Two parks played an important part in our life recently. Last week our granddaughter Tricia married her high school sweetheart, Brian. The ceremony was held in the beautiful and pastoral Look Park in Northampton at the Theater of Pines. It was a happy moment for all the extended family and there are lots of us on both sides. The bride and groom posed with Granny and the Major, and Aunts Kate and Betsy, her mother our daughter Diane,…
The colors of the landscape on the first day of fall are shifting. Fall colors are mutable, first draining and then gathering richness. The dawn sun on the trees across the field show the rustiness of the trees as the fresh green seeps away. As I drove around on my errands I saw the different fall colors arrive in different ways, vibrantly on the treetops. The low branches of the beeches are turning gold and if I look…
These chilly days and cool nights have got me thinking about spring. Or more specifically the need to plant spring blooming bulbs this fall. There is something about gardening that makes us gardeners keep one eye a season or two ahead, even as we work with the challenges and pleasures of the present. Catalogs for spring bloomers have already arrived. The Old House Gardens catalog is a favorite because I love thinking of the long history of…
Encino lettuce is a tender green oakleaf. I always pay attention when a vendor like Rich Pascale of Shoestring Farm urges me to try something. I am really glad I took home a huge head of Encino. The end of August is getting to be the end of the season for Encino, but now only the beginning of my desire to grow it, or at least eat it. I found seed at Seedway and as far as I can…
Harvest season is upon us. This is the reward of summer-long labors. I’ve been talking to neighbors who are canning dilly beans and corn, making peach jam and drying herbs. One neighbor is seeing what she can rescue from the late blight that is hitting many tomato patches in the area. Harvest time can be hectic when so much produce is coming in at the same time. I don’t do much canning any more. I depend more…
A bouquet of roadside weeds. My roadside. Quite lovely, don't you think. Two kinds of aster, blackeyed susans, lots of goldenrod, tansy and a bit of a cheat - red highbush cranberry (Viburnam) berries and some rugosa rose hips. Mother Nature must love us a lot to give us these beauties in such abundance.
A cool cool August. That means the grass grows really fast, even though there hasn't been any rain to speak of. This has got to be one of the coolest Augusts ever. Nighttime temperatures in the 50s - and often taking a long while to warm up. The one rainfall came all at once. Torrents amounting to 2-1/2 inches on August 13. The Lawn Beds don't change very much, at least from this angle, but the field beyond…
The Franklin County Fair is always a celebration of family farms and gardeners. This view from the balcony gives only a hint of the perfect produce, creativity and business acumen of local farmers and gardeners. Red Fire Farm is just one of the area's most successful small farm, a testament to farmer Ryan Voilland's farming skills, but also his people management and business skills. The dairy farm is not yet dead in Western Massachusetts and these young people…
Over 200 Master Gardeners are volunteering their knowledge and energy up and down the PioneerValley. You might have called upon them to test your soil at local Farmer’s Markets, or found them answering questions at the Big E in Springfield and the Little E in Greenfield, or working at Wisteriahurst in Holyoke, the Bridge of Flowers in ShelburneFalls, or various community gardens as well as at other locations. I am personally grateful for the three Spring Symposia they…
There are more than five things to love about blueberries, but these are my top five things to love. First blueberries are hardy and really easy to grow, especially in Heath where the soil is suitably acid. Blueberries require a pH between 4 and 5.5. I never tested the soil in the berry patch, but my highbush blueberries are healthy, big and productive. And have been for 30 years. This year I am getting a bumper crop. Blueberries…