snow coming
Looks like my gardens will be buried under 2 feet of snow soon!! We have a Nor’easter coming at us.
January snow drop
I found a little snow drop blooming in my garden today. We are having a January thaw with temps up to 60*F (!!!) today. I opened my cold frame all day to give the plants some air. Our temperatures are like a roller coaster.
advancing cold front
We’ve had a nice couple days of 60*F weather. Skippy and I have enjoyed walking our usual trails in the balmy warmth. But a cold front is moving in. That’s December….
a balmy November day
It was 70*F today. Balmy! The whole weekend was warm and melted all our snow. My Brussels sprouts should be growing fast. Only just over a week til I am hoping to harvest them for Thansginving Day dinner.
wooley bear caterpillars predict a mild winter
My dad and I have been watching for wooly bear caterpillars this fall. We’ve seen several and they’ve been nearly all orange, with only small tips of black at the ends. The addage is that the smaller the orange stripe, the worse the winter will be. Sure looks like it will be a very mild winter.
garden after the first freeze
Yow! It was a hard freeze at my community garden plot. Talk about microclimates. My parents garden 30 miles north of me got a light frost, my home garden stayed above frost temp – it went down to 33*F (when I woke and looked the the thermometer at 5 am) BUT my community garden plot (1 mile from my house) had a HARD freeze. I tried to protect my fall peas with row cover – to no avail. I wish I had picked the pretty little pods. They would have…
freeze warnings
Freeze warnings tonight – and right on schedule. Its hard to know what to expect for my gardens. Boston is predicted to go down to 36*F, Worcester to 29*. Everywhere in between depends on your microclimate. My home garden is a few miles from Boston and is very protected between tall houses and trees. It tends to be warm and I don’t think it will frost. Even so, I picked my green tomatoes and the beans I had ripening for next year’s seed. But my community plot is a mile…
thyme for fall
On the first full day of fall, here are photos of my thyme. Gnome is doing a super job of tending it!!! My mom gave me this variety from her garden. It’s very winter hardy and has grown for years for her (northern MA). It encroaches on her lawn as a nice low mat, good for waking on, with pretty white blooms for the bees. In my garden, I have to pick it often to keep it from overgrowing the young blueberry bush next to it. It sprawls past my…
fading summer plants
A number of my summer plants are fading now. The potato plants have all turned brown and I have cut off most. It will take me several weeks to dig them all, but once the bed is harvested, I will add compost and then plant garlic here in early October. All of my summer squashes are at different stages of succumbing to fungi and root borers. I remove leaves when they yellow or turn white with mildew. The Zephyr squash in the photo has been wilted for a week and…
This is a journal of my vegetable gardens. Skippy thinks the garden is his, even though I do all the work. We're located near Boston, in USDA zone 6. I have bees, chickens, fruit trees and berry bushes, too. I use all sustainable organic methods and strive to grow all of my family's vegetables myself. -Kathy
weeks and counting until my last spring frost
My garden this week
Skippy’s vegetable of the month – Egyptian walking onions!
