Rory has arrived to spend nearly a week with Granny and The Major. There is a lot to do here at End of the Road Farm. I just bought a new plastic trash can so that I can make compost tea. Rory and I used Kathy Puckett's recipe which mixes bunny pellets (alfalfa) and Epsom salts in water. I used 12 cups of pellets with 3 cups of Epsom salts. Rory measured and stirred. Rory likes hiking so…
There was substantial discussion about the demise of the lawn on Garden Rant recently. One question was what will replace lawns, especially on municipal sites. I'm not against all lawns, but some municipal space could very well be used for community gardens. This one in Greenfield (MA) is right in the center of town. It occupies part of the lawn surrounding an old elementary school that now houses the school systems' administrative offices.Eveline MacDougall found the site, originally…
The raspberries are coming in. I wish I had put up a better trellis. Picking the berries requires some maneuvering. I have learned my lesson. Next year I will have a better trellis and I will have the berries thinned out, for their benefit and mine. I don't have to wait for next year to have delicious berries. You can see that I'm in the process of making jam, but really, one of the benefits is that I…
Years ago, when visiting a friend in Tacoma, we toured the Lakewold gardens. Near the back door was a trellis screen covered with a vine such as I had never seen before. The leaves were not only variegated, they were variegated in pink and white. I said I had to have this vine which turned out to be a hardy kiwi, Actinidia kolomkita.The fact to remember about all Actinidias is that they require cross pollination by a male…
For months an area in our shopping center was walled off and shrouded. Then The Tree was unveiled.It's an ATM!Joyce Kilmer's oft quoted line is, "Poems are made by fools like me/But only God can make a tree."I don't think God anything to do with this one.
Ever since we pulled the curtain across the window and discouraged Frank the cat from sitting in the window box looking forlorn even though he has perfectly good access through the cat door, the windowbox has been looking pretty good. I always plant geraniums in the window box but I've never grown verbena there before and I really like it. I do write most of my plant names down in my Record book, but that doesn't mean I…
This is garden tour season. It is a pleasure to leave the weeding chores and go off to look at beautiful gardens where I am sure whole energetic crews took care of the weeding before we tourists arrive. The Lenox Garden Club arranged a wonderful tour of the Hidden Treasures of the Berkshires that sent me into fantasy mode pretty quick. Since I have no ancient specimen trees or bedrock boulders, this kind of shady garden is one…
A few days ago Amy Stewart at Garden Rant was talking about a beautiful new book, Shed Style and Elegant Hideaways by Debra Prinzing with photographer William Wright and published by Clarkson Potter, which was all about the various useful and elegant sheds that gardeners used. Some are totally functional, but others have more elevated styles and uses. Then Amy asked all of us to write and describe our fantasy shed. I wrote about our Cottage Ornee which…
These two tiny creatures are yellow spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) that my husband dug up when he was cleaning the drain in our dirt cellar - part of the continuing work on our new foundation.These are our first cellar salamanders, but our neighbor had one living for years in his wet basement. Apparently this is not unusual. Yellow spotted salamanders can live as long as 20 years and except for their mating season in March or April (depending…
That's me in the blue dress, chatting with visitors to The Annual Rose Viewing. The weather reports were threatening, but so far our luck has held and it has never rained on the Rose Viewing. In fact, there was so much sun that my husband was busy handing round extra garden hats and parasols, but as the afternoon progressed it became less humid and one of Heath's lovely zephyrs began to whisper across the hill.Even so, some visitors…