Tag: Gardening

Favorite garden accessories

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Remember, I’m not the gardener in this operation. Still, for me?

  1. Loppers: I use mine both in the garden to trim thick-stemmed plants, and around the yard to trim hedges and small limbs of trees or prune shrubs – sometimes even to cut branches into firewood. It’s probably my most used tool, actually.
  2. Nippers: Not just to cut small plants but rope, twine, and zip-ties, too. Usually beats scissors.
  3. Speaking of twine: Jute is a favorite. Whatever you use to tie plants in place or as lines for peas and climbing beans, you’ll rarely find it when you need it.
  4. Wheelbarrow: Not just for dirt, either. Big bags of compost, mulch, or fertilizer can be a bear to tote without this. Rocks, bricks, stones, as well. Hauling things away from the beds, too, can quickly fill one.
  5. A good spade: Meaning one with a handle attached so it won’t pull out – it’s essential in planting season, especially if you don’t have a rototiller. It’s also helpful in uprooting plants at the end of the season. We also have a ton of rocks in the yard, and it gets a workout there.
  6. Trowels: Especially since they’re easily misplaced or lost, if you don’t stick them upright in the ground when you’re done.
  7. A skinny shovel: The usual broad size can be frustrating more times than you’d suspect.
  8. Five-gallon buckets: Even if you don’t collect seaweed for fertilizing and mulching, you will find endless ways to fill one: water, fertilizer, compost, garden produce, firewood tinder.
  9. Bricks: OK, not actually a tool, but they sure come in handy in holding tarps or black plastic weed-cover in place or for propping up plant pots for display. A few concrete blocks are also good to have on hand.
  10. Band-aids: No matter how careful you are, you will get nicked.

So what about you?

Why we really dig Fedco seeds

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my household, like many others in northern New England, the Fedco seed catalogue and ordering from it are something of a fond ritual this time of year, even a devotion.

Here’s some background.

  1. The company is a co-op founded in 1978 by back-to-the-earth followers of self-sufficiency gurus Scott and Helen Nearing, who had moved to Maine from Vermont in the mid-‘50s.
  2. At first, it functioned as a resource for food coops and sold to no one else.
  3. Heirloom apple trees were added in 1983 and autumn bulbs the following year. Seed potatoes came next,, and in 1988 Fedco took over the organic supplier role of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. (Many people know MOFGA for its big, hippie-infused Common Ground Fair every September. You may have read about that here.)
  4. In its first year, with a one-page mail-order page in a food-coop newspaper, Fedco and its part-time staff handled 98 customer requests. The initial list had 81 items, mostly vegetables, some herbs, liquid seaweed fertilizer, and no flowers. These days it handles more than 38,000 orders from all 50 states for an estimated $4 million revenue.
  5. The catalogue is funky, black-and-white on newsprint or similar stock, rather than the glossy photos of big commercial garden retailers. The illustrations lean toward sketches and 19th century printers’ images. It carries more than a thousand seed listings alone, along with a host of other things gardeners and small-farm operators find useful. The descriptions reflect careful study, helping buyers make reasoned decisions, especially regarding what’s new. It’s inspirational. You can also order online, using a catalogue that does have color photos and is easy to navigate.
  6. Legalization of cannabis has generated new business, even though Fedco has so far resisted selling its plants or seeds. Much of the business is in organic fertilizer, especially for home growers.
  7. Rather than growing the seeds itself, Fedco repackages from 100 to 150 seed growers, and other suppliers, mostly in Maine. Other products are more widely sourced.
  8. Fedco concentrates on a unique niche, mostly in the Northeast, and deliberately stays small, out of direct competition with large corporations.
  9. Its 60 full- and part-time employees own 40 percent of the company, while the consumers own the remaining 60 percent and get small discounts on their orders.
  10. The company’s charter aims at pay-level equity, preventing wage extremes between high and low.

Details from the company’s website and from Jeffrey B. Roth in Lancaster Farming.

As one neighbor says, ‘It’s my least favorite job’

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

His sympathy was much appreciated while I worked with one around the garden.

So here’s why I hate using a weed whacker.

  1. My shoes and legs or pants get splattered in green juice.
  2. As do my hair, eyes, and lips. (I don’t like slurpies.)
  3. Stems and blades of tall grasses and weeds often twist into a knot around the connection of the driveshaft to trimmer spool. Their tangling soon chokes the high-speed revolutions. Even with a razor blade, they’re hard to extract. I can spend more time clearing this than actually cutting the tall grasses and weeds.
  4. The two plastic trimmer cords – the part that actually cuts the greens – are hard to extend to the desired length or to replace when the spool’s empty. The procedures feel counterintuitive. And they quickly fray in actual usage.
  5. The “trimming” isn’t nearly as precise in its surgery as my wife presumes. It’s more like using a chainsaw than a scalpel.
  6. That means there’s collateral damage. Domestic flowers and vegetable plants are at risk, especially if I bump into something I can’t see behind me. Oops! Sorry.
  7. I have an electric battery-driven version, a huge advance over the gasoline alternative. Just the thought of having to deal with the fuel mixture, rip-cord starter, or other maintenance is enough to put on my to-hate list.
  8. The battery in mine is difficult to remove for recharging. It’s just too tight to get out without an extra set of hands. Help!
  9. It’s top-heavy, meaning that when I’m trying to clear those tangles in No. 3 or am trying to store it in the shed, it wants to roll over inconveniently or just fall over.
  10. They’re noisy, even the electric-battery versions like ours.

Would herbicides, which we don’t use, do the job better? (Satan, get thee behind me.)

Urban deer, oh dear

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Eastport – centered on Moose Island – is one of many small cities being overrun by deer. You may have met some of the culprits here at the Red Barn.

Here are some random bits as a result.

  1. In the Wampanoag language, they’re known as “the ones with wet noses,” for the way they investigate the world around them.
  2. Why do fawns have white spots? I suspect it could be a good opportunity for a storyteller to develop. Along with the question of why fawns eventually lose them.
  3. They like apples. Man, do they. Some will dance on their hind legs in reaching for the branch overhead.
  4. They can destroy a garden overnight.
  5. That said, they’ll eat just about anything. One even swallowed a spigot on our bird feeder.
  6. Speaking of which, a bit of cayenne pepper in the feeder seems to repel them. As the adage goes, better late than never, regarding some lessons.
  7. They’ll eat out of your hand if you’re patient. Not that I advise that.
  8. Bucks get bumped out of the circle as they come of age.
  9. The most we’ve counted in our small yard at one time was ten.
  10. We’ve had an albino in the north end of town. I first thought it was a goat in the night.
Here’s a shot from our dining table. Or hers, as well.

Red squirrel jitters

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Squirrels were a pestilence back in Dover, raiding our garden and devouring the crown molding in our barn, in addition to some damage to the house itself.

While deer are a problem here, we haven’t had squirrels.

But the other day, I looked up from my keyboard and saw a small red squirrel scampering across our brush pile.

A few minutes later, my wife, working in another room, called out to say she’d seen a squirrel.

“A red one?”

Yep.

They’re worse than the grays we had, in the opinion of many.

So far, at least, it hasn’t been back.

Cross our fingers. We really no longer see them as cute.