful and instructing blook which comes with best wishes from me and Timber Press!
These amazing photos were sent to my sister-in-law. Real or photoshopped? Could this possibly be real? Aren't the sun and the moon the same size? For more mysterious - or not - photos this Wordless Wednesday click here. AND Wednesday is the last day you can enter my GIVEAWAY. For a chance to win a copy of The Speedy Vegetable Garden click here. You have until Midnight Wednesday, February 13 to comment. The winner will be announced on…