Solstice salad
Going out for the newspaper a few mornings ago, I was greeted by a warm 50 degree breeze and sunny skies. Normally, such weather is more appropriate for the Spring Equinox than the Winter Solstice. But this has been a year of unusual weather so I shrugged off the morning breeze as yet another aberration […]
Building a program—Part 2: Finishing the back
Putting up a deer fence was both an end and starting point. It was the end of the carnage by the deer. If the snow didn’t save them from deer last winter, any remaining plants got chewed up in the spring or died during the rainless July this summer. But now we can start anew. […]
Gardening makes me sick
This time of year I should be deadheading the late spring bulbs, cutting back tulip stems, weeding, harvesting lettuce, mowing the lawn, etc. Instead I find myself crouched in fetal position vacillating between cold shakes and hot sweats. I have wet the bed (with my sweat). Everything is sore. I’ve got fever to burn at […]
Leaves of three, let them be
The morning was crisp and cold but with cloudless skies promising a much warmer day. The back gardens at Ann’s Place were as I left them last fall with a blanket of straw covering everything I planted last November but with one big difference: daffodils. The 3,400 daffodils I planted last year have come in […]
Digging out the garden
With over three feet of snow in less than a week, there is little time to think about gardening. My wife and I are from the school that likes to make many small trips outside to incrementally shovel rather than waiting for all the snow to fall so that it must be removed in one […]
Starting from scratch
There was nothing but barberry as far as the eye could see. Dead trees, thick vines, large boulders were scattered around an inhospitable landscape. This is what I have to work with to create a therapeutic space. It should be fun. (I have to admit I’m a bit behind on my writing. Unlike the photo […]
Fall flowers
Though a frost has yet to coat my roof with a thin sheen of white, I know it is coming. Leaves fell in great bunches last week, the hostas have browned up and my lawn has put out that last spurt of growth requiring a final trim. I’ve been building an increasing amount of fires […]
The sweet smell of decay
The advent of autumn has always been bittersweet as the seasonal burst of a multifaceted patina of foliage is counterbalanced by the sad brown and gray death of its aftermath. I was in between these worlds this weekend as the first of a weekly raking regime started. I’ve always enjoyed raking as it is a […]
Pop, crackle, snap: It’s not a Rice Crispy
It was a dark and stormy night . . . Or at least it was incredibly windy as the porch light illuminated a rain of leaves being blown about like flat slices of snow during a blizzard. It seemed as if the peak of leaf season and their escape from perches high on maples, birches, […]
An annoyance of fruits
I was not a good blogger in August opting to rest and harvest my labors rather than write about them. For every post I did not write, I harvested a huge crop of something. First it was zucchinis, which grow in quick succession. My wife hated them as I pulled at least two a day […]