July 27, 2010

Life will not be denied! is a cry often heard here at the End of the Road. Often as I am pulling out persistent weeds, but sometimes when an unexpected life is discovered, like this petunia coming up through the paving.

In spite of all the heat and drought, the petunia has thrived all summer. No help from us.

This Labor Day weekend our son Chris and his partner Michelle visited. Their French bulldog, Bibi admired the brave petunias.

Bibi the French Bulldog

Bibi is very photogenic. When he is at Michelle Willey’s shop in Boston,  customers are always begging for a photo. Bibi is willing to pose, but autographs are out!

Purple loosestrife along a Heath roadside

“Invasive species have the potential to completely alter habitats, disrupt natural cycles of disturbance and succession, and most importantly, greatly decrease overall biodiversity, pushing rare species to the brink of extinction. Many ecologists now feel that invasive species represent the greatest current and future threat to native plant and animal species worldwide, greater even than human population growth, land development and pollution.” William Cullina of the New England Wildflower Society

We do not have to travel far to see the power of invasive plants. Look at local wetlands filled with the plumy spikes of purple loosetrife. Drive along I-91 coming into Greenfield from the south in the fall and see all the Oriental bittersweet climbing trees along the highway. See the acres of Japanese knotweed blooming in the fall along the roadsides.

Where and how did these exotic invasives get their start? This simple question has a multifaceted answer.

Over the past 300 years non-native plants have found their way to North America in a variety of ways. Some have come accidentally. Agricultural weeds have come in grain shipments, or in the ballast of early ships. Others have been introduced by horticulturists, and even the government.

As recently as 25 years ago I ordered several Autumn Olive (Eleagnus umbellaata) shrubs from the Conservation district. They grew well for several years, but eventually died, probably because of the competition by the wild grape vines I am always fighting.  They died, but it took me a while to notice that they had seeded all over the sloping field to the east of the planting. I assume this is one of those un-intended consequences that befall all of us from time to time – but it is making a lot of work for us now.

Burning bush (Euonymus alatus) is a shrub that can still be found at nurseries even though it is on the invasive list of plants in Massachusetts. The brilliant red fall foliage and its dependability are the reasons for its popularity.

So what can gardeners do? We choose plants like burning bush and purple loosetrife because of their beauty and because they suit our site.

First, gardeners have to educate themselves about which plants must be avoided. They can check the list on the New England Wildflower Society website, www.newfs.org. This site will not only list invasive plants, it will suggest native plants that provide many of the same attributes.  For myself, I have never really liked burning bush, and my highbush blueberries give the same red fall foliage – and blueberries.

Other alternatives to burning bush include Cotinus obovatus, the American smoketree. Many people plant this large shrub because they like the plumey ‘smokes’ in the fall. The deep red color is there all season long. Sweetspire, Itea virginica, is a smaller shrub if you have less space, and Clethra alnifolia, summersweet, gives you wonderfully fragrant flowers in summer as well as autumnal color.

Loosestrife in Buffalo hellstrip

This summer I was in Buffalo to get a preview of the fantastic Buffalo Garden Walk tour. One of the ‘hell-strips’ that my colleagues exclaimed over included purple loosestrife, half of us not recognizing it among the mixed planting of phlox, echinaceas and other perennials. It is a beautiful plant but so dangerous. Alternatives of Lythrum salicaria and L. virgatum, include Gayfeather, Liatris pynostachya and Filipendula rubra otherwise known as Queen of the Prairie which is a good strong grower, but not invasive. If you have a wet site swamp milkweed, Asclepias incarnata with its clusters of pale to deep rose on tall stems might be an answer.

The climbing tree in front of the Buckland Library is a Norway maple. This has been identified as such an invasive species that many public gardens and parks like Central Park in New York City have cut down all their Norway maples. It was planted to give children a good climbing tree. With the new library addition and new landscape that tree will need to be removed, but I suspect it will be replaced – and this time with a non-invasive climbing tree. I have been told that mulberry trees (and there are fruitless varieties) are good for climbing, as are apple trees.  There are a lot of apple trees in Buckland orchards, so this might be an appropriate tree – especially if someone volunteers to prune it during its youth to accommodate young climbers.

Other good native trees for the domestic landscape include Yellowwood (Cladastrus kentukea) which has flowers in spring and golden fall color, several birches, river birch as well as paper and sweet birch. Crabapples and mountain ash feed the birds.

In his excellent book, Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in our Gardens, which I cannot recommend too highly, Douglas W. Tallamy makes the point that even suburban gardeners play an important part in providing food and shelter for the wildlife that we welcome into our gardens, and maintaining a healthy balanced ecosystem.

That sounds reasonable – and easy, but we have to provide food that native wildlife find edible. We also need to pay attention to feeding all stages of these creatures’ lives. Butterfly larvae need to eat too.

Using native plants does not limit us to a few uninteresting varieties, but we will need to be aware of their importance, and then educate ourselves. There are many resources on the Internet and at your library and bookstore. In addition to Tallamy’s book the Brooklyn Botanical Garden has an excellent small book Native Alternatiaves for Invasive Plants.  Happy reading.

Between the Rows  August 28, 2010

If you love chickens as I do you will love the story, too.

Heath Elementary School wellhead

The Heath Elementary School, which opened in 1996, was built in a pasture surrounded by woodland. When the school bus pulls off the dirt road onto the driveway it passes a path that leads to the school’s wellhead. This area is well used for science study, with information about the importance of clean water, and how it is kept clean.

Heath School Entry

The children debark they welcomed by perennials on either side of the entrance.

Heath School Playing Fields

The school and its grounds are held in the embrace of a woodland, where science can be studied, and the beauties of nature can inspire art classes. Perhaps inspire a poem or essay or two as well.

Heath School Meadow

The meadow fills the circular drive where buses and cars drive up to, and then away from the entry. Right now it looks all neat having just been given a back to school trim, but in the spring it is a hazy blue meadow of lupines, followed by a bouquet of summer wildflowers.

Heath School Vegetable Garden

The newest addition to the school landscape is the vegetable garden, punctuated by some bright annuals. This has been producing for three or four years now and the soil gets better every year.  There are some apple trees, too. I’d like to be able to tell you that the kids enjoy some of those vegetables at lunch but I am sure, absolutely sure, that they would never break the law which forbids this kind of activity. Isn’t the law interesting? There might be another lesson there.

This school with its gardens doesn’t come about just because it is a small school out in the country. It takes devoted and energetic parents who volunteer time, labor and money, and creative teachers who find a hundred ways to integrate the garden and the landscape into the Mass Curriculum Frameworks.  Heath is pretty lucky!

No season was ever greater proof of this quote from Reginald Farrer (1880-1920) than this spring and summer.  We couldn’t complain about early or late blooming, because all bloom was operating on some mysterious energy. Some plants bloomed late, and some early.  People who planned wedding dates with available garden flowers in mind found themselves in difficult straits.

Last week I opened A Century of Gardeners by Betty Massingham that I bought at the Friends of the Heath Library Book Sale at the Heath Fair. The brief biography was so tantalizing I ran to my bookshelf and there was A Rage for Rock Gardening: The story of Reginal Farrer, gardener, writer and plant collector by Nicola Shulman.  I’m afraid the term rock gardening put me off to such an extent that I hardly opened the book when it was given to me as a gift years ago.  That was a mistake because if Massingham’s book tantalized, Shulman’s book delighted in the ways I assume Farrer was able to do.

Born in 1880 his youth was difficult because he was born with a cleft palate which affected his speech.  The corrective  surgeries that were available at the time sound barbaric, dealing with “hot tongs, sulfuric acid and metal bridles.”  Because of this he was schooled at home and learned to deal with physical hardships, a different type of which he met up with on his plant hunting travels..

He was self taught in botany and at the age of 14 he rebuilt his parents rock garden. Unlike my vision of a few rocks on a slope with bits of basket of gold alyssum stuck in beetween which is what my  first and only rock garden looked like, Farrer’s rock gardens were designed to coddle alpine plants. His book was written when he was 22 and it was well received. However, fame as a novelist is what he longed for. The five novels he wrote did not give him fame or even critical applause.  His relationship with his father, never close or easy, deteriorated to such a degree that he was finally forced to earn money on his own.

Needing money he took to writing garden books  -  books about his plant hunting and planting aesthetic.  Along with William Robinson, Gertrude Jekyll he is responsible for changing the whole approach to gardening. The Victorian way was bedding out, turning flower beds into complex and brilliantly colored carpets. The way we garden now, more naturally, with the gardener working with the plant instead of working to subdue the plant, is thanks to Farrer as well as his more famous colleagues.

His other books include In a Yorkshire Garden, Alpines and Bog Plants,  On the Eaves of the World and The Rainbow Bridge. His writing about plants was as new and unique as his garden style. For him plants had personalities. They sulked or were capricious.I will have to search them out as well as Farrer’s Last Journey by E.H.M. Cox about his expedition to upper Burma.  The novel failed him, but his literary talents bloomed when he wrote about plants.

I want to thank Carolyngail at Sweet Home and Garden Chicago for hosting Muse Day which I always look forward to. I keep my eyes open for something to share – and love seeing what muses are inspiring other gardeners.

I never seem to get a Before picture. I don’t avoid it on purpose, but I am usually so embarrassed at the state of my garden that I subconsiously don’t think of getting the camera until I am a little way into the job.  Just picture this as a weedy area after the spent broccoli has been pulled out. It is about 6 feet long and no more than 2 feet deep.

Almost finished compost

After pulling out all the weeds and roots I got a wheelbarrow full of almost finished compost from our compost bin. I usually start that bin with a big bag of fall leaves, then add some chicken manure of which we have a good amount, and then put kitchen refuse in it during the winter. I also added more leaves and more manure so this is pretty good stuff. I could see that some of the matted leaves hadn’t quite broken down.

There was enough compost to spread it on this bed about 2 inches deep.  I broke up any matted leaves into leaf dust.

Before digging in the compost I sprinkled on a cup each of greensand and limestone, which I do on general principles. My soil is acid of course, hence the lime. The greensand is an organic source of potassium (K) and I count on the compost to provide the nitrogen and everything else the soil needs.  Now the bed is all ready for planting.

Though this bed is in the vegetable garden I think I will divide a couple of perennials and put the divisions here for winter nursery where they will be easy to dig up and pot up in the spring for the Bridge of Flowers Plant Sale in May.

I was happy to get all this done before 10:30 yesterday morning. This part of the garden is shaded by the roadside trees until about 11 so it was comfortable to work. In the afternoon the temperature got up to 90 degrees. Nothing to do but go inside and blog.

Stanley Plum

Mostly I just weeded, and weeded all weekend, while Henry mowed and mowed.  The big job we did, almost, was to take down this Stanley plum tree in our little ‘orchard’ next to the vegetable garden and rasberry patch. This tree has suffered over the years, most notably during the year we lived in Beijing and had renters;  their horses had a fondness for fruit tree bark.  The chain saw gave out before we got down the main trunks. We will enjoy the ’sculpture’ until we get a new bar for the saw.

Plum black knot

The plum tree we took down was suffering from a severe case of black knot fungus.  There was no way to remove a few branches to clean up the tree and making it bear once more. Black knot is unmistakable and very ugly.  The knots will get bigger and bigger every year, and spread through out the tree, sapping its vitality until the tree is no longer productive. All I can do is keep a close eye on the remaining tree and cut out and burn any further knots.

Stanley plums

Fortunately we will be able to continue enjoying  self pollinating Stanley plums because our other tree is bearing. There is a bit of black knot on this tree, but I will  prune out the few affected branches.  Stanley plums are suseptible to black knot.  I don’t know where the original spores come from, possibly from wild cherry trees in  the area.

My compost pile

I had just gathered up and dumped the spent broccoli plants and last weeds for the day on our unlovely compost pile; Henry had put away the lawn mower and we were preparing to call it a day, when a little red Zipcar pulled up.  Usually when an unfamiliar car arrives at the End of the Road it is because the driver has made a wrong turn, but not this time.

Nick and Emily

The End of the Road was very familiar to Nick Griffin whose stepfather sold us the house in 1979.  He and his fiance Emily had been at a big wedding in Vermont and were so close to the vacation home of his youth that he could not resist trying to find it and see if he would remember any of the house or town after 30 years.  We gave him the tour, beginning with his old treehouse, which did have some renovations some number of years ago – and in need of more. It was fun to look at the changes in the house with them, describe the Fourth of July barn fire, talk about our first neighbor, Mabel Vreeland,  and reminisce about summer vacations and ski weekends with only a fireplace for heat. Brrrrr!  I like knowing about how previous owners enjoyed the house, and hearing about their fond memories.

Hops

I have a friend who once built himself a ‘lethe house.’  It wasn’t really a house, and it wasn’t really about forgetting, the way the mythical Lethe River in Hades was supposed to bring total forgetfulness to those who drank the waters.  My friend planted a circular garden filled with soporific plants like valerian, poppies, chamomile and lavender that would send one into the mythical arms of Morpheus, the god of dreams.

The garden was rimmed with large poles linked with ropes to provide supports for hop (Humulus lupulus) vines.  As I remember it, the garden was just big enough so that two of the poles could also support a hammock. This lethe house was about napping, not forgetting, except in the sense that all chores and to-do lists would be forgotten.  I don’t know that he actually got to spend too much time in his lethe house, but it is a charming conceit for a garden.

Hops are known for their soporific qualities. To this day people can buy pretty little hop pillows to lure a reluctant sandman. I have hops growing, not in my garden, but at the edges of the garden. At first I was delighted to find that a hop plant had hopped up from my neighbor’s yard, where it was growing up into a tree. It is an itchy and hairy vine which is more properly called a bine.  Vines have tendrils and suckers to help them climb, but bines just have strong  twining stems that enable them to climb. Hop bines can grow as high as a graceful 30 feet or more.

This past weekend my husband and I went out to clear a major part of a viburnam that had been bent and crushed during the historic December 2008 ice storm. The damage was not easily seen because the affected limbs were hidden by rampant grape and hop vines.  Every year we pull out and cut down these vines, but every spring they come back because we cannot find their beginnings.

Many gardeners are familiar with how persistent grape vines can be, but I think my hop vines are even more indestructible. As it happened we hit upon the perfect time to harvest the beautiful hop flowers that look like fancy little bright green lanterns. In the old days hops were not only used  for their sedative properties, but to increase breast milk, as a general tonic, and as a cure for diarrehea. Hops are not native to North America, but by the early 1600s some Native Americans had added hop tea to their healing cures. Young hop shoots can also be eaten in spring as a vegetable like asparagus.

I first learned about hop farming and harvesting in English novels and movies that described poor Londoners of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries taking off for the countryside when the hop vines were ripe, to camp out and do the harvest. I gathered it was as close as many of those people got to a country vacation where they enjoy the fresh air, green countryside and something of a social holiday with other hop pickers.

The hop bine/vine is vigorous and can grow as much as a foot a day. Hop farmers put up tall hop poles. Each pole had a hoop at the top and bottom connected by ropes. Hops were planted around the bottom hoop so they could twine around the ropes to the top hoop which was arranged so that at harvest the top hoop could be lowered for picking.  Hop pickers did not need to climb high into the air to do their job. They did notice that they got sleepy just picking the vines all day. Between the hop picking and the country air, I guess they slept well every night. Unless they developed dermatitis, which was an occupational hazard.

Since we have a micro-brewery, Berkshire Brewery,  right in our own South Deerfield backyard, I thought I could get some hop and beer information. Gary Bogoff and Chris Lalli now produce nearly 18,000 gallons of beer a week!

I spoke to Jason Hunter, the Assistant Director of Sales who was the brewery’s very first employee.  Hunter explained that there are more than 40 varieties of hops providing different characteristics to make distinctly different beers.  “Each variety has specific flavor and aromatic properties, as well as bittering. The bittering helps to balance the sweetness of the malt,” he said.

Hunter went on to explain that most hop farms are in the Pacific Northwest and that Berkshire Brewery uses tons of several types of hops to make their different beers.  “All our beers except one, use more than one variety, and some use four or five.”

I don’t know whether beer is soporific or not, or just something that will cure what ails you on a hot summer afternoon or evening.

While hops will make you drowsy, a sunflower contest is sure to keep awake with anticipation. Will your sunflower win? Bring your sunflowers, or come and admire the sunflowers, at the Energy Park this afternoon, August 21. Entries are being accepted in a variety of classes between noon and 2 p.m. Then the judging will begin. Clarkdale and Pine Hill Orchards are providing apples for the winners.

You could continue the celebration, whether a prize was won or not by attending the Free Harvest Supper on the Greenfield Common  tomorrow, August 22.. Fabulous local food prepared by our fabulous local chefs. Lively music by fabulous local musicians. Fabulous conversations and a Really, Really Free Market.  For a still more trash-free meal, bring your own eating utensils.

To make a tax-deductible donation to the Free Harvest Supper:
Send checks made out to FREE HARVEST SUPPER 2010 to Dino Schnelle, C/O Center for Self-Reliance Food Pantry, 393 Main Street, Greenfield, MA 01301. For more information about the Center for Self Reliance and the Greenfield Farmers’ Market Coupon project, please call (413) 773-5029. ###

Between the Rows   August 21, 2010

Greenfield Farmers Market

I’m so happy to participate in the Loving Local Farmers Market Blogathon hosted by In Our Grandmother’s Kitchens for several reasons. First, Farmers Markets are beautiful and celebratory places to be. Everywhere are gorgous healthy fruits and vegetables, fragrant herbs and brilliant flowers. Everyone is cheerful when they are surrounded by this beautiful bounty. Who wouldn’t like to spend an hour at the Farmers Market?

Second, is the energy savings of locally grown produce. I know all about the current re-calculating of energy costs of California produce versus more local produce that required heated greenhouses but the farmers I know are using solar greenhouses and limited or no other energy for heating.

Tom Clark of Clarkdale Fruit Farm

Third, is the crisp freshness of the produce. It has been picked  ripe and at its peak. That’s for me! And the nutritional value hasn’t had time to evaporate away.

Fourth, is the variety of veggies, fruits, herbs and unique varieties that promise great flavor and texture. I am a gardener and I grow a lot of my own veggies and herbs, but for a family of two I can’t grow all the variety that I hunger for.

Fifth is my concern for my own food supply. I firmly believe that less centralized, more diversified food sources are safer from violent weather and insect damage or blights and disease. This means the food system for the whole nation is more secure.

Sixth, I think smaller food producers are less likely to spread diseases like salmonella.  It seems that all the  outbreaks of infected foods that have necessitated recalls are from large farms, feedlots and processing plants.

Seventh is my desire to support the farmers who will grow this safe, healthy and delicious food. I love farmers! Some of them are cute and are willing to flirt at the farmers market. I wonder if I can count flirting as another reason for supporting farmers and farmers markets.  What do you think?

Eighth is my concern for the local economy. Buying food, or anything locally, will keep my dollars circulating in my community, so shopping at the farmers market is supporting the whole local economy.

Nine. I can meet various friends and acquaintances at the Farmers Market. I always allow time to stop and gossip.  Here I am blogging and Facebooking, but really, there is  nothing like a face to face confab with people you enjoy, maybe while eating a juicy peach or apple, or a fruit turnover. Have you noticed how many farmers are good cooks?

Ten. Even if you are not a passionate cook farmers markets are a good place to shop because you don’t really need to do anything to make fresh veggies taste wonderful. The flavor is already there. Who needs to do anything fancy to corn on the cob? Or a passel of peas? Or beets?  Steaming, roasting – or just plain raw.

I just came up with a new slogan – Eat Local – Eat Well.   It works for me.

January Winterfare in Northampton

Check out the Mass Farmers Market Association, a non-profit organization and donate to help support farmers markets throughout the Commonwealth.

Hawkeye Belle

August is not rose season for me, but since it is Three for Thursday I thought I would report progress on The Rose Bank.  When we had work done on our house foundation that end of the house had to be regraded, and my thought was to eliminate lawn mowing on that slope I could cover it with roses.  The blackberry thicket that had been growing there has been more persistent than I expected, but I have been fairly successful in keeping them cut back as I encouraged the roses.

I planted Hawkeye Belle this spring and she is doing beautifully.  She was very happy for all the rain we have had for the past few days. This rose is one of the hardy, disease resistant roses hybridized by Griffith Buck of the State University of Iowa. A good repeat bloomer which is rare among my roses.

Pink Grootendorst rugosa

Pink Grootendorst went in last spring. I thought rugosas would be a good bet for helping to cover this slope. This rugosa has wonderful little dianthus-like blossoms with pinked edges.  The rain has beaten down the roses – but after more than three days of rain everything in the garden is beaten down.  Even the weedy asters have been happy for a drink.

Double Red Knockout rose

For some reason my camera doesn’t like red roses very much, but I am among those who applaud the Knockouts. This rose is a lush red. I first saw it down in Houston when we visited daughter Kate and her family a couple of years ago. While I loved the idea of an everblooming red rose I feared it would not be hardy here. On the bank this rose is somewhat sheltered from the worst of the winter winds and it is doing better than the red Knockout on the Rose Walk which is more exposed. Perhaps that is one reason it is thriving.

To see what other trios are thriving this August Thursday visit Cindy at My Corner of Katy. Thank you Cindy!