With the snow so deep, the temperatures so low, and the winds so brisk I had to take a day to revisit summer in Buffalo and some of the beautiful gardens we toured. I have a similar arrangement of lilies and beebalm in my garden. It will be such a joy to see those shoots in the spring. These daylilies enjoyed a deep drink one night in Buffalo. My Daylily Bank should look pretty good this year, and…
My records have failed me once again. I know I potted up the tulip bulbs for forcing sometime in December. Brent and Becky sent pre-cooled tulips and I thought they would start to sprout almost immediately, but I am still waiting for most of them to get beyond this stage. Although they were planted earlier than the tulips, this little pot of Muscari armeniacum "Christmas Pearl", chosen because it was listed as a good bulb for forcing…
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Saturday dawn cold with another storm promised. I dashed right out to the Greenfield Winterfare to stock up, and I wasn't the only one. Every booth was busy. These young women from Wheatberry Farm and Bakery were selling the wheatberries AND delicious muffins. Ben and Adrie Lester, the founders of Wheatberry are also founders of The Pioneer Valley Heritage Grain CSA. At the Simple Gifts booth I bought lots of roots - and make a shredded vegetable slaw…
Could we be making our cars out of mushroom roots, mycellium, instead of petroleum based plastic? Maybe soon. One of my most popular posts is about Mycotecture, making strong, rigid insulation out of mycellium from Ecovative, and now David Pogue, host of the PBS Nova series Making Stuff, learns that the Ford Motor Company is making plastic parts for their cars out of wheat grass, and mycellium. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqTBFd-qRJU I wonder whether mushroom/mycellium farmers will be able to get…
When most of us think about providing play space for our kids in the yard, we usually think about a swing set or a play structure of some sort. Schools tend to take the same sort of approach, but there is another way of looking at ‘play space’ and the potential it holds for learning at school, and at home. Ginny Sullivan began her teaching career at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As a first grade…
I left home Tuesday afternoon, racing the storm, because I was planning on having lots of educational fun in Cambridge while I was staying there visiting with my son. I had scheduled a visit on Wednesday to see the Glass Flowers at Harvard's Museum of Natural History and then a meeting with other garden writers on Thursday. The storm stopped, but so did a lot of traffic in town. The Museum was closed! The Museum was closed but…
It didn't take long to use up all the wonderful fresh veggies I bought at the Northampton Winterfare, but the Greenfield Winterfare, a winter farmer's market is coming up on Saturday, February 5 from 10 am - 2 pm at Greenfield High School on Lenox Avenue. In addition to all delicious food, bread, fruit, veggies, meat, yogurt, jam, pickles, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, there will be a variety of workshops on canning, growing grain, seed saving and more. There…
I have no affection for groundhogs, but Groundhog Day is one of my favorite movies. Made in 1993 it has come to be lauded as one of the best movies ever made. "The film is number thirty-four on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Funniest Movies, and was named the number eight Fantasy film inAFI's 10 Top 10. Roger Ebert has revisited it in his "Great Movies" series. After giving it a three-star rating in his original review, Ebert acknowledged in…
Water What is the vitality and necessity of clean water? Ask the man who is ill, who is lifting his lips to the cup. Ask the forest. Mary Oliver from "Evidence" Water is almost everything. We are water. Water is essential. Water is so important that I cannot find the words to encompass it. Right now the news is full of reports about devastating floods. Other times the news is of drought. We gardeners have our own experiences…