Sunlight and Maple Syrup

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 also wrong to think that spring would come in a pleasant stepwise fashion. I've lived in New England and the Northeast long enough to know that spring is an ephemeral season, ever changing and predictable only in its unpredictability. We can generally depend on the ski areas staying open into the middle of April and the ground to be warm enough for planting tomatoes on Memorial Day, but anything can and typically does happen between March 20th and June 21st - wintry mix, floods, ice storms, 70-degree weather, weeks of continuous rain (or so it seems), mud season, black flies and maple syrup. Case in point - it was so warm that I didn't wear socks this past Friday, and yesterday it snowed five inches.

This weekend, the extra daylight was much appreciated as we hosted our second annual maple sugaring party. This party is actually just a ruse to coerce our friends and family into hanging out with us as we stand around all day waiting for maple sap to boil down into maple syrup. And it does take ALL DAY to boil down maple syrup - we figure it takes about 12 hours for us to boil down 20 gallons of sap into a half gallon of syrup. (For you math fiends out there, the ratio is 40 gallons of sap yielding 1 gallon of syrup - or 39 gallons of water that need to be turned into steam.) Commercial maple producers and serious hobbyists have specialized equipment to move the process along faster and are substantially more efficient. We have an abundance of scrap wood and free time, so we boil in a big pot over an open fire.

We got a late start this year on the boiling, so even though we stayed out until the sun went down (and much later into the full moon night), we ended up finishing the syrup the next day. It was a beautiful thing - sweet-smelling, amber-hued maple syrup on a Sunday morning. We're storing the jars of syrup in the fridge until we can distribute it to our partygoers.

The sweetest part of springtime - maple syrup

The non-linear tendency of a New England spring may be morally trying and spiritually disheartening, but it's great for maple syrup producers. Maple sap runs and is extracted by maple syrup producers when temperatures get below freezing at night and about 40 degrees during the day and before the trees bud out - not exactly the balmy springtime weather we might wish for. However, if we had ever-improving weather during springtime, the trees would bud out quickly and the maple syrup season would be short indeed. But with the on-again, off-again nature of the weather, there's usually around 6 weeks of maple sugaring season starting sometime in late February and ending sometime in late March or early April.

Stay tuned for the results of this upcoming weekend's maple sugar boil... we're hoping to have another 20 gallons to boil down.

Better than Christmas - 2011 Fedco Seed Catalog

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 out of my smug sails... but I was secretly glad that I wouldn't have to hustle my turkey out of the store with a wild woman chasing me down in the parking lot. I realize that this story doesn't have anything to do with gardening, but thought a little holiday anecdote would be apropos.

More exciting than the turkey - which is pretty exciting because we honey-brined and smoked it - is the 2011 Fedco seed catalog that I picked up at the Co-op!! The Co-op does a bulk order for its members, and this year, the deadline is January 16th, up a few weeks from last year. So, I need to get planning for next year's garden now.


The Fedco catalog is great because they have an enormous variety of vegetables and flower seeds (including plants used for dyeing like indigo - how cool is that?!) This is not a pretty color pictures catalog - it's black and white on newsprint - but the descriptions are just awesome. The layout is a throwback to the old Sears and Roebuck catalog, where you try to fit as many goods on the page as possible. How many catalogs come in a size 8 font size with line drawing illustrations any more?

I'm not completely consumed by perusing seed catalogs in winter. I just do the Fedco catalog because I have a tiny garden and Co-op members get a discount. But I do have hours of entertainment reading through the Fedco catalog, and circling everything that strikes my fancy. Then I cull that list harshly to what is actually practical to grow in my garden. I will probably not be growing any indigo this year... and probably only one variety of sunflower, not five. I can already see myself opening the paper seed packets and starting them next to the chimney on the second floor in March...

I have been really pleased with the Fedco seeds I bought last year and I'm looking to expand some of the species that I'm growing this year. They are continuously expanding their selection of organic seeds, which is a plus. Fedco is based in Waterville, Maine, so I like to think that plants that do well in Maine should also do well in New Hampshire. I haven't tested this hypothesis rigorously, but it does follow common sense. Fedco is online - so if you don't happen to have your own copy sitting on your coffee table, you can see what I'm talking about.

I'll post again soon with my picks for the 2011 garden! Merry Christmas!

Oh, to live in Zone 7!

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 we've enjoyed so far, it's getting into the 60's.

On Sunday, we went to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, which is a large marshland complex on the Chesapeake Bay on the eastern shore of Maryland. Large may not be the proper word to describe this marsh - it's truly impressive, this refuge covers 27,000 acres, much of it marsh.


View Larger Map

We saw bald eagles, Canada geese, snow geese and ducks and also encountered the infamous marsh denizen, the mosquito. It was really interesting to see where the geese go after their V's fly southward from New Hampshire in October - the DelMarVa peninsula (Delaware-Maryland-Virginia) is a main wintering grounds for the Atlantic population of Canada geese.

We saw the most vibrant and luscious rows of kale and cabbage in someone's yard on Sunday driving back from the refuge. And I realized how much more hospitable southern climes are to growing vegetables. Instead of this mad rush to try to get plants in the ground in the spring so that they have a chance of maturing before the frost comes, you might take a more leisurely pace here. Or... you might work just as hard in the garden but for longer. As it is, in New Hampshire, I'm actively gardening from March (sowing seeds indoors) through November (with arugula) even though the frost-free "growing" season is only 121 days, according to Old Yankee Magazine. It's sort of nice to have a few months off to pursue other endeavors. But how tempting to have a growing season with 200 frost-free days!!

The Lazy Days of September

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 actually keep on top of eating the tomatoes coming out of the garden before they start to get over-ripe. And the fall vegetables have wonderfully long shelf lives - I don't have to worry about cooking down my sweet little pie pumpkin from Musterfield Farm because it's not going to get moldy in a few days.

Okay, so maybe my kitchen table is covered with squash and pears and the windowsill is lined with ripening tomatoes and drying hot peppers and the cute little pumpkin (I don't have a camera until Tuesday, but let me assure you that it is indeed covered with said produce), but I've got a good amount of time before I have to get on with canning the pears and figuring out what to do with the tomatoes. It is SO nice to have a breather from constant harvesting and preserving.

Mid-September is also an ideal time for taking a bit of a respite from gardening and the food processing that comes with gardening. The weather is great for many outdoor pursuits and I've recently managed to go for walks around the lake, bike riding, hiking, looking at the early fall colors, and enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate while sitting outdoors at a picnic table with only a fleece jacket. The outdoor hot chocolate part is a truly special event that can only be enjoyed on certain crisp fall days and then those really sunny ski days in late winter.

Of course, there are fall garden chores that I should be doing, you know, weeding out the grass that has become seriously established around the daisies, turning the compost, mulching the perennial beds, cutting back flower stalks... but really none of that demands my immediate attention. A lot has been written about the lazy days of summer but maybe we should start promoting the lazy days of September. This should certainly include the promotion of outdoor hot chocolate consumption. Sure, there's wood to split and stack, pears and apples to preserve, grass to cut, trees to prune... but most of those things can be put off until October... or November... or even next spring?

In Praise of Long Summers

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 by, which is really a pleasant prospect. First, it means that I can still wear sandals even though it's now after Labor Day because it's STILL SUMMER!! I have an unwritten but oft-spoken rule that sandal season is from Memorial Day through Labor Day, but I think I'd like to amend the time period to Memorial Day to the Autumnal Equinox on a trial basis.



Secondly, more summertime means more vegetable-growing weather, more baskets full of basil, and more time for my tomatoes to ripen and red bell peppers to turn red. In New Hampshire, sweet red peppers are difficult to come by; the past few years, I've picked them as green peppers. This year it's been nice and warm and I'm hoping that the green will start turning to red this week.

I've been pulling a few pounds of tomatoes from the vine every other day for the past 2-3 weeks, but the number of green tomatoes still overshadow the red ones picked so far. Green tomato chow-chow is all piquant and thrifty and good, but it's just not as good as the fresh-picked tomatoes that exude redness or any of the many products that can be created from red tomatoes.

I remember 2 years ago, the first year I had a garden at our house, the red tomato harvest was decent, however, I had dozens of green tomatoes that I picked before the first frost and gamely packed them in paper to wait for them to ripen... let's just say that indoor ripening didn't really work out. The majority of those tomatoes went into the compost pile as soggy greenish-yellowish half-rotten orbs. Then, last year, the late blight hit our region and I lost all my tomatoes in mid-August; I think I harvested 3 tomatoes. It was a sad time for home gardeners and a really tough year for market gardeners and farmers.

However, optimism is a requisite trait for a gardener - hope must spring eternal, as a pessimistic gardener is likely to throw in the trowel and take up a more predictable hobby, like cross-stitch or sky-diving. At least for the tomatoes, my optimism had paid off - I'm happy to report that this year's tomato harvest has been great and there's still a rather long time before the end of summer and autumn's killing frosts. Here's a photo of Friday's harvest; the basil basket is also from Friday. Happy summer!

Chlorophyll - definitely not bore-ophyll

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 revelation."



It's simply amazing. Go away for two weeks in the summer and, provided that your garden doesn't suffer a searing drought, brush fire, plague of locusts or golfball-sized hail, you will return to find a jungle. A lush, green profusion of plant life and all because of a funky little molecule called chlorophyll.

Our raised beds are on either side of the driveway and receive an abundance of sunlight. Our green plants utilize the chlorophyll in their leaves to capture the sun's energy and convert it into sugars to make more plant matter. For several weeks in mid-summer, it's a positive feedback loop - make bigger leaves to catch more sunlight to make bigger leaves. (Note the size of the butternut squash leaves!) However, some of the energy ends up elsewhere, directed to flowering and setting fruit, which makes the wonderful vegetables that make gardening so rewarding. And it's all thanks to chlorophyll.



The butternut squash completely overwhelmed the upper raised bed on the far side of the driveway (in the first photo), but the acorn squash vines were more orderly and stretched out in lovely straight lines across the grass (in the back of the second photo.) The garden looks remarkably different today, but the photos from August will have to wait until another day...

Bonus quiz for the General Botany club - if I had planted corn in my garden, would it photosynthesize more efficiently, less efficiently, or with the same efficiency as the other plants shown in the photos? Leave your answer below.

August - the noble month

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.

August is sort of the botanical version of Tax Day, where you find out how much you will receive for your tax return, except that you are paid in zucchini and cucumbers instead of greenbacks. Filing tax returns always involves some.suspense and anticipation, as you never really know what the final balance will be. Similarly, August will produce a bumper crop of green beans one year and volleyball-sized melons the next. There's often no prediicting which plants will produce like crazy and which will shrivel up and die or limp along barely surviving the Japanese beetles. Before we left for vacation in the second half ofJuly, the squash was underperforming,but what a change when we returned two weeks later!

I'll post photos soon -you won't believe it!

Between a Rock and ... Another Rock

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 turning over a rocky fragment. Actually, digging is not required - just shuffle around the lawn in bare feet and I can guarantee that you strike it rich in rocks.

What this means for new gardeners like me is that it takes a LONG time to dig a new garden bed. Anyone can anticipate that digging a garden bed involves using a shovel. Even Michelle Obama used a shovel for her kitchen garden photo op in March 2009, and the schoolkids who helped out got shovel-shaped cookies and apple cider (check out a detailed WSJ blog post with photo)

However, the excavation that is required when digging a garden bed in New Hampshire is more suited to hydraulic tools and a large lumberjack-looking fellow with a crowbar. Unfortunately, neither of those happened to be on hand when I was digging beds this past month. This is why it took me an hour and half and all of my good humor to dig a 6.5-ft-long, 1-ft-wide, 18-in-deep trench for 5 scraggly asparagus crowns. Even though asparagus is the best green thing since Kermit the Frog, I'm in no hurry to dig another trench any time soon.

I may have underanticipated the rockwork involved in digging a garden, but I try not to take the granite for granted. Rocks are excellent for building stone walls, lining garden beds, throwing to a certain yellow Lab, and also creating alpine and Zen gardens. Just look at the fruits of excavation now attractively arranged in our rock garden!

The tags make the rock garden plants stand out more.