There has been a lot of emailing and telephoning among the women in my family as we plan the Thanksgiving dinner. This year, for the first time, it will be granddaughter Tracy and her husband who are hosting the feast. I got to thinking about where the makings of our holiday meal had come from over the years. When I was very young we lived on my Uncle Wally’s farm and much of our food was produced on…
After a very mild autumn I woke up this morning to the first snowfall of the year. Or am I just jumping ahead into winter prematurely? I have a whole month before Winter officially arrives. We never know what the future will hold, weatherwise - or any other -wise.
It is hard to imagine that any family with young daughters is not familiar with Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books which include Little House in the Big Woods, Life on the Shores of Silver Lake and the Little Town on the Prairie. Now, Marta McDowell who has written Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life and Emily Dickinson’s Gardens has come along to tell us the story of the Ingalls family’s life in her new book The…
“This is the best time to test your soil,” Tracy Allen, supervisor of the University of Massachusetts Soil Test Laboratory, told me
Will my garden be blooming on November 15. the official Garden Bloggers Bloom Day? Maybe not. Therefore, I went around the garden today taking photos of the flowers blooming this very unusually warm November day. We have yet to have a hard frost although some plants were bitten and succumbed. This is what's left on this gloomy day with a temperature of 50 degrees at 4 in the afternoon Daylight savings left, Eastern Standard time arrived and so…
If I asked a gardener to give me a list of flowers that bloom in the fall, she might sigh and run out of names after chrysanthemums and asters. But there are many plants that will bloom well into October. Not only perennials bloom in the fall, but even a few annuals like my nasturtiums and marigolds. We are all familiar with the potted chrysanthemums that are available in September and October at garden centers and supermarkets. These…
Leaves are falling, some flower stalks have turned brown and brittle; it’s time for the fall clean up. I have been cutting back iris and daylily foliage which was looking less and less attractive every day. Cutting back is one way to make the garden look neater and a bit more serene. It is also a way to see clearly which clumps will be ready for dividing in the spring. Where can these divisions make the most impact?…
Soil Restoration is important. I don't always understand the science behind good garden practices, but an afternoon with Ben Grosscup helped me think about my soil in new ways. Grosscup began working with the Northeastern Organic Farming Association NOFA) right out of college. He was part of the efforts to organize putting bans on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and efforts to label foods if they did include GMO’s. He organized educational events and seminars for farmers and others…
This Garden Blogger's Bloom Day arrives during a very mild October. We have had a very few fold nights with temperatures going below 40 degrees, but the daytime temperatures still reach well into the 70's and even over 80 degrees. It has been fairly dry except for a couple of welcome rain we got as hurriane Nate touched us for a couple of days. The Fairy rose will stand in the the sprinkling of other rose blossoms, Folksinger,…
Pumpkin Season is here! Jack o’ lanterns seem as American as apple pie, but pumpkins, squash and gourds, along with tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, maize, and cocoa, are native to Central America and Mexico. Over time they migrated to North America and Europe. In fact, New World foods are essential to a large portion of the African population. We don’t often think about the important nutritional value of pumpkins. Pumpkins are all about Cinderella’s coach, Jack ‘o lanterns…