With the gift giving season drawing near I want to spread the word about new books that would please gardeners of every sort. In my house books are the one gift we know will delight. The Half-Hour Allotment by Lia Leendertz When The Half-Hour Allotment book showed up in my mailbox I was delighted to think of a system that would teach me to work an allotted half-hour at a time. How understanding such a system would be…
On this Bloom Day I don't have any blooms, but I do have color. For the past week we have looked out at a hard frost. Beautiful in its own way. However we do have color. Somehow the yellow twig dogwood never photographs as accurately as my eyes when I look out my kitchen window and see the sun shining on what is a more chartreuse dogwood than its name suggests. It is because of its brilliant color…
The Climate Change Rally in Greenfield brought many children, inspired by young Greta Thunmberg, to the Greenfield Common on Friday, September 20. The Children and the Adults were all protesting. Our climate is dangerously changing and there are protests this day all around the globe. Some Students went to Boston to participate in the Youth Climate Strike What can we all do? Vote! Learn about ways you can stop global warming. We can't leave it all up to…
Everybody is talking about hemp. When we recently attended a family gathering in Vermont we talked to three of my young cousins, Heidi, Tammy, and Debby who had planted hemp. A change in the Vermont laws now makes it legal to plant hemp. Four hundred and fifty or so farms are now doing just that. Dairy farming is not as profitable as it was, and hemp is now in demand. Please remember, industrial hemp does not contain THC,…
Many of us have seen an image of the Green Man, his face made of hawthorn leaves and acorns, symbols of fertility. Many of us have no idea of why such an image might exist. And yet this ancient symbol was found in cultures older than the Roman empire, expressions of birth and death. The carving of a Green Man in what is now Iraq may date from as early as 300 BCE (Before the Common Era). There…
I have not been keeping up with my monthly view from "the office." My plan was to keep track of the weather, and the growth and changes in the garden. When we bought out house the view was very much like this, so we knew there was a lot of wet in the backyard. We are still learning how very wet and flooding it can be. We did not welcome snow in March. We were glad to watch…
“Ever since I officially retired from Mohawk Regional High School, I’ve just exploded with new ideas,” Beverly Duncan said as she gave me a tour of her studio in Ashfield. One wall is covered with framed botanical paintings that she had done in the past. Other paintings-in-progress were pinned to a bulletin board; other smaller paintings of flower blossoms were pinned to a different bulletin board. Surrounded by these works, finished and unfinished, she told me about recent…
My new low maintenance, pollinator garden is full of fragrant flowers that bloom over the course of the season. I confess I did not choose these flowers on purpose. However I am really happy that so many fragrant plants have additional benefits. My fragrant flowers require little care and welcome pollinators. Some fragrances, like lilac, take me back to my early childhood on a Vermont farm. When we moved to Heath in 1979 there were already old fragrant…
If we do not think winter gardens are very interesting, we need to change our view. We can choose trees and shrubs that will create winter interest.
Today, January 1, 2019 is mild and cloudy, but our year of 2018 began with a snowstorm. Fortunately I have winter interest in the garden with my winterberries and beautiful exfoliating bark on the river birches. February was a month for reading and learning. George Washington Carver helped farmers turn to peanuts, and the world benefits today with Plumpy'nut. It was also a month of learning about trees, caterpillars and butterflies and their importance to our environment. It…