Chosen by a random number generator Ellen Sousa of Turkey Hill Brook Farm is the winner of Recipes from the Root Cellar! In her comment she mentions that there is a passageway between her garage and basement that maintains a consistent temperature that allows her to store winter vegetables so she'll be able to put this cookbook to good use. Congratulations, Ellen. I will get Ellen's address and send this book right out. I'm sure she will find…
Fragrance in the garden is very important to me. This is easy to arrange in the outdoor garden where I can grow lilacs, dianthus, mock orange, Oriental lilies, night scented stocks and honeysuckle as well as my hardy roses. Fragrance in the indoor garden is a little harder to come by, but scented pelargoniums, commonly called geraniums, provide many fragrances. It is not the flowers that are fragrant; indeed most scented geraniums have modest flowers. It is the…
My youngest daughter Kate, formerly known as Kathy, requested that I reprise this column. I am amazed that I found hard copy; it was written on my old Kaypro and published in 1985. The year 1971 was important for me. In January I was a suburban housewife, busy with PTA, chaufferring the children, the Ladies Literary Circle, chauffering the children, and chauffering the children some more. By September I was divorced, settled in Greenfield with my five children…
I have barely begun my shopping, but I admit that much of my shopping is done in the bookstore. On the other hand many gardeners like to get plants - or gift certificates for plants to be used in the spring. I did let a comment slip about how many new roses I'd like in the spring. Fountains and birdbaths attract the birds, but they are also a beautiful ornament in the garden. Of course some things wear…
Yesterday was gray and cold, but a jolly Christmas was well on its way at LaSalle's greenhouses in Whately. This is only a sample of the plants that are ready to adorn the altars of local churches. I love the creamy color of the 'white' poinsettias. I saw a couple of trays of tiny variegated poinsettias. Of course, LaSalle sells many other plants: the white azalea, white hydrangeas, orchids, Norfolk pines, amaryllis, and prostrate rosemary to begin the…
When we moved into our house I was thrilled that there was also a hen house in the back yard. The building is about 30 feet long, divided into three sections. We store the feed, kept in metal garbage cans, as well as bales of shavings, in the first section. We also brood our chicks in that section when they arrive around the first of June. There is a chicken door that allows the chicks to go outdoors into a…
Storey Publishing is helping me celebrate my Third Blogoversary by giving me three books to give you starting with Recipes from the Root Cellar: 270 fresh ways to enjoy winter vegetables by Andrea Chesman. I have been using my own copy of this book for the past month, making Festive and Fruity Coleslaw for Thanksgiving Dinner and Applesauce Crumb Cake for a weeknight dessert with friends. I can tell you that coleslaw is really good with turkey and…
Layanee of Ledge and Gardens is the winner, chosen at random by a disinterested party, of the Fiskars tool organizer. Congratulations Layanee! On the next three Mondays, December 6 (which is the actual anniversary of my first post, the 13th and 20th, I'll have a new Giveaway. Plenty of time to win a present for yourself, or for a gardening friend.
Everywhere you go there are instructions on how to be more ‘green’. The Reduce, Reuse, Recycle logo shows up on recycling barrels, and on our clothes. We organic gardeners have certainly been recycling as we turn our garden and kitchen waste into valuable compost, but a whole new level of reusing and recycling is turning up in the garden. I’ve managed to rescue chicken wire fencing and cardboard from our transfer station, but in his new book The…
Yesterday I was visiting Sue Reed, author of the excellent Energy Wise Landscape Design, to talk about her book and our local landscape. You will be hearing more about our talk soon. Before I left we walked around the house to see how she had edited and added to the elements of her own landscape. More on that later, too. As we came around the southern corner of the house we saw this energetic bunch of Johnny Jump…