Category: Outdoors

Kiddie Pool 25/04/03

Family fun for whenever

Play ball!

• Friday, April 4, is the season opener for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium in downtown Manchester. The Cats will play the Binghamton Rumble Ponies at 6:35 p.m. and guests can pick up a free magnet schedule to help them plan their season of baseball. The Fisher Cats also will play the Rumble Ponies on Saturday, April 5, at 4:05 p.m. (when they will play as the Manchester Chicken Tenders) and Sunday, April 6, at 1:35 p.m. (when the first 1,000 fans will receive a free fleece blanket). The next stretch of games begins Tuesday, April 15, at 6:35 p.m. versus the Harrisburg Senators. See milb.com/new-hampshire for the game schedule, tickets and promotions.

Book fun

• Curious George will visit for a story time at the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire (6 Washington St. in Dover; childrens-museum.org) on Friday, April 4, and Saturday, April 5, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on both days. The visits are part of the museum’s Books Alive! programming and are included with admission, which costs $14.50 for everyone over 12 months and $12.50 for 65+. The museum offers sessions from 9 a.m. to noon or 1 to 4 p.m. on those days.

Down in Fraggle Rock

Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock Live comes to the Capitol Center for the Arts’ Chubb Theatre (44 S. Main St., Concord, ccanh.com) on Friday, April 4, at 7:30 p.m. The show features walk-around versions of the Fraggles and puppet-sized Dozers, according to the website. Tickets start at $46.75 and a VIP option includes an opportunity to get a photo with the Fraggles for an additional $30.

Spring fun

• It’s egg hunt season and Charmingfare Farm in Candia kicks off the fun early with its Egg-citing Egg Hunt Saturdays and Sundays, April 5 through April 20 (Easter Sunday). Kids between the ages of 2 and 12 can hunt for a dozen eggs in Grandpa’s Barn, the website said. The event will also include an opportunity to meet the Easter bunny, visit farm animals (including new spring babies) and more, according to the website. Time slots between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. are available on those days. Admission costs $29 per person.

• Springfest! will take place at the Saint Anselm College Sullivan Arena Saturday, April 5, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The day will feature vendors, a kid zone, food concessions and more. Admission costs $5 for adults and is free for kids 12 and under. See goffstowncitizens.org.

Pancakes with a princess

• Have a Royal Princess Breakfast on Sunday, April 6, at 9:30 a.m. at the Derryfield Restaurant (625 Mammoth Road, Manchester, thederryfield.com). Tickets cost $55 for adults, $45 for children. The day will feature breakfast, games, costumed princesses, stories and more.

Spring gardening is here

Start slowly and save your back

By Henry Homeyer

[email protected]

It’s April, and spring has sprung. Or will soon. Winter always is a sneaky devil, coming back with hard frosts and even a foot of snow on occasion. There is much to do, but start slowly, not just for your back, which has been resting all winter, but because a week of warm sunny days doesn’t mean your soil is warm enough to plant. A soil thermometer pushed 3 inches into the soil should read 50 degrees before planting anything, even spinach and so-called cold-weather crops.

As you move around your garden you will probably notice that the soil is moist. If you are leaving footprints in the lawn or garden soil, stay off it until it dries out more. Otherwise you can ruin soil structure by compacting it.

You can put down 6-inch planks as walkways in flower beds if you are determined to weed or to remove leaves and debris while the soil is still a bit wet. But even then, be careful. There may be little green noses of perennials or bulbs lurking under the leaves and you won’t want to damage them by putting a plank on them.

I’ve had snowdrops up and blooming since March, as I do every year. By April I have lots of bulbs blooming: crocus, glory-of-the-snow, scilla or squill (a deep purple early bloomer), winter aconite (a bright yellow, short-stemmed beauty) and early daffodils. If you don’t have enough bulbs blooming, imagine where they might go, and put plant labels there for fall planting. A south-facing hillside bed will produce blossoms up to three weeks before a north-facing bed.

I plant 100 tulips as cut flowers every year. If you planted some last fall and have deer in the neighborhood, you may be disappointed to see them eaten just as they are starting to bloom. I prevent this by surrounding and covering my tulip bed with chicken wire before that happens. I plant my tulips in the vegetable garden each fall, and treat them as annuals.

Once your lawn has dried out, it will need a good raking to clean up the winter debris. I like to wait until the lawn has greened up a bit before raking. I don’t want to rake a dormant lawn as it would be easy to damage it with a brisk raking. Think of your lawn as individual plants growing very close together, not as one big green plant. They compete with each other and with crabgrass and weeds. A sprinkling of good compost will improve your soil, giving the lawn a better place to thrive.

I recommend reducing the size of most lawns. Think of a lawn as an area rug, not wall-to-wall carpeting. That will allow you to have a bigger vegetable garden and more places for native trees, shrubs and perennials that will support pollinators and birds. Do you know that caterpillars are essential food for baby birds? We need to provide flowers and trees that the butterflies and moths recognize and use — our natives.

I recommend raised beds for the vegetable garden, but you don’t have to build or buy wooden boxes for raised beds. When the soil has dried out, loosen it with a garden fork, and then use a short-tined rake to drag soil from walkways onto your designated beds to raise them up 6 inches or so. A 30-inch-wide bed is ideal — it’s wide enough for roots to spread far and wide, yet you will be able to reach all parts for weeding.

Adding compost to your soil every year will improve it greatly over time. An inch of compost works wonders if you do it every year. Buy it in bulk if you have access to a pickup truck, or buy bags if you don’t. And for my tomatoes? I always add a shovel of compost in every planting hole and stir it in well with my favorite weeding tool, the CobraHead weeder (cobrahead.com). Compost not only provides essential minerals in small quantities; it greatly improves soil texture and its ability to hold water in dry times.

Some people hate weeding, some love it. Either way, it has to be done. Start before the weeds get big. Perennial weeds like dandelions or thistles will already have deep roots. Annual weeds will be tiny but numerous. I believe the best tool for either is the CobraHead weeder. Its curved metal digging tip can loosen the soil around deep roots and help you pull from below with the tool while your other hand tugs on the top. Pull gently, slowly. You don’t want to snap off the root, as it will just start growing as soon as you walk away. Annual weeds you can loosen by scuffing the soil lightly.

As you plan your garden, think about buying organically certified starter plants and seeds. Why? Ordinary seed growers feed their plants with liquid fertilizer every day. That means that the plants don’t have to work as hard as organically raised plants to get the minerals they need. Organic practices promote longer roots to get the nutrition needed by the plants. If you are going to grow organic food, you will do best with organic starter plants.

Organic seed producers have to deliver seeds for plants that will not be protected from diseases and pests with chemicals. They have to be tough. Lastly, buying organic seeds and plants supports organic farmers. They are working hard to protect the environment by avoiding chemicals. Pay a little bit more if you can, and buy organic.

And remember: Gardening is supposed to be fun. Don’t work so hard you get blisters and a sore back. Garden a little every day.

Henry can be reached at [email protected] or PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746.

Featured photo: Dandelions and other deep-rooted weeds pull best when soil is moist. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Kiddie Pool 25/03/27

Family fun for whenever

Lacrosse season

• Catch the Saint Anselm College Hawks men’s lacrosse team at Grappone Stadium on the Saint Anselm College campus in Manchester on Friday, March 28, at 4 p.m. when they play Assumption. See saintanselmhawks.com.

• Cheer Nashua’s Rivier University Raiders men’s and women’s lacrosse teams at games this weekend on Joanne Merrill Field at Linda Robinson Pavilion in Nashua. The men’s team will play Johnson & Wales University Providence on Saturday, March 29, at 11 a.m. The women’s team will play Colby Sawyer at 2 p.m. See rivierathletics.com.

At the ballet

• Cinderella will be performed by Ballet Misha’s professional adult dancers, apprentice company and students from Dimensions in Dance on Saturday, March 29, at 2 and 6 p.m. at the Concord City Auditorium (2 Prince St. in Concord). Tickets cost $31.60 for adults, $21.40 for children. See balletmisha.com

• Snow White will be presented by Southern NY Youth Ballet at the Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St., Manchester, palacetheatre.org) on Sunday, March 30, at 1 and 4 p.m. The show is “appropriate for children and young ballerinas of all ages” with an approximately 90-minute runtime and a brief intermission, according to a Palace email. Tickets cost $24 to $29. Tickets to a pre-show tea with Snow White cost an additional $20. The tea starts 45 minutes before showtime.

• Hispanic Flamenco Ballet will come to the Concord City Auditorium (2 Prince St. in Concord) on Tuesday, April 1, at 10 and 11 a.m. Tickets cost $19 to $33 and are available by calling 305-420-6622. See flamencoballet.com for more on the company.

Lil’ runners

• Kids in three different age divisions — ages 4 and younger, ages 5 and 6 and ages 7 and 8 — can participate in the Lil’ Leprechaun Run on Sunday, March 30, at 10:30 a.m. Participants receive a medal at the finish, according to millenniumrunning.com/shamrock, where kids can register for the 100-yard fun run. The cost to register for the Lil’ Leprechaun is $5. Kids over 8 can register for the Shamrock Shuffle, which starts at 11 a.m. and is a 2-mile run/walk on Elm Street. The cost is $10 for kids 11 and under and $20 for ages 12 to 20. Adults can register for the Shuffle for $25 each. After all that running, grab a spot on Elm Street to watch the Manchester St. Patrick Parade, which steps off at noon. See saintpatsnh.com for more on the parade.

Gardening in March

First, a few rules for pruning

Whether March came in like the proverbial lion or lamb for you, March is the time when you need to pay more attention to your houseplants. Instead of watering every Sunday, you probably need to water most things twice a week, except for cacti and a few plants that thrive in dry soil. But rosemary? It’s so easy to kill now. The sun is hotter, roots are growing, and they need more water. Don’t keep the soil soggy, but poke your fingers into the soil more often and make sure it’s not Arizona arid. A dry rosemary is a dead rosemary.

Although March is the time farmers tend to prune their fruit trees, I am waiting a bit. We still have too much snow to easily move around carrying ladders. Pruning experts will tell you that you can prune fruit trees any month of the year, something I have found to be true. But let’s go over a few rules for pruning.

Use sharp tools. A good pair of hand pruners, some loppers and a pruning saw are all you need. I don’t like bow saws — they can’t get into tight places. Know where to cut. Don’t cut branches flush with the trunk or a big branch. Each branch has a “collar” that should be left. This is the bulge where it heals. But don’t leave long stubs when you remove a branch. They will not heal properly, and look awful. Remove dead branches first.

Don’t leave stubs, they have to heal back to branch collar. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Never remove more than about a quarter of the leaf-producing branches. Leaves are the engine that drive growth and flower and fruit production. Remove water sprouts each year or two. These start as pencil-thin shoots growing straight up, but will get big and clutter up the interior of the tree. Remove branches that are rubbing or crossing others, or are growing in toward the center of the tree. Remember: Sunlight should be able to reach every leaf. Open up the interior so this is possible.

March is also the time I start planting seeds indoors. Onion family seeds and peppers, hot and sweet, can be started now. Artichokes and cardoon I start early, but tomatoes I don’t start until around April 10. That will give them eight weeks to be ready to go outside in mid-June.

Actually, it is much easier to order onions as bare-root plants sold in bunches of 50, each a few inches long and ready to start growing in the ground in May. Johnny’s Selected Seeds and others sell them, and your local nursery may sell onions in six-packs, each cell with four to six seedlings. The main advantage to starting onions or tomatoes by seed is that you get a much wider choice in what you grow.

If you want to start plants indoors, you will need some lights. Yes, some people try a sunny window, but they generally get lanky plants leaning toward the sunshine. Kits with LED or fluorescent lights are sold at garden centers and online. I built my own, a simple A-frame wooden structure that has two plywood shelves and supports 4-foot lights. It can accommodate up to 12 flats of seedlings if I put some on the floor.

Next you need six-packs of either plastic (like the ones you get when you buy veggies or annuals at the nursery) or re-usable metal or heavy-duty plastic. In my efforts to reduce my use of single-use plastic, I have switched over to re-usable plant cells. Yes, they are more expensive, but they last forever. In any case, get bigger cells, not smaller ones. Your babies are going to grow in them for eight weeks or more and need plenty of room for roots.

You can buy seed starting mix, but if you do a lot of plants (as I do) it can get expensive. So you can mix the potting mix with good quality compost if you have it, or you can buy it. Seed starting mixes don’t have much nutrition in them, so adding compost helps. Or later, you can water with a dilute solution of liquid fertilizer, something like Neptune’s Harvest Liquid Fish and Seaweed Fertilizer.

You may wish to buy electric heat mats designed to provide consistent low-level warmth. This signals the seeds that spring is here, and gets them to sprout sooner and with better germination rates. Again, expensive, but they last forever.

Lastly, you can’t let your seeds/seedlings dry out. One way to prevent that is to buy clear plastic covers that fit over a flat of seedlings. Oh, and don’t forget to buy trays to hold your six-packs. This keeps water from getting on to your table or floor.

Lastly, in March I am reading gardening books and magazines and planning out what I want to do in my flower gardens. I recently got a preview copy of a wonderful book by my friend Jill Nooney called Bedrock: The Making of a Public Garden. Jill and her husband Bob Munger have been working on their property to develop beautiful spaces to try all sorts of plants. They bought the house in 1980 and have been working on them ever since. They turned over most of the land, gardens and Jill’s sculpture to a nonprofit to own and manage last year, but they continue to live in the old farmhouse there and work in the gardens.

Why read this book? It is relevant to anyone who wants to develop great gardens. Jill is a plant collector who has tried just about anything that will grow in a Zone 4/5 garden, and the photos illustrate many of them. The color photos are numerous and beautiful. It is full of design ideas, too. And she has an engaging writing style. I loved the book.

Spring is just around the corner. Get busy now — it will help prevent the mud season blues!

Featured photo: Metal planting cells from Gardener’s Supply. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Kiddie Pool 25/03/20

Family fun for whenever

More maple

The sap season fun continues at some area maple sugar farms.

• Ben’s Sugar Shack, 8 Webster Highway in Temple, will continue its tours of the maple sugaring process throughout March, Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dress for the outdoors; see bensmaplesyrup.com.

• Parker’s Maple Barn, 1316 Brookline Road in Mason, will offer sugar house tours weekends in March, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. See parkersmaplebarn.com.

• Charmingfare Farm, 774 High St. in Candia, wraps up its Maple Express event this weekend, with times Saturday, March 22, and Sunday, March 23. Admission costs $29 per person and the event includes horse-drawn and tractor train rides, a look at a working sugar shack, visits with the farm animals, taste testing and more. See visitthefarm.com.

Nature Quest

The Nashua Public Library and Nashua River Watershed Association will hold March’s Nature Quest event on Saturday, March 22, from 1 to 3 p.m. with a focus on the river otters, beavers and muskrats of Nashua River in Mine Falls Park. Register at nashualibrary.org.

On screen

• Chunky’s Cinema Pub, 707 Huse Road in Manchester, chunkys.com, has some special screenings on the horizon. On Tuesday, March 25, at 11:30 p.m. The Smurfs (PG, 2011) will screen as part of the Little Lunch Date Series. Admission costs $5 and includes a $5 food voucher. Snow White (PG, 2025) will screen as a Sensory Friendly Screening on Wednesday, March 26, 11:30 a.m. During these screenings, house lights will be up and the volume will be lower.

• O’neil Cinemas Brickyard Square, 24 Calef Highway in Epping, will feature the recent PG release The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie on Saturday, March 22, at 10 a.m. in a sensory-friendly screening.

• The family film on Wednesday, March 26, at Flying Monkey, 39 S. Main St. in Plymouth, flyingmonkeynh.com, will be 2020’s Sonic the Hedgehog(PG). The film starts at 6 p.m., doors open at 5 p.m. Tickets cost $3 online, $5 at the door, and the theater offers a special kids’ menu on family movie nights, according to the website.

Kiddie Pool 25/03/13

Family fun for whenever

Kids on stage

• The Palace Youth Theatre will present an hour-longDiary of a Wimpy Kid: The MusicalThursday, March 13, at 7 p.m. at the Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St. in Manchester; palacetheatre.org). Then on Wednesday, March 19, and Thursday, March 20, at 7 p.m., the Palace Teen Apprentice Company will present Once Upon a Mattress Youth Edition at The Rex Theatre (23 Amherst St. in Manchester). Tickets cost $16 to $19.

• The Peacock Players present their Spring Youth Mainstage ProductionShrek The Musical Jr.with shows Friday, March 14, and Friday, March 21, at 7 p.m.; Saturday, March 15, and Saturday, March 22, at 2 p.m., and Sundays, March 16, and March 23, at 2 p.m. at Janice B. Streeter Theatre, 14 Court St. in Nashua. Tickets cost $15 to $18 for adults, $12 to $15 for students and seniors.

• The Kids Coop Theatre will present the musical The Prom at the Derry Opera House (29 W Broadway in Derry; derryoperahouse.org) on Friday, March 14, and Saturday, March 15, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, March 16, at 2 p.m. See kctnh.org.

• And if your kid is looking to be on stage, the Riverbend Youth Company is holding auditions Sunday, March 16, and Monday, March 17, for 8th- through 12th-graders for The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical,which is slated for a June performance at the Amato Center in Milford. See amatocenter.org/riverbend-youth-company for audition details.

Cookie season

• Win those Thin Mints and Samoas at Girl Scout Cookie Bingo at Chunky’s Cinema Pub, 707 Huse Road in Manchester (chunkys.com), on Sunday, March 16, at 6 p.m. Tickets cost $13.99.

• Or, if you just want to cut to the cookie eating, check out the Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains, the local Girl Scout organization, at girlscoutsgwm.org, where you can find cookie booths near you. Multiple spots are slated to operate in the greater Concord, Manchester and Nashua areas this weekend.

Family music

• Grammy-nominated family musician Alastair Moock, whose music is described as upbeat Americana for all ages, will play a concert on Saturday, March 15, at 10 a.m. at the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire (6 Washington St. in Dover; childrens-museum.org), according to the Museum’s website. The concert is part of regular admission for the morning play session (which runs from 9 a.m. to noon; the museum is also open from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturdays). Admission costs $14.50 for everybody over 12 months; $12.50 for 65+.

St. Pat’s fun

St. Patrick’s Day Party is the theme at Cowabunga’s, 725 Huse Road in Manchester, on Thursday, March 13, from 5 to 8 p.m., according to the website. Prices start at $20 per child for two hours of bouncing and more; adults and infants get in free with a paying child, the website said. See cowabungas.com.

Save the date

The Currier Museum of Art (150 Ash St. in Manchester; currier.org) will hold a five-week in-person class called “Art Explorers” for ages 5 to 7 on Saturdays, starting March 22, 10 to 11:30 a.m. The cost is $200 and the class will feature exploration of a variety of art forms and media including watercolors, pencil, sculpture and more, according to the website.

Camp fun

Jason Cote, studio operations director at the Concord Karate Studio (89 Fort Eddy Road, Suite 3, Concord; 224-KICK; cks-nh.com), emailed with information on the studio’s camps. Concord Karate will have three weeks of summer camp — June 23-27, July 28-Aug. 1 and Aug. 18-22, running daily from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. with early drop-off and late pick up options, the email said. The camps will include karate games, summer learning, snacks, karate class, a field trip and more. See the website for more. For our listing of camps, check out the Feb. 27 issue of the Hippo in our digital library at hippopress.com. If you have a summer camp that’s not listed in the story, let us know at [email protected].

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