According to my records we had 4 inches of rain in August, more than half of that on August 22 and 23. No rain so far in September, at least not here in Heath. The result is incredibly dry soil, and a hose that ran dry last week while I was filling the chicken waterers. Granted, I had watered the vegetable garden with a sprinkler for 45 minutes before that, but this has never happened in the 30…
When photographers ask me the best season for visiting the Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls, I say there is no Best Season. The joy of the Bridge is the ever changing and ever beautiful array of flowers from April through October. Right now, if you enter the Bridge on the Shelburne side, you will not only have the variety of color and texture on the Bridge, look up and you will see the glory of the hillside…
When my grandson Rory visited this summer he helped with chores, like getting woodchips for the paths in the potager. We were amazed to find something unexpected hiding in the pile. Mushrooms! At first we only saw the fine white roots but Rory kept digging very carefully and we came upon several groups of mushrooms. I don't know anything about mushrooms, so I don't know if these are edible. We didn't test them out. I've written about mushrooms…
Today (or tonight actually, at 11:09) we in the west mark the Autumnal Equinox, when the length of night and day are exactly equal. Since it is the sun that determines the length of the day we could consider this a solar 'festival'. The solstices and equinoxes occur at about the same day every year. In China festivals are calculated by a lunar calendar, which means they are movable feasts, as is the Christian Easter. The most important date in…
All last week I watched the leaves turn, more brilliant, more gold, every day. But this Monday Record is late, not only because my husband and I returned to Vermont to the scenes of my youth, and to help my aunt and uncle celebrate his 85th birthday and their 30th wedding anniversary, but because I had to return to Bellows Falls again today. I left my purse with my camera at Fat Franks, The Wurst Place in Bellows…
The honeybee hive is an amazing community. Most of the population, about 99%, are worker bees who are all female. They have many jobs to do from cleaning the hive, building honeycomb, feeding the larvae and foraging for nectar and pollen. Some will live only a few weeks, others will live several months to carry the hive through the winter until spring allows bees to forage once again. There are a few drones, male bees, whose sole purpose…
Gloria Pacosa can arrange just about anything, dinner parties, events, wedding flowers, pie baking, but when we got together the other day to shoot a TV show for Falls Cable in Shelburne Falls, I wanted her to arrange flowers. She had begun gathering material before I arrived. She had raided the flower garden for these dark scabiosa, the last of the sweet peas and gomphrena, as well as zinnias, sunflowers and . She said just…
I wasn't going to miss another Three for Thursday hosted by Cindy over at My Corner of Katy. Right now I have three pink natives blooming in my garden. I might be stretching a point to all this bee balm pink, but it is not brilliant scarlet so I am including it. Bee balm, Monarda, is native to North America as are the other two pinks in my garden. Bee balm is in my herb garden in front…
If Alma Potchke is blooming it must be September Bloom Day. I thank Carol at May Dreams Gardens for thinking of this wonderful way to keep a bloom record of my own garden, and to see what else is in bloom over this land. This beautiful achillea has bloomed beautifully all summer. It is at the end of the lettuce bed in the new Front Garden which means it has gotten watered along with the lettuce, including the…
Someone was talking about colchicums, autumn crocus, the other day and this morning I went out to look at mine. I stepped out onto the piazza, pulled out an armload of lemon balm and moved the inevitable shoots of wisteria, and there they were. Palely loitering in the shade, through no fault of their own. I planted the autumn crocus bulbs at the foot of the wisteria years ago when the herb bed was not yet full. Of…