By Robin Catalano Photo Credit: The Mount Say the name Edith Wharton, and classic American novels like Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, and The House of Mirth come to mind. But for gardeners and nature lovers, Wharton’s name evokes a different kind of reverence, for the stunning gardens the author—also a talented interior and landscape designer—created in 1901...
I know it might sound oxymoronic–or in other words impossibly contradictory–but the simple act of disconnecting in order to connect is a powerful practice. Case in point: the overwhelming prevalence of technology free summer camps. My 14-year-old daughter just returned from two weeks of horseback riding in Connecticut, and her iphone sat on top of...
By Robin Catalano You’ve probably read that in the Berkshires and surrounding areas, if you don’t start your garden by Memorial Day, it’s a lost cause. But nothing could be farther from the truth! In fact, there are plenty of crops that grow better when sown from seeds in July, well after the threat of...
By Hannah Van Sickle The recent prevalence of fine, yellow dust coating everything in sight from cars to countertops—pollen from the native white pine—is a not so welcome reminder that June is National Pollinator Month. Bees, birds, butterflies, bats and beetles (just to name a few) are all pollinators that positively affect our lives; in...
By Robin Catalano Once our gardens and flower beds are planted and mulched for the season, and with outdoor parties just kicking into gear, many of us turn our focus toward lawn care, and creating a lush, green, welcoming outdoor space. While most people have heard the term organic in the grocery store, when they hear it...
By Hannah Van Sickle Each spring, it takes but one unexpected visit from a bear–who inevitably strews garbage up and down my driveway–to remind me that it’s time to resume composting my kitchen scraps. I’ve relegated a heavy white ceramic bowl, inherited from my grandmother, to serve as the “mulch bucket;” I park it next...
By Robin Catalano While it may have seemed like winter took forever to release her icy grip on the Northeast, spring has arrived in spectacular fashion, with temperatures rising, trees blooming, and yards and fields greening up in the space of just a couple weeks. Now that the weather is consistently warm enough to enjoy the...
By Za Drumm Most everyone is familiar with the common garden vegetable, the squash, and if you have a vegetable garden in New England, the chances that you regularly grow your own is quite high. Highly adapted to this region over thousands of years, an obvious choice in any garden. Squash has been grown in...
These days, most of us are trying to make more decisions based on sustainable ideologies; what’s renewable, sustainable, locally available and affordable. In a way, these decisions support our returning to methods that have been around for hundreds or thousands of years, as they often fit these parameters of renewability and can solve more than one...
Permaculture is a contraction of both “permanent culture” and “permanent agriculture”. The phrase was coined by two Australians, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, in the late 1970s. Inspired by observations in nature and in indigenous cultures, the two began forming a set of principles; believing they could create a system functioning in as much a...
