Our friends (L-R) Dick Bohme on the one-string bass, Dennis Avery on the dobros , Al Canali on guitar and Karen Hogness on mandolin comprise Small Change. One of the great benefits of living in Greenfield is the concert series held in the Energy Park on Miles Street which is only 5 minutes from our house. We found out about this concert series the morning that Small Change was to perform. Of course we were there. But we…
What is a weed? A friend recently gave me a branchy stem of a plant with fine alternate leaves she has growing all over her garden. She asked if I could identify it. She didn’t know if it was a “real plant” or a weed that she should be pulling out. Off hand I couldn’t identify it and turned to my Weeds of the Northeast by Uva, Neal and Di Tomasso and still could not definitely identify it,…
Blueberries offer many benefits to the gardeners who want to grow more of their own food. When I lived in Heath I had access to the low-bush blueberry farms that operate there, but highbush blueberries were among the first shrubs I planted. I do not prefer one over the other, except that the highbush blueberries are larger and easier to pick. Nowadays lowbush blueberries to plant are much more available than they once were. We are also fortunate…
Our visits to the Cousins always include a few hours at the North End Beach (at the North End of my uncle's farm) which is covered with smooth lake stones. The pier was not there when I was a child. The cousins, my brothers and I didn't need any refinements to swim and have a wonderful time. We used those stones any number of ways, including hitting them together while we were under water. Our first experience with…
Shade. Green shade. With the recent 90 degree days I have been thinking that every garden has to have shade. I thought I had a very shady garden, but my husband and I did a shade study. We took photos of the back garden every couple of hours to see how shade moved across the space. It turns out that most of the garden gets six to seven hours of sun which counts as the full sun required…
My first reaction to Beverley Nichols, British gardener, author and wit, when he declared that water was an essential element of any garden was “Ridiculous!” I had seen photos of those British gardens with their rocks and rills, their reflecting pools, their gushing statuary in the topiary garden, none of which had I ever seen in real life. Of course, that showed my ignorance of British gardens, and my foolish reaction to a new idea. I should have…
The view from the window in mid April doesn't tell much about the plantings, but if you look closely you will see a few cut up log pieces along the back of the garden. Our neighbors had a tree come down and shared their logs with us. The Hugel has begun. The Hugel is our hugelkultur effort to control standing water in the garden. We'll see how it works. May arrives with the green of spring. It looks…
“Chances are, you have never thought of your garden — indeed, of all of the space on your property — as a wildlife preserve that represents the last chance we have for sustaining plants and animals that were once common throughout the U.S.” Douglas Tallamy. Most of us welcome birds and butterflies to our gardens, but don’t spend much time thinking about bugs, except for pesky mosquitoes and Japanese beetles. Yet, even bugs, and there are hundreds of species…
For the past three days I've been travelling around the Minneapolis-St. Paul area with 60 other garden bloggers including my sister Massachusetts bloggers Amy Murphy (OF GARDENS) and Rebecca (THE SUSTAINABLE-ENOUGH GARDEN). We've seen beautiful plants, stunning design, and some real surprises. The enormous Prairie Dock leaves we saw in a field at the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden were among the many amazing plants we saw on our tour. We found red baneberry in the wetland area of…
Bill Mollison, considered the Father of Permaculture, said it is “. . . the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.” Nancee Bershof became interested in permaculture after her husband’s death, and her departure from medicine. She was looking for new interests and permaculture fascinated her. She took a course that led her down a new road, supplying food, and non-material needs like community…