tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58876332148921132342012-02-07T09:27:26.585-05:00Adventures and experiments of a novice home gardenerRachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.comBlogger681100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-27851605747177480392012-02-07T09:26:00.000-05:002012-02-07T09:27:10.113-05:00

I've been watching the crabapples hang on the tree in the backyard all winter. Crabapples are supposed to have wildlife value, but I'm guessing that these are so tart that they are a food of absolutely last resort. Fortunately, I've been able to make a fruit-based dessert in advance of Valentine's Day that is much more appealing than crabapples - this week's Dark Days entry is for a red fruit

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-46399080688357125422012-02-07T09:09:00.002-05:002012-02-07T09:27:26.591-05:00

February is fast-approaching, which means I've been thinking about onions. Onions can be transplanted as soon as the ground can be worked in the spring, and you need about 4-6 weeks to grow onions from seed to transplanting size. This whole seed-starting thing is all about working backwards - you start at the date that you want to put your plants in the garden and subtract the appropriate

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-3803418851506472312012-01-23T22:35:00.000-05:002012-01-23T22:47:31.929-05:00

Now that the snow has finally arrived, I am in no rush to get back into the garden. Before it snowed, I felt like I should be doing some sort of yardwork, even though the ground has been frozen solid for weeks. Now, I am blissfully relieved of my obligations to do yardwork or compost-turning until spring comes. Instead, I have turned my gardening attentions indoors - I am forcing some

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-69886906549083536062012-01-23T22:25:00.000-05:002012-01-23T22:32:36.180-05:00

Imagine America in 1784, one year after the end of the Revolutionary War. The official treaty ending the war with England was ratified on January 14, 1784. There was no Constitution and no President. (Those didn't come about until 1787 and 1789, respectively.) Most of New Hampshire was the very fine edge of civilization surrounded by wilderness. Our town was chartered in 1748, but not

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-59535624425749818682012-01-16T22:01:00.002-05:002012-01-16T22:02:25.506-05:00

This week, I bring you two tales of good intentions and not-so-good outcomes. Kitty happy meal? I. I bought a pile of butternut squash and pie pumpkins from Musterfield Farm in September and put it in dry storage in our garage. I put it on a wooden tray up on a high shelf stacked on top of a bucket, which meant it was difficult to see and difficult to pull down. Last week, I went through

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-30537082634527814852012-01-09T21:07:00.001-05:002012-01-09T22:49:14.431-05:00

Gardens help us cultivate the idea of "Waste not, Want not" - We can save seeds from one year to the next. We can use mulch to save water and hours of weeding effort. We can convert leaves, spent vines and other yard waste into compost. We can give the unwanted caterpillars, slugs and kitchen scraps to the chickens. We can collect used egg cartons and put new eggs in them to store, sell or share

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-13713018179847100702012-01-05T22:27:00.000-05:002012-01-05T22:39:50.157-05:00

Oh, what a difference a year makes! This time last year, you would have found me perusing my Fedco seed catalog with a big mug of tea, as shown below. Ahh, the zen of garden planning. 2012 has brought some changes - this is my seed-purchase planning spread this year. No zen this year, more like ordered chaos. You may notice that my collection of garden books and catalogs has rapidly

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-17419194135518584822011-12-26T21:17:00.000-05:002011-12-27T21:04:18.621-05:00

Happy Holidays! Charlie Brown trees look better in the dark. We are celebrating two overlapping holidays this year - the eight days of Chanukah and the twelve days of Christmas! Even for households that only celebrate Christmas, I'd strongly recommend celebrating all twelve days. Multi-day holidays are wonderful for a number of reasons, but the reason most pertinent to this blog is that

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-67799934830235691402011-12-19T22:04:00.000-05:002011-12-19T22:16:26.217-05:00

Spinach is a Holy Grail vegetable for me. I plant it several times a year (spring and fall) in a specially prepared bed, water it thoroughly, and generally try to pamper the baby spinach into succulent green leaves. But it never seems to get beyond the baby spinach stage without some sort of problem - bolting, turning yellow, freezing solid, wilting in a 90-degree day in early June, being eaten

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-25781051239580012932011-12-12T22:03:00.001-05:002011-12-12T22:06:03.508-05:00

I grew potatoes for the first time this year. They may be my new favorite crop - they are so easy to grow and need very little maintenance during the height of the summer, when everything else in the garden needs constant attention. Plus, they store well for a long time. 1) You dig a trench in your garden and toss in a seed potato every foot or so. 2) You cover it with some soil, leaving 2

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-57205845376619180882011-12-03T21:06:00.000-05:002011-12-04T10:29:30.268-05:00

I had no idea until this year that you could grow sweet potatoes in New England. Sweet potatoes are a tropical root vegetable - not a cold-hardy friend of kale and red potatoes and other favored New England crops. Like potatoes, sweet potatoes are not true roots like carrots or parsnips, but are tubers, underground stems that store starch. Unlike carrots and parsnips that are grown from seed,

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-41329531701482454052011-12-03T18:30:00.000-05:002011-12-03T21:08:34.049-05:00

I'm trying some new things this winter. 1) I planted basil, arugula, lettuce and spinach indoors to see if I can grow my own micro-mix. The idea is to harvest the sprouts once they put out their first set of true leaves - and use it as a flavorful garnish for soups/salads. We will see how it goes... 2) I'm trying to keep some very sad-looking rosemary alive. It's so depressing I didn't even

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-59158947643553987142011-11-26T09:34:00.001-05:002011-11-27T11:35:54.036-05:00

I usually think of November as a grey and dreary month. I should know because this is my birthday month and I was always a little envious of other kids who could celebrate their birthdays with pool parties and lawn games. When I think back to Novembers past, I think of rainy and sleety weather punctuated by grey clouds. Since we had surprise snow right around Halloween this year, I pulled

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-18811909921317491742011-11-15T23:46:00.001-05:002011-11-16T00:40:45.535-05:00

Last year, I wrote a post about Swiss chard, a leafy green vegetable that I never ate growing up... heck, I never even heard of Swiss chard until I was out of high school. Brussels sprouts were another matter. I had heard of Brussels sprouts throughout my childhood. In children's books, movies and other incursions of pop culture, Brussels sprouts are often reviled and forcing children to eat

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-29250641239402608402011-10-29T20:48:00.000-04:002011-10-29T20:49:32.019-04:00

A leaden sky greeted me as I drove home from work today - seriously leaden, as if the snow were going to fall out of the sky as anvils instead of flakes. I realize that my blog's byline is "be prepared to expect wonders" - a nod to Thoreau from his essay on his great faith in seeds. But today I am reminded that gardening is also full of surprises... Particularly surprises from the weather.

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-17757959320507199532011-10-24T22:50:00.000-04:002011-10-24T22:50:58.427-04:00

I went to our nation's capital last week and was surprised at the scarcity of trees. Washington D.C. indeed holds many of our national treasures - the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and its reflecting pool, and the Smithsonian Museums, just to name a few - and wraps them in all the best aspirations and values of our democracy. Anyone, no matter what race, religion or immigration

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-40786054868929925192011-10-12T22:30:00.003-04:002011-10-12T22:36:54.299-04:00

There's a reason that my husband learned a clean-up song during kindergarten - the singing distracts five-year-olds from the fact that cleaning is not very fun. Each month, I have been reading Notes from the Garden by Henry Homeyer, the local gardening guru in my region. This book is a collection of his newspaper columns, organized by month, and I've been reading along as the months go by. The

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-62547422060319844852011-09-27T21:13:00.000-04:002011-09-27T21:17:09.245-04:00

Nasturtiums are pleasing to the eye and peppery on the palate. It's been autumn for almost a full week now, but it's still feeling quite a bit like summer. We were forecast for a record high today! This is a perfect time for visiting local tourist spots that are too busy in the summer and will be inundated with leaf-peeping tour buses in October. It is also a wonderful time for embracing

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-56422132047510708222011-09-17T20:32:00.003-04:002011-09-17T20:36:06.579-04:00

I sold my first eggs this week! Yay! The ones in the blue tray, I'm keeping for myself. The eggs I sold are still a little on the small side, so I discounted the price to $2.50. You can see that the eggs are getting bigger, though - compare the egg on the right with the one on the left. I've haven't made any side income in several years, so this extra $2.50 in my pocket seems very, very

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-9816083026867723612011-09-10T13:31:00.000-04:002011-09-10T13:31:35.113-04:00

Fresh tomatoes are a pure summer delight. The flavor is sweet, the texture firm, and the colors stunning. Though early and late season varieties have been bred to extend the season for tomatoes - I particularly like the ambition of the variety named "Fourth of July" - tomato season in northern New England is a boom time of just one month. (Unless it's a late blight year, like 2009, where

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-34201586558306064342011-09-03T21:29:00.000-04:002011-09-03T21:29:36.305-04:00

It's been sort of a rough week. Our neighbors to the west in Vermont experienced catastrophic flooding, I had 4 straight days of outrageous headaches due to a mystery virus (or maybe it's Lyme disease - the test won't come back until Tuesday), and I've missed work during a particularly deadline-ridden period of time. But guess what?! It's not all about me. While I've been trying to sleep myself

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-69601899124864928232011-08-23T20:48:00.000-04:002011-08-23T20:48:56.395-04:00

I was out on a little excursion Sunday afternoon to buy canning peaches. As I drove down the interstate, I watched big cracks of lightning course through the clouds, and a minute after I walked into the orchard barn/farm stand door, the wind came up and the rain came pelting down. It was a pretty marvelous storm! There is something very invigorating about a good summer thunderstorm, especially

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-52631629838863799362011-08-17T20:34:00.000-04:002011-08-17T20:38:47.115-04:00

A few surprising things I've learned about chickens from keeping six in the backyard: 1) Chickens really do flock together. The hens take turns being adventurous and taking off to explore various corners of the backyard, but it's never very long before the rest of them catch up. 2) They will eat anything particularly if they can peck it into small pieces. Until I learned better, this included

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-22223850166355172002011-08-10T07:19:00.000-04:002011-08-10T07:19:02.807-04:00

Two days ago, I picked two overflowing baskets of vegetables plus the carrots and beets that wouldn't fit in the baskets. Last night, Adam informed me that I really need to go out and pick beans or they are going to get too large. The vegetable drawers in the refrigerator are stuffed to the gills. And last week, I found this: The giant and the gherkin Cucumbers blend in really well with

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-77482618248512191272011-07-29T18:36:00.000-04:002011-07-29T18:36:46.939-04:00

Common names of plants and animals can be funny, strange and confusing. Think of the groundhog, woodchuck, or whistlepig - all the same furry brown animal, all not pigs (or chucks). Chinese parsley is another misnomer - you probably think you've never seen or tasted this herb, but oh, I bet you have. Does this look familiar? Glossy green, serrated broad leaves - beautiful! It's Coriandrum

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-88507362134286676642011-07-14T22:24:00.000-04:002011-07-14T22:24:51.800-04:00

A bouquet of fresh lettuce - lucky me! Where I grew up, peas and lettuce were a springtime delicacy, enjoyed during the months of May and June. People typically started peas on St. Patrick's Day, and enjoyed peas in their pasta primavera during the season of primavera (spring in Italian). Not so in the land of New England - peas and full heads of lettuce are harvested firmly in the territory of

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-17930670888928694662011-07-03T20:44:00.000-04:002011-07-03T21:00:40.689-04:00

Chickens at 2-1/2 months chasing mosquitoes We've been doing a lot of work around the house this weekend, and have been letting the chickens free range while we are outside to keep an eye on them. They love it, and it's really a lot of fun to watch them. They really like to hang out in the "comfrey forest" in the side yard, as comfrey provides cover and also a tasty snack. I think this must be

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-25519136478716555272011-06-28T20:43:00.000-04:002011-06-28T20:43:27.386-04:00

One might say that our little New England town is on the sleepy side. If that is the case, June Jam is the yearly wake-up call, a Saturday afternoon-into-the-evening outdoor live music event at Musterfield Farm. It seems that the whole town turns out to listen to a variety of local musicians and bands, catch up with neighbors and hang out on the grass with a picnic. I can't recall any other time

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-85030295831835219162011-06-21T23:59:00.000-04:002011-06-22T00:03:34.617-04:00

On the first day of summer, my garden gave to me... A handful of strawberries. We just got back from vacation late last night and I ran out the door this morning, late. So, it wasn't until dinner that I had a moment to look at the garden. I picked my handful of strawberries, cleaned them up, and ate them in short order - it was wonderful. Then I ate greens pizza cooked on the grill and rushed

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-59650652459414797882011-06-06T22:17:00.000-04:002011-06-06T22:19:18.778-04:00

I spent a lot of time this past week getting my gardens and my neighbor's garden prepped and planted for the summer. We are headed out on vacation on Wednesday, so I was definitely feeling a bit of pressure to wrap up the spring planting. No thanks to the mosquitoes and black flies, I managed to hack away at my neighbor's garden in 1/2-hour chunks before running inside to avoid the flying hordes.

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-65849802986377396592011-05-31T21:04:00.000-04:002011-05-31T21:04:04.986-04:00

We were away for the Memorial Day weekend and had a chance to gawk at the rich farmland along Lake Ontario and the beautiful mountain farms and homesteads of the Green Mountains. We found no shortage of daydreams during the many hours in the car each day. (Ahh, wouldn't 10 acres of field on the Lincoln Gap Road and a sailboat on Lake Champlain be lovely?) The heat switched on over the weekend

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-24658705421510507792011-05-25T22:07:00.000-04:002011-05-25T22:07:31.471-04:00

Today was the first day in over a week where it didn't rain, alleluia. The plants did not mind too much, as the extra moisture and cool temperatures allowed them to establish their roots and acclimate to the garden. I did mind the rain, as I did not acclimate very well and had to wear shoes and sweaters. The perennials have really greened up. The peas and spinach have been slowly growing, and

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-33457813424469466182011-05-14T12:35:00.000-04:002011-05-14T12:35:56.309-04:00

3-day-old New Hampshire Red Long awaited, the chickens have arrived! 3-day-old Red Star We ordered two different breeds, New Hampshire Red and Red Star, three of each - and because the breeding houses are organized according to a schedule, we received the first three chicks during the last week of April and the second three chicks this past week. They will have to live separately until they

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-47662925740118594522011-05-09T22:52:00.000-04:002011-05-09T23:08:09.618-04:00

It's been very busy in the garden the past few weekends. The long-anticipated "is winter really gone?" season is now over, and gardening is into full-swing. There always seems to be twice the amount of work than expected and half the amount of time necessary to complete it. Fortunately, the sun doesn't go down until after 8:00 pm now, so I can sometimes fit in a little bit of gardening after work

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-8032790267175312962011-04-21T22:52:00.000-04:002011-04-21T22:52:22.782-04:00

Guess what April showers have brought this year? April SNOW!! It has been spitting snow off and on, and everyone seems to be getting really tired of it. I was just at a meeting with a colleague who had dressed in well-coordinated, pretty pastels and then had to dig out her winter jacket. Fortunately, not all spring colors have to be covered over. The crocuses don't seem to mind the weather at

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-49442929773198046722011-04-13T21:46:00.000-04:002011-04-13T21:46:27.543-04:00

The front yard on Friday - you can start to see lawn! We wrapped up maple sugaring two weekends ago, not because the season had ended but rather that we had exhausted our initial enthusiasm and wanted to go visit friends. So that's what we did - left our semi-snowy home on Friday and took a little trip to the Hudson River valley. People hiking the Appalachian Trail northbound are often said

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-26079377253576319742011-03-22T22:16:00.000-04:002011-03-22T22:22:26.511-04:00

Yep, I was wrong. In my last post, I downplayed the effect that Daylight Savings Time would have on me, because I work late and it's usually getting dark by the time I drive home. Except that it is downright invigorating not to walk out to the parking lot and drive home in the pitch dark, and sometimes I even get home with enough time for a walk before night falls. It's really fantastic. I was

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-10454318563446241102011-03-13T18:08:00.000-04:002011-03-13T18:08:44.081-04:00

This morning, I woke up late. The sky was overcast and the cat was not as insistent as usual about getting me out of bed, so I stayed in bed a lot longer than I might have. Plus, the clocks jumped ahead at 2 am, placing us squarely back into the time warp of Daylight Savings Time. To me, Daylight Savings Time means a shift in "the day" (as in the workday) to start a little darker and end a

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-64063481114979519032011-02-19T21:27:00.000-05:002011-02-19T21:32:02.243-05:00

Adam has been asking me for the past few weeks WHEN am I going to start the peppers? Last year, on Memorial Day weekend, we purchased three pepper plants at the Burlington Vermont Farmers Market. The farmers told us that they started their peppers in early February! Talk about planning ahead - we were in northern Vermont last weekend and it's the most-wintry-feeling place I've been in years.

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-74522772640471354602011-02-11T19:00:00.000-05:002011-02-19T20:22:08.956-05:00

My boss recently described me as "quite the homemaker." Aw shucks. I don't really consider myself a homemaker, since I do work a full-time professional job. But then I got to thinking about it, when I was home washing a week's worth of pots and pans. I do make things at home to make our house and lifestyle more homey, so yeah, I guess that I am a homemaker. The week's worth of pots and pans

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-83247602884039988772011-01-23T17:08:00.000-05:002011-01-23T17:45:37.946-05:00

I started planning for the 2011 vegetable gardening season by looking back at 2010. This practice is entirely akin to New Year's Resolutions, although I am very hopeful that I will be more successful with keeping this plans than with any New Year's resolution.The first step is to contemplate last year's garden - and what I'd do differently...1) Plant fewer tomatoes2) Give up on zucchini and

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-49323709958713692362011-01-16T17:41:00.000-05:002011-01-16T18:41:41.097-05:00

I dropped off my seed order at the Lebanon Coop on Thursday, all in a rush to get to a meeting. I ended up being 20 minutes late to the meeting, so I suppose that there was really no point in rushing. So, I didn't really think too much about my seed order at that time or since then.But then we had friends up this weekend and started talking about food and gardening and turning the houses we've

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-42719705132110033972011-01-06T21:05:00.000-05:002011-01-06T22:18:48.157-05:00

Wintertime is a bit slow for gardening, a bit short on daylight and a bit long on cold windy nights that are uninspiring for evening walks. But inspiration never rests! In the winter, I find that inspiration follows us indoors, particularly into our kitchen, transforming our everyday meals into something a little special and our special occasion meals into an adventure.And by adventure, I do mean

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-70983315970960697552010-12-25T20:40:00.000-05:002011-02-19T20:43:11.479-05:00

I picked up my Christmas turkey at the Lebanon Food Co-op on Wednesday. I must say that I felt a little smug about planning ahead and pre-ordering my turkey, as the woman next to me at the meat counter asked "Do you have any turkeys left?" and was told no. Then, I realized that she was just being opportunistic - as in, "oh, maybe I'll pick up a turkey just for fun..." That sort of took the wind

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-5304591544641089422010-12-05T15:32:00.000-05:002010-12-25T17:18:06.580-05:00

The weather forecast had predicted snow for this weekend, but it turned out to be largely a beautiful sunny weekend. Cold - it was 56 in the kitchen at noon today and stayed below freezing outside all weekend - but still partly to mostly sunny! Wonderful!While New Hampshire is a far sunnier location in winter than other places I have lived (Ohio, Syracuse, Oregon, the Czech Republic), it can sort

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-84123423476727786082010-11-23T09:04:00.000-05:002010-11-23T10:01:33.154-05:00

We are travelling for an extended Thanksgiving holiday by visiting friends and family in the Mid-Atlantic. Late November is a wonderful time to wander down to this area from New Hampshire, because it's like travelling back in time - suddenly it feels like October again. True, the days are shorter and the foliage is past peak, but it's staying well above freezing at night and on sunny days, which

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-61203058948548991402010-11-14T16:42:00.000-05:002010-11-14T17:20:17.871-05:00

On the morning of November 3rd, I went out to my carefully covered "fall salad" garden bed and, to my horror, the sheet was stiff with frost and the arugula was positively crispy with frost. I had a sad drive into work that day, believing that the arugula would turn black and slimy from being frozen to death. Despite my conscientious efforts to cover the bed each night with an old sheet, even

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-63356709164076002512010-11-09T22:15:00.000-05:002010-11-09T23:04:48.324-05:00

If I were a model of the "conscientious gardener" I would be able to look back at my minutely detailed, comprehensive garden journal entries and tell you exactly when our first killing frost hit. Garden records are incredibly interesting and also provide a good source of information on interannual climate variation. I think that records of this type have been used to document certain aspects of

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-64389496813461137942010-10-28T22:45:00.000-04:002010-10-30T14:06:09.893-04:00

I had a hot date on Thursday night! With boiling chunks of apples - it was truly HOT.I got home late from an information session about a land conservation campaign in our town, and then futzed around the house for a while, cleaning the kitchen and putting clutter away, and then...I got this great idea that I would make applesauce! At 10:45 at night! After I had just cleaned up the kitchen! (I

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-42101149959553237602010-10-11T16:58:00.000-04:002010-10-11T17:30:32.204-04:00

I'm amazed at how nice our autumn has been thus far. It's rained some, helping to refresh the water table and our drinking water wells. But mostly it's been a lot of really beautiful days with pretty fall colors. At our house, we haven't yet had a frost as we're in a sheltered spot, but we did wrap the cherry tomatoes two nights ago with sheets. I almost wanted to keep them up as ghostly

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-87652562573900706062010-09-18T16:36:00.000-04:002010-09-18T17:07:08.445-04:00

It's mid-September now, which is a really lovely time for gardeners who don't want to work too much. It's not too hot, not frosty at night, and we're getting intermittent rain, which keeps weed growth down, gives the fall-planted greens a chance to thrive, and reduces the need for watering. This change in the weather allows the gradual ripening of summer season vegetables, which means I can

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-89022780255121851742010-09-06T21:24:00.000-04:002010-09-06T22:00:22.570-04:00

In my mind, I think of September as autumn - back to school traffic, waking up before the sun is fully up, rapid sunsets transitioning to cool nights, pumpkins sitting on the stone wall at the local farm, the first of the fall apples and the end of the peaches.But September is really a summer month - just as June is really a spring month. We've got another 3 weeks of summer after August passes us

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-50936159264975110222010-08-30T21:18:00.000-04:002010-08-30T22:22:20.319-04:00

Adam Sandler may be a funny guy from the great state of New Hampshire - but I must say that he got it totally wrong in the high school biology class scene in the movie Billy Madison.Chlorophyll is cool!I have been neglecting photo-posting lately, an error that I will begin to fix today. Looking through photos taken on July 31, I came to the above realization - call it an "epiphany of botanical

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-21695918284561397322010-08-17T23:12:00.000-04:002010-08-17T23:34:34.655-04:00

In the New England garden, August reigns supreme. Like its Roman emperor namesake, the eighth month of the year bestows upon its lowly subjects a great but infrequent largesse. This August, the largesse is in butternut squash and cucumbers. The squash are far from their harvest date, but the vines are spreading like kudzu over the woodpiles, driveway and stepping area in front of the garden beds

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-39196563946310694102010-08-03T20:45:00.000-04:002011-09-05T13:09:56.562-04:00

The Internet is full of astounding information, some of which is true, some completely unfactual, and some that seems just a little odd. Take NC State University's cucumber profile, for example. As quoted in the title of this post, this article includes a statement that pickles have more nutritional value than fresh cucumbers. Really?? Doesn't this fly in the face of raw foods being more

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-83715862843209785722010-07-24T21:42:00.000-04:002010-07-24T22:00:22.816-04:00

I cannot post any new photos or tell any stories of my garden this week because I am out exploring the American West. We've been camping on federal lands, enjoying tall trees, clear aquamarine rivers and now the Pacific coast. July in the western mountains is wildflower season, and I have been surprised to find some garden flowers out staking a claim along the highways and riversides.On the drier

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-790606860564129452010-07-09T17:54:00.000-04:002010-07-09T18:25:01.820-04:00

It's been hot here... I know that rural northern New England has it easy compared to urbanites in NYC, Philadelphia and DC. But still it's darn hot out.It's been great for the weeds, most of the garden plants, but definitely hard on the peas. I've been working hard at doing very little, especially when it comes to moving around outside. But I've had to do a little bit of gardening...Just to keep

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-63829899340410730692010-07-01T21:24:00.000-04:002010-07-09T17:59:16.480-04:00

It's the height of pea season in New Hampshire, which is a very good time. I have been enjoying my own snow peas as well as Vanessa's sugar snap peas this past week. You can plant peas in late April or early May here. The seed guides indicate "as soon as the ground can be worked" but I tend to plant whenever the spirit moves me; this year I planted mid-May. For having gone to science "do things

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-70555211268815036822010-06-28T21:13:00.000-04:002010-06-28T21:28:33.539-04:00

We have been watching Planet Earth again (I love David Attenborough) and I'm always so amazed by the time-lapse footage of plants and fungi and corals growing. If I were a nature videographer, I might skip the mountain of cockroach-infested bat guano in Indonesia and instead set my sights on more mundane subjects, like my garden plants. I would love to see the ever-so-slight circular movement of

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-70839020553201904382010-06-19T08:24:00.000-04:002010-06-26T09:20:06.017-04:00

When I was a kid, I was not a particularly picky eater and we had dinner table rules about eating vegetables, so I definitely grew up eating leafy greens, beans, peas, corn, tomatoes and a lot of other garden veggies. But when I got to college, all of a sudden the world of vegetables expanded and my new friends introduced me to artichokes, avocados, eggplant, mixed greens (the kind with

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-82310622660956601832010-06-10T21:34:00.000-04:002010-06-22T22:52:51.492-04:00

It's raining today, but lately, it's been really nice. Spring came early this year and everyone I talk to seems to mention that their lilacs bloomed early, the black flies came AND went (thankfully) early, and the strawberries are now in - two weeks ahead of schedule!I did plant some runner-type strawberries this year, thanks to the generosity of the McM's and Starky-starks, but I don't expect

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-17410705725767497012010-06-05T10:28:00.000-04:002010-06-22T22:52:24.396-04:00

I'm pretty sure that I've checked out every book on gardening from the Lebanon library (except the ones from the 1970s with the garish photos on the cover because I never want a garden that looks like a psychedelic tropical jungle hemmed in by brick work.) You think I would have taken the authors' cumulative advice to heart on how to establish a garden, but I managed to ignore all of it and to

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-4306394108568595882009-08-09T23:23:00.000-04:002010-06-22T22:51:41.289-04:00

This is a Bulgarian carrot chili pepper -hopefully it will turn orange!I can tell it's spicy because no insects have tried to eat it.I may actually have to water my garden this week... there are thunderstorms predicted but it really hasn't rained for a full week! And it's nice outside during the day and cools off at night - it's just so great.A quick list about this August -1. realized it's

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-65580607013438984512009-07-08T22:42:00.000-04:002010-06-22T22:50:58.251-04:00

Just a short post today -I wanted to share what arugula flowers look like. I think that they resemble pinwheels.I could tell that my arugula and spinach were on the verge of bolting, and I felt bad tearing them out of the garden when they looked so vigorous. At some point, I will need to pull them and plant the next round of seeds (something warm-weather-loving, I hope)... but until it stops

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-86603443744138486802009-06-26T21:27:00.000-04:002010-06-22T22:50:12.452-04:00

I must say that I enjoy gardening almost as much as I enjoy eating... but eating does win out because gardening has time limits (i.e., daylight hours) and eating can be done at any time. When gardening and eating combine, it's really a wonderful thing.Adam and I got to enjoy the first harvest from the garden on Tuesday. Concerned that the arugula was going to bolt once it stopped raining, I had

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-81232308164646254792009-06-19T15:19:00.000-04:002010-06-22T22:49:23.473-04:00

I was so excited in April and May - weeks of gorgeous sunny days, even getting up into the 80's a couple of days. We moved our bedroom downstairs to the sleeping porch two months ago, and it was so lovely to sleep with the windows open. My gardens were thriving; even the hydrangea that I left in a garbage bag for 5 days before transplanting managed to put out some flower buds (whoops - not a

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-5224794650958323372009-05-14T19:25:00.000-04:002010-06-22T22:48:44.468-04:00

In New Hampshire, we take rocks for granted. The glaciers scoured off all the topsoil 10,000 years ago, and ever since then, rocks have dominated the Granite State. While the landcover of New Hampshire has changed from 15% forested a century ago to 85% forested today, the rocks remain a very solid part of the landscape.You can't dig a pit, a trench, or even a small hole with a trowel without

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887633214892113234.post-39617403086294779352009-05-01T20:22:00.000-04:002010-06-22T22:47:27.620-04:00

Gardening season does not have a start date. If you are a gardener, whether you live in the tropics or the Arctic, you garden all year long. Gardening season is a state of mind, not two days X'ed out on the kitchen calendar.True, there may be that first day when you can see the chives poking out of the residual snow and ice, and immediately you crouch down and brushing away the ice and dead

Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15245107729792018727noreply@blogger.com0