A gardening friend once told me that what he loved about gardening (besides playing in the dirt) was that it led you down the roads of history and literature and science. Gardening can lead you anywhere.One place it can lead is to a modest study of Latin. I was proud that I got through high school without studying Latin, but becoming a gardener made me mourn that lost opportunity. I have been making up for it ever since.Recently…
The sun was shining when I went out to the garden, but temperatures were in the teens. It was past time to pick the last Brussels sprouts. I like to serve these, freshly picked, at Thanksgiving, but this year we will have them tonight, and give thanks for as long a season as we have had.
As we prepare for our Thanksgiving feats I cannot imagine one table that will include potatoes. In my family we always have mashed potatoes and candied sweet potatoes.We don’t often think about the value of the potato; it is so basic to our diet. Many think of meat and potatoes as the beginning of any menu, but it was not always so.The potato originated in Peru 4,000 or 7,000 or possibly even 14,000 years ago. The Spanish conquistadors…
Do buds count? My abutilon, parlor maple is hardly ever without a coral flower or two, but not today.And the Thanksgiving cactus knows it isn't quite Thanksgiving.The cyclamen is doing its best. One bloom for bloom day.
We did have a snowfall that covered the ground already this fall, but this is a March 9 photo of our road this spring. It is the merest reminder of snowfalls that we had in the past. I told one of those stories to my friends at Garden Rant last week and won a Troy Built Snowblower!My story is of an April (yes, April) blizzard in 1982 (and I think I have the year right). It was the…
A few golden trees at the edge of the field are tossing in the rainy wind today, but in general, most of the autumn color is gone from my garden. I was happy that the asters and dahlias stayed in bloom for so long. I’m happy with the rich red of my sourwood, of the sweetspire, the burgundy cotinus and the now-bare blueberries. It struck me that I have a pretty good fall garden.However, upon spending a few…
Spring and FallBy Gerard Manley Hopkinsto a young childMargaret are you grievingOver Goldengrove unleaving?Leaves, like the things of man, youWith your fresh thoughts care for,Ah! As the heart grows olderIt will come to such sights colderBy and by, nor spare a sighThough worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie:And yet you will weep and know why.Now mo matter, child, the name:Sorrow’s springs are the same.Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressedWhat heart heard of, ghost guessed:It is the blight man…
All through October the town of Salem, Massachusetts is awash in witches. They are all dressed in black with pointy hats and try to look as forbidding and dangerously magical as possible.Though the word witch has assumed the dark cloak of evil, there are white witches as well, and witches' gardens could as easily have included healing herbs as well as herbs that are a little more problematical. Of course, as with so much in life, how a…
Need I say more?
Heath woke up in the clouds this morning. There was a very Brigadoonish feeling in the misty air as I drove to the Transfer Station with my trash and recycling. The dim headlights of oncoming cars could very well have been flickering torches as the hunt went on for the the missing Harry Beaton whose flight threatened to destroy the magical village.But the only tartans are on Henry's and my flannel shirts as we prepare to tackle the…