It is time to order new roses, even if I have to look at a wintry landscape for some weeks yet. I looked through the catalogs and agonized but I finally made my decision. I am ordering two roses from the Antique Rose Emporium (ARE) because they send large container grown roses. This makes the shipping costs more expensive but the healthy bushes are such a nice size that the extra cost is worth it to me. Basyes Purple, a…
Seed catalogs are full of seed starting supplies. There are all kinds of seed trays and flats, peat pots, cow pots, coir pots, tools for making soil blocks, soilless growing mixes, heating mats and grow lights. Where to start? If you have never started seeds indoors the real question is what do you need? You need to buy very little because you can use your kitchen recycling of clear plastic salad and vegetable containers, yogurt containers and cardboard…
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how fast does your garden grow? The 208 page Speedy Vegetable Garden by Mark Diacono and Lia Leendertz (Timber Press) will give you a whole new view of how fast you can grow something to eat. This means we can keep some food growing all year long, if only on our windowsill. Impatient children will find that they can harvest some greens in less than two weeks. I have grown sprouts in my kitchen…
Twenty degrees outside and breezy, but spring is springing - indoors. These beautiful paper whites were a bonus from Brent and Becky's Bulbs last fall. For more Wordlessness this Wednesday click here.
Saturday more I went down to Greenfield for Winterfare - always a delcicous success. People in our area are so happy to be able to buy fresh vegetables directly from farmers, even in winter. Of course, this winter farmer's market isn't limited to vegetables. Real Pickles had a booth selling - Pickles! Sunrise Farm was selling maple syrup, Apex Orchards was selling apples, Warm Colors Apiary was selling honey and other bee products, Barberic Farm was selling lamb…
Jono Neiger of the Regenerative Design Group which has its office in Greenfield, spoke to the Greenfield Garden Club a couple of weeks ago. His inspiring talk explained how gardeners could mimic nature, and require less work and inputs to create a garden that would give us what we desire out of our garden and what wildlife and pollinators require. He gave some very specific advice beginning with the suggestion that vegetable gardens, and gardens that need…
This perfect enough Cold Frame was assembled in 2010 as a temporary project. I think I will be using it again this year. We could have covered the temporary cinder block cold frame with an old window, but when the pyramidal skylight was delivered for our Cottage Ornee some years ago the delivery truck driver delivered it to my neighbor's house down the hill and took the big box out of the truck. My neighbor called me down…
My Planning a Vegetable Garden to Extend the Season Workshop at Winterfare on February 2 will give attendees some things to think about when they are planning their vegetables gardens and some tips. Hope to see you Saturday at 11 am at Greenfield Hight School. For more Wordlessness this Wednesday click here.
The Cacao bean is native to South America, but it became the cocoa we are familiar with when the Dutch van Houten found a new processing method, and it was British George Cadbury in 1878 who created a model garden city of Bourneville for his chocolate workers. On this cold and snowy day I have been reading a beautiful and fascinating book, Fifty Plants that Changed the Course of History by Bill Laws. Cocoa is popular drink around our house in…
The leafless landscape seems dead, but dormancy is only a false death. In the 1/24 issue of the New York Times Michael Tortorello takes us on a wintry horticultural tour of gardens in New York City and learns that death is not what winter brings. I grant you, the activity he sees in Central Park and other places is rather different from the dormancy I can see in my frozen snowy landscape, but still, his guides make…