I first became aware of something called permaculture quite some years ago. You’d think it wouldn’t be too hard to understand a word like that which includes the words permanent and agriculture. But, sad to say, I couldn’t figure it out. I spent some years of my childhood on a Vermont farm and there was nothing of a permanent nature that I could remember. The first book I found about permaculture was a hefty tome that described permaculture…
We have been have nightmarish ice on the walkways and roads, so I dream of Giverny and other landscapes that are warm and painted in shades of spring. I'm counting the days to the Smith College Bulb Show which will open this year on Saturday, March 4. Mark your calendar. In 2015 the theme was Claude Monet's beautiful gardens in Giverny. I wonder what the theme will be this year.
Attractive and colorful seed packets are blooming in garden centers. The constant promise of seeds is that they will germinate and grow providing us with healthy foods, zesty herbs and colorful flowers. Some companies like Burpee have been around for over 100 years. Others are newer. Stories about beginnings are always fascinating and today I have stories about three newer seed companies. When we lived in Maine in 1974-5 I learned about Johnny’s Selected Seeds when I was…
During the holiday season I do a lot of baking and cooking filling the house with spicy aromas. When I received a beautiful box of baking spices as a Christmas gift I got to wondering how far these spices had to travel before they arrived in my kitchen. I was further intrigued by an article in the Sunday New York Times, The World’s History in a Clove Tree by Amitav Ghosh which urged me on to further investigations.…
The view from the window is warm and wet. The temperature is 50 degrees at 11 am, as it was yesterday. I am hoping we get back to more seasonable cold temperatures tomorrow. I am remember the loss of the local peach crops last year when there was an extended warm period in February before getting very cold again. The trees thought spring had sprung, the buds began to swell, but then disaster. Lets keep winter cold until…
My Summer in a Garden by Charles Dudley Warner is one of the books I routinely turn to on dreary days of winter when the temperature resists going higher than freezing. Here is what I had to say about the book back in 2002. “The love of dirt is among the earliest of passions, as it is the latest. Mudpies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure.” I…
When Billie Holiday sang “There’s a change in the weather/There’s a change in the sea/So from now on there’ll be a change in me,” she was casting off an unsatisfactory love affair, not singing about climate change, but the words fit our current global concerns. The climate is changing and the sea is rising. No matter whether everyone agrees about the challenges ahead, there’ll be some changes made. As I stand here today meeting Janus, the Roman god…
The new year, 2017, has dawned. The blank pages of the calendar and the buried garden await the challenges and pleasures of the new year. All best wishes to all.
We just returned from a trip to Texas where our daughter Kate Lawn lives outside Houston with her family. Her family now includes three Eagle Scouts, dad and the two boys. Two years ago we visited and attended Anthony’s Honor Court; last Sunday we attended Drew’s Honor Court. We were so glad to celebrate their achievements. One of the elements of the ceremony was a slide show of Drew’s scouting years beginning as a Tiger Cub. We saw…
Not all garden books are how-to-garden books. Some books for fun are filled with weird and wonderful facts, and others are full of beauty and history. One book sent to me by Storey Publishing last month is Cattail Moonshine & Milkweed Medicine: The Curious Stories of 43 Amazing North American Native Plants ($19.95) written by Tammi Hartung. Because milkweed was in the title I began by reading those pages. When we lived in New York City I was…