The Generosity of Gardeners

  • Post published:06/06/2009
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Cooks are known for guarding their secret recipes. Gardeners are known for giving away plants, seeds and advice to anyone who seems moderately interested. This is the time of year when their generosity is most evident, the kind of generosity that benefits the community as well as any individual gardener. Last weekend I volunteered at the annual Shelburne Falls Area Women’s Club plant sale that featured many divisions from the Bridge of Flowers, as well as plants from…

All Kinds of Wallflowers

  • Post published:05/28/2009
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             The stone wall is a New England icon. Our soil is rocky and early farmers spent a lot of time clearing planting and grazing fields of stones and piling them at the edges to make walls of varying durability. Actually, we New England gardeners are still pulling stones out of the soil and piling them where they won’t be in the way, or using them as another resource.             Here at End of the Road Farm we…

Is There a Giant Pumpkin in Your Future?

  • Post published:05/24/2009
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         Who would not want to belong to a group of people who not only grow giant pumpkins, but like to smash them, wear orange tuxedos, sail in pumpkin regattas, tour pumpkin patches and compete at fairs for the honor of growing the biggest pumpkin?             Recently I attended a meeting of the Franklin County Giant Pumpkin Growers Association who haven’t yet, done all of these things, but they are in touch with other growers across the country…

Earth Day 2009

  • Post published:05/17/2009
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              When I woke up on the first Earth Day, nearly 40 years ago, gas for my old car cost about 29 cents a gallon, I had never heard of recycling, and I didn’t worry much about lights left on, or watering my lawn.             Things have changed since then. Gas prices got up to over $4 a gallon and struck terror into all our hearts. Recycling is an everyday habit for many of us. I not…

Preserving Herbs

  • Post published:05/17/2009
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  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…

Cover Your Ground

  • Post published:05/13/2009
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                                                “Green your garden” sounds like an unnecessary admonition, but as the discussion about global warming heats up (pun intended) gardeners are looking at ways to lower their gardens’ carbon footprint.             Because digging the soil releases carbon into the atmosphere no-till cultivation methods have gained new advocates.  In addition to saving human energy, sheet composting/lasagna gardening has become more popular.             Another way of reducing the carbon footprint of the garden is to reduce the size of the…

Seeds of Solidarity

  • Post published:05/06/2009
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“Grow Food Everywhere!” is Ricky Baruc’s enthusiastic motto. It doesn’t matter if the soil is bad, or if you have a bad back. At Seeds of Solidarity Farm in Orange Baruc and his wife Deb Habib have proved that food can be grown anywhere, by anyone. He said his secret is cardboard and worms. I will add he gets some aid from the beautiful Diemand Farm compost. His technique is simple. He clears the garden spot then lays…

A Thrifty Herb Garden

  • Post published:04/14/2009
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My chives on April 6                 Cooks need herbs. Since the media is filled with articles about the thriftiness of a vegetable garden in these difficult economic times it suddenly struck me that one of the thriftiest and easiest gardens to start is an herb garden. I get dizzy when I think of the money I spent (before I had an herb garden) on bunches of parsley, cilantro and basil and less common herbs that are even…

Worm Farm Progress

  • Post published:04/09/2009
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Worms alive!        “I used to say that one ton of worms could eat one ton of garbage.  I was always thinking big like that.  Then I found out that Seattle had distributed four thousand worm bins.  I did some figuring and realized that worked out to ten tons of garbage going into worm bins.  That’s when I realized—it’s happening!  It just isn’t happening the way I originally thought it would.” Mary Apelhof, author of Worms Eat My…

Spring Blooming Shrubs

  • Post published:04/01/2009
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            Little bulbs are one of the first blooms to show their bright faces in the spring, but as the season progresses it is flowering shrubs and trees that can make an impact.             Last year I admired a splash of brilliant yellow in a neighbor’s garden. I was completely puzzled because it was too early for forsythia, but what else could be seen at the back of a big country garden from the road while whizzing past?…