Tovah Martin and Terrariums

  • Post published:05/21/2016
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Tovah Martin, gardener and author, has devoted a good part of her life to houseplants. Most of us have a limited view of what houseplants we might put on our windowsills, but when she found herself working at the wonderful Logee’s Greenhouse in Connecticut she fell in love with the hundreds of houseplant varieties put into her care. Over the years Martin has written books like Well-Clad Windowsills: Houseplants for Four Exposures, The Unexpected Houseplant: 220 Extraordinary Choices…

After Pollinators and Wildflowers Comes a Cocktail Hour

  • Post published:04/17/2016
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It doesn’t seem so very long ago that no one gave a thought to pollinators. People were afraid of bees and stings, but they never thought about the hundreds of bee species that kept vegetable and fruit farms producing. Perhaps that was because so much of our food came from far off places like California where we were never aware of what farms, farmers and crops needed. Nowadays, with people we are more sensible of the benefits of…

L is for Literature – Literature about Gardening

  • Post published:04/14/2016
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L is for Literature.  In the A to Z Challenge I am referring specifically to Garden Literature which covers a lot of ground. I cannot garden or do much of anything without books. There are general garden books and specific garden books. I’ll mention just a few of my favorites with links to earlier columns that will have more information about each of them.             One of my oldest and most useful vegetable garden books is How to…

New England Gardening Books

  • Post published:03/05/2016
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Who knows what weather tomorrow will bring? We are living in New England. No telling what the weather will be from one minute to the next. All I know is that we are getting closer and closer to spring, which means thinking about how soon we can possibly get out into the garden, and possibly wondering how long it will take us to feel that all of a sudden we are way behind in our chore Charlie Nardozzi,…

Blue Ribbon Vegetable Gardening by Jodi Torpey

  • Post published:02/20/2016
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What excites you in the vegetable garden? For some gardeners it is competition and the desire to grow the biggest, most beautiful beet or squash or cabbage. Jodi Torpey’s book Blue Ribbon Vegetable Gardening: The secrets to Growing the Biggest and Best Prizewinning Produce (Storey Publishing $16.95) will help all those competitive gardeners out there, while some gardeners might think it is time to take up the challenge and enter their vegetables at the Franklin County Fair this…

Everything Changes – in the garden and everywhere

  • Post published:01/09/2016
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Everything changes. Change on all fronts is inescapable, unstoppable and inevitable. No one knows this more than a gardener who watches her garden change over the years. In 2016 I will be gardening in a new garden, a smaller garden, a garden that will not require as much maintenance as the Heath garden. It is also a garden with very different features. The soil is heavy clay. The soil is very wet and drains slowly.  There is a…

Roses at the End of the Road – Sale

  • Post published:01/01/2016
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The Roses at the End of the Road is the tale of my life in Heath and the roses that lived, and died, in the gardens at End of the Road Farm.  My first rose was the delicately pink  Passionate Nymph's Thigh, followed by a number of elegant ladies like Madame Legras de St. German, the Queen of Denmark and the Wife of Bath. However there were a few gentlemen like Martin Frobisher and William Baffin. The Rose Walk…

Gift Books for the Gardener

  • Post published:12/20/2015
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At my house every gift giving occasion should include a book, or three. Every year there is a new crop of books to help new and experienced gardeners keep up with new trends and techniques, and find new ways to make their gardens, indoors and out, more beautiful and/or productive. Here is a sampling of new books for the gardener. Fruit Gardener’s Bible: A Complete Guide to Growing Fruit and Nuts in the Home Garden by Lewis Hill…

Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh

  • Post published:10/31/2015
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Winnie-the-Pooh and I did not become acquainted until I was an adult and read what had become literary classics, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, to my young children. I had known of the books, of course, but only through an Eeyore-ish high school friend who was devoted to all the characters who lived in the 100 Acre Wood. I did not understand his devotion at the time, but as I read these gentle stories of friendship…

We have a winner!

  • Post published:08/19/2015
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We have a winner for Beardless Irises: A plant for every garden situation by Kevin C. Vaughn. Congratulations to Cathy over at Rambling in the Garden.