All Kinds of Books for the Reading Season on Wordless Wednesday

  • Post published:01/06/2015
  • Post comments:5 Comments

Where do you keep your books for the reading season that follows the delightful chaos of the holidays? I will show you my bookshelves - or at least portions of the ranks of bookshelves in my house. There are about 44 feet of bookshelves in the Great Room. This section includes nature refernce books, mysteries, essays and cookbooks and books on cooking. This array of cookbooks is next to the dining table that also serves as a worktable.…

Watermelon or Beauty Heart Radish- beautiful either way

  • Post published:01/04/2015
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Watermelon or Beauty Heart radish? At the farmer's market on Saturday I  bought Watermelon radish. However, I first met this radish in China where the Chinese name was translated as Beauty Heart, so much prettier than Red Meat Radish which is the way it is sold by some seed companies. I love Beauty Heart, but I can easily live with Watermelon Radish.  When my Chinese colleagues first served me this radish in a pickled salad I insisted it…

What’s New for 2015

  • Post published:01/03/2015
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What's new for 2015? In just five days we’ll have entered a new year where unimagined things may happen. How much of 2014 did you forsee on January 1, 2014? I’ll bet lots of the unimagined entered your life, and I hope that much was positive and joyful. You know that there will be many banners of NEW in the nursery and seed catalogs that are starting to fill our mailboxes. Perhaps the most unimagined new plant I…

My Indoor Rosemary

  • Post published:12/30/2014
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I have two rosemary plants that grow outdoors during the summer, and then come indoors for the winter. The plant on the left is a prostrate rosemary, bought in error when I was in a hurry. I grew it outdoors that first season adn then potted it in this handsome redware container. I did not put it in the ground again for no reason other than inertia. The plant still lives and I have been known to harvest…

The Last Christmas in Heath?

  The decision has been made. This is our last Christmas in Heath. Of course, life being what it is, nothing is certain, but we are looking for a house in Greenfield where we will celebrate Christmas 2015. Decisions like this are not lightly made, but for the past couple of years we have been thinking the time has come to be 45 minutes closer to our children, and where we will not have to hop in the…

Merry Christmas!

  • Post published:12/23/2014
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Merry Christmas!  And holiday wishes  for every good thing for every one.

Last Minute Trio of Gift Books for You or a Friend

  • Post published:12/22/2014
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We are not slaves to the calendar at our house. If you cannot buy any of these gift books for delivery before Christmas, who cares? I still want to remind you of three different types of books that would make great gifts. Groundbreaking Food Gardens (Storey $19.95) by Niki Jabbour will indeed give you 73 plans that will change the way you garden. If you have limited space or no land at all you can grow a container…

Gifts for the Gardener – still time to shop

  • Post published:12/20/2014
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I have never thought it very hard to find gifts for the gardener. After all, what does a gift say? I love you? I understand you? I want you to enjoy your days? I want your dreams to come true? I share your passion and I know just what you need? No matter what your message there are garden centers and other kinds of shops that have just the gifts to convey these messages to the gardener in…

Indoor Kitchen Gardening by Elizabeth Millard

  • Post published:12/19/2014
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When I first started reading Elizabeth Millard's new book, Indoor Kitchen Gardening: Turn Your Home Into a Year-Round Vegetable Garden, ($24.99) I had some idea about growing herbs and sprouts indoors during the winter, but I wasn't so sure about tomatoes. For that reason I dashed right past all the basic information about getting started to the back of the book, past microgreens and herbs, past the potatoes! and straight to  tomatoes. Millard acknowledges that growing tomatoes, which…