Author: Henry Homeyer

Get your tickets now

The spring flower shows are always a contrast to the cold, icy days of winter. Bright flowers, garden paraphernalia and numerous workshops make these events fun, for both beginner and expert. Here are this year’s offerings.

The first show of the season is a specialty show: Continue reading “Spring flower shows are back!”

Look for old favorites and new varieties

We gardeners love our home-grown vegetables. As John Denver sang long ago, “Only two things that money can’t buy and that’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.” And why do they taste so good? We can grow tomatoes that don’t have to conform to Continue reading “Growing food for flavor”

Use winter to make your plans

It’s gray and chilly outside, but I have a fire in the new woodstove that warms the house and pleases me as I look through its glass window. I’ve been in the same house since 1970, so I’ve had plenty of time to plan Continue reading “Projects in the garden”

Whatever happens, keep planting and learning

At the end of the year I always like to take a little time to reflect on what worked well in the garden — and what didn’t. This year I also called some gardening friends — some experienced, some less so — to ask Continue reading “The year’s lessons from the garden”

Put on a hoodie and shake off the snow

We recently got hit by a big winter storm that dropped at least 15 inches of heavy, wet snow. It clung to branches, breaking some and bending others to near their breaking points. If you suffer the same sometime this winter, Continue reading “What to do after a big storm”

Pruned trees for outside, cut branches for inside

Normally at this time of year I can go out to the stream behind my house and pick stems of a shrub called winterberry (Ilex verticillata) to use in vases and on my wreath. It is generally loaded with small Continue reading “Enjoying the winter landscape”

Today’s veggie scraps makes tomorrow’s soil

When I was a boy it was one of my many jobs to take out the kitchen scraps every few days and dump them in our woods in a compost pile. Like the postman, I did my job no matter what: “Neither snow, nor Continue reading “Composting: It’s important, even in winter”

Pruning makes them pretty

Living in New England is a joy, but we gardeners do have some challenges: cold winter winds, deer, rocky soil and more. As we get ready for winter, one of the biggest challenges for many of us is the deer. They are hungry and relentless. In Continue reading “Winter tree care”

Eating from your garden is possible even in December

I personally think that the Canadians have the right idea: They have their Thanksgiving feast the second Monday in October, right after the harvest. By the time our Thanksgiving rolls around, many gardeners have eaten all their home-grown veggies. It need Continue reading “Include homegrown (or local) vegetables in your holiday feasts”