THE VIEW FROM WILDER HILL

 December 23, 2012

SOLSTICE 2012

A simple hoophouse can keep your household 

supplied with vegetables year round.

            Like many gardeners, in fact, many inhabitants of the Northeast, I feel my spirits involuntarily plummet right about the time darkness descends at 4pm. Many people herald this season as the time for book reading, introspection, and spiritual advancement. This might well be true. Still both my mind and body miss the effortless effort of gardening, even the days when I worked right into the dark and collapsed into bed after a shower.

            In anticipation of this dark season each year, I have learned to seamlessly replace the mind clearing and body strengthening  garden activities with an off season program. It is designed to ward off moodiness and catch up on the care that I denied myself during the busy season. Rather than lamenting the short days and frozen ground, how about sleeping more? A lot more. Americans are a notoriously under slept people. What happens if you actually go to bed at 8 or 9pm, when you feel tired and finished with the day? See if you can find a schedule that allows you to wake up naturally, without the  rude provocation of an alarm clock.

            Now I realize that some people are “night owls”, but whatever winter sleeping schedule you adopt, the goal is to become reacquainted with a more natural rhythm, aiming for between 8-10 hours of sleep each night, and being awake for all the daylight hours. Every day that your work schedule permits, try to be outside for chores or a walk during the sunniest, warmest part of the day. Even a 15 min. walk after work in the dark, or after an early dinner will change the way you feel about the whole day.

            Even with exposure to the winter shy sun, doctors have come to agree that many of us will benefit from the addition of Vit. D to our diets during the winter months. The amount prescribed ranges from 500-2000 IU/day, so check with your health care person. You can but Vit. D over the counter, it’s inexpensive. Along with all the winter soups and root vegetables, make sure that you eat something raw every day. I have a four season green house where I can harvest winter greens, but still enjoy a good cabbage, carrot and celery salad with a light miso vinaigrette. More winter CSAs and farmer’s markets are popping up each year, we truly live in paradise. You can expect the vegetables to be more expensive than those shipped in from Mexico or Califorinia for good reason, but well worth the cost.

Summertime: Hauling seaweed home from the 

shore for the winter vegetables.

 

CHICKENS ON ICE

Finally, the first snow of the winter arrives. All right, in reality the “snow” falling fitfully out of the leaden grey skies is more accurately ice pellets, freezing rain and other indecisive forms of precipitation. Still, this morning’s light revealed a landscape of a most definite beauty as the pristine layer of white covered everything. The stone patio, walls and rock piles of Wilder Hill, only half covered as if by a shroud, looked mysterious and lovely. The radio reminds us to drive slowly today, and perhaps we can extend this advise to other parts of our lives too, despite the apparent urgency of the holiday season.

Although the precipitation brought a long over-due end to the gardening season (I was out in the lower field tying up the blueberry netting until the day before yesterday), those of us with outdoor animals will continue our daily chores right through until spring. Here at Wilder Hill we raise chickens, both meat birds and laying hens, and pigs. While the freezer is well stocked with the meat birds and pork, the laying hens are out in the coop as I write, eager to be let out into their pen for the day. I will not cover the basics of chicken husbandry here, as I am sure any chicken owner is as much an expert as the next. I’ll just pass on a few tips that might help your birds be more comfortable and productive in these cold and stressful months.

1. WATER: Make extra sure your birds have clean water in the cold months, it’s easy to forget or defer this task in a season when we are not really thirsty ourselves. And if your birds are spending more time in the coop, it’s likely they are tossing more of their bedding into the clean water. Claire Pearson, of Wilder Brook Botanicals adds a shot of hydrogen peroxide to the clean water. Not only does it completely inhibit the growth of algae and bacteria in the waterer, but Claire swears it makes the birds bigger and healthier. If available fill the waterer with warm water.

2. FEED: Be extra vigilant about saving scraps from the kitchen for your chickens and feed them out daily. And how about bringing home leftovers from restaurant meals and the more poultry friendly parties you attend to supplement your bird’s regular grain? Next, take an honest look in your fridge and pantry. You might cook up a casual stew of that neglected food you know you are not likely to eat, before it gets really old or spoiled? Your chickens and the quality of their eggs will benefit a variable diet, especially the addition of protein and fat.

3. LIGHTS: For the first time in my decades of chicken raising, I put a light in the coop to give the birds extra hours of “daylight”. I turn the light on at 4pm and off at 8pm, more or less. The results were remarkable, egg production tripled. I have not done a cost/benefits analysis (hear my friends laughing here), but it feels great to find the variably colored eggs in the nesting boxes every day and to share them with my kids and friends. Most weeks I have enough left over to take a few dozen to yoga class to earn some feed money.

Ask Lilian Your Gardening Questions

Use the comment section below to send your gardening or landscaping questions to me and I will choose one to answer in the next View From Wilder Hill blog post. If your question is chosen you will receive a $10 gift certificate to Wilder Hill Gardens for the 2013 season.

The Fall Garden: A Certain Kind of Beauty

The morning after the first hard frost it always seems like some great mistake had been made, like an  abrupt, unfortunate ending to a really good party. And even though the gardener was pretty darn tired at season’s end and secretly longed for frost, even after the radio predicted temps well below freezing, even after all these years as a gardener, every year it is still a bit of a shock.

Yesterday a thousand Zinnias colored the south field, slightly tarnished at the tail end of the season it is true, but still bright and lovely. Early this morning, as the light returned and the weak autumn sun melted the frost laying on ground and foliage, both the leaves and blossoms of the Zinnias are undeniably brown. The party is over, Celosia, Ageratum, Marigolds, and Dahlias, all shades of brown, all dead. And even worse, some are slimy, especially the Dahlias.

Nothing to do now but drink an extra cup of green tea and read a little something while I wait for the world outside to warm up a few degrees. Then I’ll “suit up” in my flannel lined denims and multiple layers of fleece and cotton on top and head out to feed the animals first, pigs and chickens. Then I’ll dive into the task of pulling up the annual flowers and hauling them to the compost pile, with special attention to the Dahlias, our plant of the week. (More on Dahlias in a minute).

In case you are wondering what the gardener might read in the space between chores, I can highly recommend A Curable Romantic by Joseph Skibell. Dara Holmes called the book, “Brilliant. . . astonishingly original. . . what life on earth might actually mean.”, and I am inclined to agree. This novel has Sigmund Freud, Esperanto, Jewish mysticism, and the nature of Evil all roiling about in a stunning plot. Not a perfect book, I thought it might benefit from a bit of editing in the middle,  but what inspired work ever is perfect?

Now for some useful information about Dahlias: they are a dramatic and very worthwhile cut flower, not as mysterious or difficult as many gardeners believe. Dahlias are a tender perennial, which means the tubers must be dug up and stored over the winter in a cool, but not freezing location. An unheated basement or a garage attached to the house is perfect. Dahlias are stunning in floral arrangements, or float a single blossom in one of those fancy bowls you inherited from your mum but never use. Slowing down to enjoy a single flower is a rare event these days and worthwhile endeavor. Dahlias will meet you more than half way, catching your eye from across the room and almost winking seductively.

In New England, Dahlias are best planted in April, about two weeks after the ground can be worked and, surprisingly, while the nights are still below freezing. This is because they take at least three weeks to break dormancy and emerge from the ground. By this time, the weather will have settled and nights are warmer. Give them lots of room in one of your best full sun locations. patience is required as they have lots of growing to do before producing those juicy, giant flowers. By mid-July or so, the plants will begin to bloom and not stop until the hard frost. It might be worthwhile to stake the best varieties before then, while you can still identify the flowers, to make especially sure you dig those. The tubers are likely to double each year, so some selection (or sharing) is a good idea. 

Welcome!  

Wilder Hill Gardens is a thriving perennial, herb and cut flower nursery located in Conway, a beautiful hilltown of Western Massachusetts. Our retail nursery offers herbaceous perennial and herb plants, a selection of trees, shrubs, willows and roses. We offer landscape and design consultation services. 

If you are planning a wedding or other celebration in Western Mass., Wilder Hill Gardens can provide original, gorgeous floral arrangements from the wide range of plant material grown on our six acres.