Volunteers sought for Town Beach and Chaffee Park cleanup
Volunteers are being sought for Town Beach and Chaffee Park cleanup days, on Saturday, April 20, and Saturday, April 27. Volunteers can show up anytime between 9:00 and 10:00 AM on those days with leaf and garden rakes. Dress for the weather and bring footwear for raking the water’s edge. April on the beach is […]
The Lean Farm by Ben Hartman; "6S"
Soon the gardening season will begin – slowly at first, then building until we can’t keep up. For now, let’s take what can be a slow time for us and look for ways to improve our efficiency. I highly recommend The Lean Farm, by Ben Hartman. Lean philosophy is sometimes referred to as “6S” – […]
Patience and hope are necessary traits
Many gardeners share traits that make them well suited for gardening. We are a hopeful lot. Who else would take a seed, that is sometimes the size of a pepper flake, put it in the soil and assume it will produce a plant? Gardeners also have patience. We spend a lot of time waiting for […]
Bugs are gone and ground is harder
As winter approaches, I’m looking forward to great hikes in the woods when the bugs are gone and soggy ground is frozen. Two forested hikes topping my list are the Mountain Brook trail, north of Elbow Pond in East Andover, and the Great Brook trail on Lakeshore Road near the northernmost end of Pleasant Lake. […]
Not Done Yet…. As of this writing, we have not had a frost. Many of you will still be harvesting vegetables and hopefully canning, freezing, drying or giving away produce. The bounty won’t last, so enjoy it while you can. Now is not the time to give up on your garden. What you do now […]
Local autumn travel
What is your favorite New England season? For lots of us, it’s autumn — the fantastic hues of foliage, the bountiful garden harvests and apple picking, the bug-free, warm days and cool nights. There are so many great things about autumn, and most of them involve the outdoors. Recently, I’ve had some pleasant conversations with […]
This has to be one of the worst gardening years ever for many people. July and August were non-stop rain and clouds. The vegetables really struggled to fight off foliar diseases. Without at least two or three days of sunshine in a row, the plants were slow to grow or they died from too much […]
Hornworms, mosquitoes, Japanese beetles
As a follow up to the last article in the August Beacon, Yes, a black light does work to find tomato hornworms. Now if only it could help us find actual tomatoes! By now, everyone has probably had their worst gardening year in the last decade. Tomatoes are as scarce as a sunny day this […]
They'll be five weeks old around September 1
By the time the September issue of the Beacon arrives at your door, the Highland Lake loon chicks will be five weeks old. They hatched on July 27 after 28 days of incubation. As I write this update, they are 17 days old and thriving. They are now too big for both chicks to sit […]