People – Places – Products (Organic Gardening)

Eco-smart resolutions to make you happy

in GreenYankee Living: How to, People – Places – Products (Organic Gardening)
artisan, cleaning, recyle, repurpose, reuse, seed starting, seedbox, tote, upcycle, volunteer

Why do it if it doesn’t make you happier? It’s never too late to make a change, especially one that creates happy feelings. And you have a better chance of keeping resolutions if you keep them simple and pick just one or two. GreenYankee.com thrives on eco-tips all year long. These are small changes that you can easily incorporate into your lifestyle and usually have fun doing it. Here are some of my favorites for making changes at home and in your community that will make you happier. Pick one or two any time during the year!

AT HOME

Reuse or repurpose it. Before you throw anything away, ask yourself if you can use it in a new or creative way or if someone else could use it. An easy change that will help our landfills.

Did you know that most Americans throw away nearly 30% of the food they buy and that wasted foods contribute to greenhouse gas emissions? You do want to waste less, right? Here’s how: Stock up on items that last longer and buy only enough produce and dairy to last half a week. Shopping for, say, veggies and milk twice a week can also help you plan more healthful meals and inspire you to try cooking something new. Make sure not to forget ingredients in the crisper or at the back of the fridge. If you do, start a compost bucket instead of tossing them in the trash.

Clean better. Stock up on white vinegar, baking soda, Castile soap, and borax. Different combos of these naturally safe ingredients will clean most anything. Check out The Naturally Clean Home by Karyn Siegel-Maier.

Switch to: an electric kettle for boiling water (it uses less energy than the stovetop) and all natural cosmetics, such as my sister’s site www.gaiatree.com. Look for plant-based ingredients instead of chemicals wherever you shop.

IN YOUR COMMUNITY

Consider whether your food came from the farm or the factory. Do you really need strawberries from Chile in January? Buy locally from the farmer’s market or join a CSA. How wonderful to meet the people who grow your food! If you volunteer at a food cooperative, you could go home with free produce every week. You might just be inspired to toss a few seeds in the ground or a container and grow some of your own!

Volunteer for a charity. Not-for-profits, like an animal shelter or arts organization, subsist with volunteer labor. Consider your special interests and skills, then ask the friendly reference librarian for a list of local charities. You might even see an immediate benefit, like a free performance in exchange for ushering.

Shop at consignment, charity and secondhand stores. The recent trend in upscale secondhand stores means designer goods for much, much less. A few years ago, I found a Bauhaus, Bavarian china setting for six (including demi-tasse!) for $30.

Support local artisans, merchants, and skilled labor. Patronize downtown. Most of us yearn for the nostalgic experience of knowing the guy in the hardware store, the local fishmonger or tailor. Look around a bit and you might be surprised what’s in your own backyard.

CobraHead

in People – Places – Products (Organic Gardening)
cobrahead, cultivating, gardening, gift, ho-mi, weeding, weeds

I love this tool. The Gardening Guy made me a present of it (thanks Henry!) and I’m considering offering them on this site. CobraHead is a family company–out in WI, but with a Yankee sensibility–and they couldn’t be nicer people. The company states “It’s the best tool IN earth” and I haven’t used anything to dispute that. The only thing that comes close is my Ho-Mi, a Korean hand plow. Even that is sometimes too big for getting into tight places that the CobraHead manages easily.

I’ve used it to weed, cultivate, and furrow (for my late salad greens). It was especially useful in planting this year’s small bulbs when I wanted to loosen about 3″ of soil in and around established perennials. Apparently the dual-sided blade sharpens itself when it comes in contact with the soil. It works with either or both hands.

The CobraHead will make great presents this holiday season!

The Song Garden Flower Farm

in People – Places – Products (Organic Gardening)
flowers, lisianthus, pick your own

Peggy Heath Ogilvy and her partner in life and in the business, Dan Hertzler, run a cut flower farm, The Song Garden, on Saint Gaudens Road in Cornish, New Hampshire. This is the second year, and their flowers are blooming like crazy. And, if you ask me, they must be a little crazy, too, to take on the challenges they have.

The challenges?

Nothing much. Just water, weeds and deer.  Their garden, on a sunny hillside facing a beautiful view of Mount Ascutney, is 60 by 72 feet in size but they have no easy source of water for this dry site. There is a hand dug well that came with the land – but that promptly went dry when they started to irrigate their garden.

Dan travels with his pickup truck and fifteen 7-gallon plastic containers that he fills up off-site. Then he drives up the hill above the garden and fills a big tank which feeds a gravity-feed watering system. He has been doing 3-4 loads of water each day throughout most of the summer. That’s 300-400 gallons a day!  He installed a drip irrigation system that runs through the flower beds, watering as needed. He has valves that allow him to control how much each bed gets. Big flowers with lots of foliage need more water than delicate things like Love-in-a Mist or Brazilian verbena (Verbena bonariensis). The system basically oozes water between the rows of flowers and soaks through the weed barrier they have installed.

While loading water into his truck one day, Dan had a moment of insight: it is not enough to haul water. He must eliminate the weeds, too. Weeds, he rightly told me, are water bandits. They are efficient thieves of water (and nutrients). Dan had planned to take care of watering but leave weeding to Peggy. Given the size of the operation, Dan decided he had to help with the weeding, too.

Their beds are four feet wide and have four rows of flowers in each row spaced about a foot apart in the rows. In the spring they stretched out weed barrier, a synthetic fabric that breathes but keeps down weeds, and cut holes for the flowers. Those holes are really the only place where weeds can establish themselves, but of course that is also the most critical area. Hand weeding is the only option.

Then there are the deer. Peggy and Dan are taking no chances with having the local herd munch everything down, so they fenced. They are on a strict budget, so they did it as inexpensively as possible. Instead of buying steel or cedar poles, they decided to use long saplings cut from their woods and place them every 10 feet. But here’s the ingenious part: instead of planting the poles directly in the ground and having them rot in a year or two, Dan used PVC pipe sleeves to slide them into. He used 3 sizes of pipe depending on the size of the stick –an inch and a half, two or three inches. He dug them in from a foot to two feet, again depending on size. And he cut the poles long so that if the bottoms rot out, he can cut off the rot and still have poles long enough to do the job.

What about bugs?

They are working towards being fully organic and are learning what they can and cannot do. The red lily leaf beetle, for example, makes it impossible to grow Oriental or Asiatic lilies – unless they wanted to spray systemic poisons, which they won’t do. Instead, they don’t grow those lilies. But Peggy handed me a 5 page list of what they can grow including zinnias, cosmos, Mexican sun torch, love-lies bleeding, black-eyed Susans (including “Indian Summer’, a favorite), gomphrena, decorative grasses and lots, lots more.

How did they learn to succeed in the cut flower trade? Peggy has an Ag Studies major from UVM, and recently completed the Vermont Master Gardener program.  Peggy and Dan are working musicians (hence the name of their garden) and teachers. Dan is involved with the Shape Note and Revels singing communities in the Upper Valley. But flowers? They got started by reading a book on how to do it: The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower’s Guide to Raising and Selling Cut Flowers by Lynn Byczynski. Peggy recommends the book for anyone who wants to give it a try.

pay what you can

But if you think raising cut flowers is “all roses” – an easy way to make money, you will be disappointed. Their garden is a “Pay What You Want and Can Afford” pick-your-own. They are happy that people are being fair to them – but they are not getting rich. This is a supplemental, summer income. Still, the flower fairies have blessed them: they are happy, in love, love working hard, and have created a unique place of beauty.

getting there

From Rte 12-A in Cornish, NH, head up St. Gaudens Rd for 1.7 miles. At 1.5 miles, the road bears to the left. Take that left and the garden is .2 miles up on the right. Park on the road or find your way between the 2 red reflectors and park in front of our stump fence!!!

Henry Homeyer may be reached at henry.homeyer@comcast.net or P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746

A Strong One

in People – Places – Products (Organic Gardening)
apron, gardening, gift

GreenYankee’s Gardener’s Apron weathers the test of time. We left one of ours out last winter, by mistake, and just discovered it between two bales of hay, good as new. The comfy fabric is tough enough to withstand a New England winter! Made from reclaimed, stain-resistant upholstery fabric, the Gardener’s Apron repels dirt and resists punctures for years of durable utility. We’ve also heard from our customers that they use their aprons for yard sales and puttering around the house on weekends. For more info, check out our Store.

Cider Hill Gardens and Gallery, Windsor, VT

in People – Places – Products (Organic Gardening)

GreenYankee travelled to historic Windsor, VT to visit Cider Hill Gardens & Gallery, which specializes in woodland flowers, primroses, peonies, daylilies, and hostas that are grown using eco-friendly practices and that famous Vermont Compost. Their impressive weekend Calendar of Events begins April 30 and is certainly worth the trip.

The creation of Sarah and Gary Milek, Cider Hill offers a unique combination of flower gardens and fine art. Sarah, an expert gardener and herbalist, manages the greenhouses and display gardens. Gary, a gardener and world-renowned artist, finds inspiration from the gardens to paint timeless portraits of garden flowers offered in the art gallery.

Cider Hill is open daily from 10-6, May – July. From August – October, they’re open Thursday through Sunday. 747 Hunt Road • Windsor, Vermont 05089
800-232-4337 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              800-232-4337      end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              800-232-4337      end_of_the_skype_highlighting • 802-674-6825. Directions.