Category: Outdoors

Kiddie Pool 26/05/07

Family fun for whenever

Storytime

• Wonderland Books and Toys, 245 Maple St., No. 12, in Manchester, will hold its Stuffy Sleepover Storytime on Friday, May 8, at 6:30 p.m. Register via a link on the store’s Facebook page for this free event where kids can attend a storytime with their stuffy on Friday evening and then leave their stuffy for a sleepover at the store, to be picked up Saturday, according to a Facebook post. See wonderlandbooksandtoys.com.

On stage

• The Manchester Community Theatre Players wrap up a production of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown with shows on Friday, May 8, and Saturday, May 9, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 10, at 2 p.m. at the MCTP Theatre, the North End Montessori School, 698 Beech St. in Manchester. See manchestercommunitytheatre.com for tickets.

• 101 Dalmatian Kids will be presented by Ovation Theatre Company with performers ages 7 to 14 on Friday, May 8, through Sunday, May 10, at Ovation Studios, 61 Harvey Road in Londonderry, according to ovationtc.com, where you can purchase tickets.

• The SpongeBob Musical will be presented at the Amato Center, 56 Mont Vernon St. in Milford, on Friday, May 8, and Saturday, May 9, at 7:30 p.m., and on Saturday, May 9, and Sunday, May 10, at 2:30 p.m. See amatocenter.org/riverbend-youth-company.

• And the older kids can catch Majestic Academy Teens’ production of Legally Blonde, The Musical, at the Derry Opera House, 29 West Broadway in Derry, on Friday, May 8, at 7 p.m.; Saturday, May 9, at 2 and 7 p.m., and Sunday, May 10, at 2 p.m. See majestictheatre.net or call 669-7469 for tickets, which will also be on sale at the door, the release said.

• The Palace Youth Theatre, with performers in grades 2 through 12, will present Romeo & Juliet Wednesday, May 13, and Thursday, May 14, at the Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St. in Manchester, according to palacetheatre.org, where you can purchase tickets.

Music!

• Concord Community Music School, 23 Wall St. in Concord, will hold Kids Music Day on Saturday, May 9, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., featuring Mr. Aaron, Miss Heather and Miss Julieann with concerts, demonstrations, an instrument petting zoo and more, according to ccmusicschool.org. For kids who want to see even more musical goings-on, the student piano recital starts at 1 p.m.

• For the sci-fi fans old enough to appreciate a live quintet performance, the Principal Winds Quartet of the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra will present “Space Heroes” in the planetarium at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord on Saturday, May 9, at 3:30 (listed as “sold out” on May 4) and 6:30 p.m. Musical selections from TV and film will be paired with “stunning visuals,” according to starhop.com/discover/spaceheroes, where you can purchase tickets.

Game time!

• The New Hampshire Fisher Cats kick off a six-game stand versus the Reading Fightin’ Phils on Tuesday, May 12, with a 6:03 p.m. game time. Tuesday will be “Tenders Tuesday,” when the team will play as the Manchester Chicken Tenders (the game is one of the Reading Challenge Days, for kids who earned those tickets), according to milb.com/new-hampshire. The Wednesday, May 13, game is at 11:05 a.m.

Plant sale season

Where to find your garden additions

Get new flowers and greenery for the growing season at area garden clubs and garden enthusiasts plant sales. Because the club members are the ones selling the plants, you can get some planting advice along with your new annuals and perennials. Here are a few sales slated for the next few weeks. Know of a plant sale not mentioned here? Let us know at adiaz@hippopress.com.

• Garden Club of Deerfield will hold its plant sale on Friday, May 8, from 3 to 6 p.m. and Saturday, May 9, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the Deerfield Town Hall on Church Street, according to a post on the club’s Facebook page.

• The Amherst Garden Club will hold its plant sale on Saturday, May 9, from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Wilkins School, 80 Boston Post Road in Amherst, according to amherstgardenclub.org/plant_sale.

• The Colonial Garden Club of Hollis will hold its sale Saturday, May 9, from 9 a.m. to noon at Lawrence Barn, 28 Depot Road, according to hollisgardenclub.org.

• The Friends of the Audi and Concord’s General Service Department will hold their Perennial Exchange on Saturday, May 9, at 9a.m. to noon at the Concord City Auditorium, according to theaudi.org.

• The Rye Driftwood Garden Club will hold its sale on Friday, May 15, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Saturday, May 16, from 9 a.m. to noon, at Goss Farm, 251 Harbor Road in Rye, according to ryenhgardenclub.org.

• The Nashua Garden Club will hold its sale on Saturday, May 16, from 8 a.m. to noon at the Nashua Historical Society, 5 Abbott St. in Nashua, according to a post on the Nashua Garden Club’s Facebook page.

• The Bow Garden Club will hold its plant sale on Saturday, May 16, from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Bow Community Center, 2 Bow Center Road, according to the club’s Facebook page.

• The Goffstown Garden Club will hold its plant sale on Saturday, May 16, from 8 a.m. to noon in the Goffstown Commons, according to their Facebook page.

• The Milford NH Garden Club will hold its annual plant sale on Saturday, May 16, from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the Community House Lawn, according to milfordnhgardenclub.org.

• The Candia Garden Club will hold its sale on Saturday, May 16, from 9 a.m. to noon, at the Masonic Hall, 12 South Road in Candia, according to a post on its Facebook page.

• The Windham Garden Club will hold its sale on Saturday, May 16, from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 61 Kendall Pond Road in Windham, according to a post on the club’s Facebook page.

• The Bedford Garden Club will hold its plant sale on Saturday, May 16, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the Educational Farm at Joppa Hill, according to bgcnh.org/plant-sale-2026.

• The Hooksett Garden Club will hold its annual plant sale on Saturday, June 6, from 9 a.m. to noon (or sellout) at the Hooksett Public Library, 31 Mount Saint Mary Way in Hooksett, according to hooksettnhgardenclub.org.

• The Derry Garden Club will hold its plant sale on Saturday, June 6, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Robert Frost Farm, according to the club’s Facebook page. See derrygardenclub.org.

• The NH Audubon’s McLane Center, 84 Silk Farm Road in Concord, will hold a Pollinator Fest & Native Plant Sale on Saturday, June 6, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., according to nhaudubon.org.

• The Merrimack Garden Club will hold its annual sale on Saturday, July 18, at the American Legion on Baboosic Lake Road, according to merrimackgardenclub.org.

Shop for spring

Spring Craft Market offers pre-Mother’s Day shopping

One of the less obvious signs of spring is when craft shows come out of their winter quarters and blossom. Jody Donohue, the owner of Great New England Events (gnecraftartisanshows.com), is excited about this weekend’s Spring Craft Market at LaBelle Winery in Derry, which will be partly outside.

“The market will be located in four spaces,” she said. “We have the Harvest Room, we have the ballroom, a large tent on the terrace, and this year we’re also expanding into the parking lot. So we’re pretty excited about having those 18 exhibitors out in the parking lot just outside the terrace area.”

The Mother’s Day weekend event has also expanded its hours, Donohue said.

“Last year, we were one day, Saturday only, but due to the popular demand of it, we’re also extending to Friday evening, from 4 to 8 p.m. And then it’s also Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.”

The word-of-mouth exposure from last year’s Spring Market was excellent, Donohue continued. “We’ll have 78 exhibitors,” she said, “and we received over 400 applications for those 78 spots. We have exhibitors coming from New York. We have one group coming in from Delaware. Craftspeople will be there from Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, [and] Massachusetts, bringing their products. And our mission [statement] at GNE is “Never the same show twice, but always just as nice.” So you’re going to see some of the same exhibitors, but you’re also going to see many new products and exhibitors there with their handmade products.”

The Spring Craft Market will include craftspeople from across the craft spectrum, Donohue said. “It’s a very popular event. So we’re really excited to be offering lots of different gifts for mom for the spring, for home decor, for your outdoor decor, garden, birdhouses, and we have some specialty foods. We’ll have fudge and chocolate and all that handmade in small batches. We have six different jewelers this time coming in, We have glass jewelry coming. We’ve got some artists painting, photography, candles, fabrics, metal art, beautiful wood-turned products, from games to home decor to bowls to candlesticks.”

While some crafts will be typical of craft shows, Donohue said, others will be a surprise.

“I always like our lamp guy, Quinton,” she said. “He comes in and he’s made all these different lamps. He will find oddities and make lamps out of them. He’ll find a bubble gum machine and turn it into a lamp. He’ll use railroad ties or water pipes or rustic clocks and he’ll turn them into lamps. He’ll make little vintage [toy] cars into lamps. He even has a clarinet he turned into a lamp. He is pretty spectacular to meet and see how creative he is in designing these lamps.”

“We have a wood carver,” Donohue said. “She uses chainsaws of various sizes. She can carve into wood and make a 3D image. I had a custom one made for my house. We live on the water … so she did the water and she did some sandpipers in there for us and it just came out really well. Her work is just beautiful. She can design pretty much anything you want. She’ll do beach scenes. She’ll do lighthouses. She’ll do flowers. She’ll have a lot of flowers this time around for Mother’s Day, and they’re varying sizes. Some of them can be 8 inches and some can be 28 inches. She’s a unique crafter.”

The 2026 Great New England Mother’s Day Spring Craft Market
When: Friday, May 8, from 4 to 8 p.m., and Saturday, May 9, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: LaBelle Winery Derry, 14 Route 111, Derry, 672-9898, labellewinery.com/labelle-winery-derry.
Admission and parking are free. Visit gnecraftartisanshows.com/calendar.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Late spring chores

Clean your tools and seize the weeds

Spring arrives in New England in fits and starts: hot and sunny one day, chilly and drizzly the next. Maybe even a few flurries to outrage the impatient gardener. But there is much that can be done now, even on a rainy day.

I much prefer tools with wooden handles: If treated properly they will last your entire lifetime. Every year or two I clean up and oil the handles of my garden tools, which keeps the wood supple. I‘ve got tools with wood handles I’ve used regularly for over 40 years, and some from my grandfather that are more than 75 years old.

First I clean up the handles by rubbing with fine steel wool or, if very rough, with 100 grit sandpaper. Then I wipe them down with a scrap of a towel. Finally I use a brush to paint them with boiled linseed oil. I then let them dry in the sun or in the barn it’s a rainy day, and wipe them down the next day.

Shovels should be sharpened from time to time. Get a wide, medium-rough flat file and push it firmly across the shovel’s edge on the backside of the blade. Take long, slow strikes but do not saw back and forth with your file. Look carefully at the angle it came with, and try to mimic that angle with your file. A sharp shovel is much more efficient than a dull one. But it’s not a good idea to sharpen the blade until it’s knife-sharp. It will dull quickly if you do. Sharpening a dull shovel is not quick work,

Impatient to get things growing in the vegetable garden? Peas, spinach, arugula and lettuce are very cold-hardy and can be planted early by seed, even if frost will still occur. Soil temperatures of 40 degrees are adequate for germination of them, but I think 50 degrees is better. For most seeds, I prefer to wait until the soil hits 50 degrees or more. I worry seeds will rot if the soil is too cold and wet. That goes for potatoes and onions, too. Cukes, squash, pepper and tomato seedlings I don’t plant until June.

Soil thermometers look like little probes with a dial on top, something like the one you poke in a turkey to see when it’s done. Garden centers sell them. If you get one, poke it down 4 inches to get your reading.

If your soil was covered with leaves or straw for the winter, rake that off your planting beds now so that the sun will hit your soil directly and warm it up. Mulch keeps the soil cool. If there are weeds coming up, pull them as soon as you can — no sense letting them get a head start on your plants.

This is also a good time to look for invasive plants on your property. For me, the cast of characters includes bush honeysuckle, barberry, buckthorn and multiflora rose. If you have a Norway maple, you probably have lots of new seedlings from it that are easy to pull.

You can get a list of invasives from your state online, but I found the Vermont Invasive Plants list is best. It includes just the 12 most common, along with pictures, so it’s easier to use.

Many invasives leaf out early and drop their leaves late in the fall. That gives them an advantage over many natives. Honeysuckle puts out greenery in mid-April for me. Burning bush holds its red leaves late in the fall, so it’s easier to find small ones then.

Although not easy, digging out invasives is generally the best way to control them. Cutting them down usually does not kill them. Buckthorn is the worst: Cut one to the ground, and a dozen will grow from the roots. If you can double-girdle all the stems down low, it will die after two winters. Basically, you’re starving the roots from the nutrition produced by the leaves.

Potting mix is readily available at all garden centers, big box stores, and even some mini-marts. But if you are going to fill up lots of flower pots, you can save money by making your own.

If you never emptied your pots and window boxes last fall, you can reuse it this year. First pull the dead plants and dump the used potting soil into a pile. Then make up some new potting soil and mix it 50-50 with your old potting soil.

To make potting soil, mix add equal parts coir or peat moss, compost and perlite (which looks like crumbled Styrofoam but is actually super-heated volcanic minerals) to it in roughly equal quantities in a wheelbarrow until mostly full. Stir well. Add half a cup of a slow-release organic fertilizer like Pro-Gro or Plant-Tone and mix well. It is best to water the peat moss or coir before using as it can be very dry.

When I make potting soil, I don’t measure things exactly. I probably use more compost than perlite or coir. If you have a good source of mature compost, you can save money and add good microorganisms to the soil. The finished product should be fluffy and not quick to clump up when you grab a handful of it. But if you are only going to use a few pots, just buy a bag of potting soil.

So don’t get discouraged by a few cold days now. Summer is on the way, so get ready.

You may reach Henry at henryhomeyer@comcast.net.

Featured photo: Honeysuckles have opposite branching. They leaf out early. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Lambs, lathes and lumberjacks

Lots to see and do at the NH Farm, Forest & Garden Expo

Kelly Bryer is the manager of the New Hampshire Farm, Forest & Garden Expo taking place Friday, May 1, and Saturday, May 2, at the Deerfield fairgrounds. She said the yearly Expo has changed considerably over the past several years.

“We’re in our 43rd year,” she said. “It’s put on by three agencies: the UNH Extension, the New Hampshire Division of Forest and Lands, and the New Hampshire Department of Agriculture, Markets, and Food. We were in Manchester for 40 years, as a winter event. Then, three years ago, we moved out to the Deerfield fairgrounds in the spring, and the Expo is a whole new animal now.”

“Now,” she said, “we pretty much take over an entire end of the Deerfield fairgrounds. We’ve got tractors that will be running. We’ve got running sawmills. We’ll have a team of oxen running lumber between the sawmills — it’s a really cool thing. We have free horse-drawn wagon rides. There’s a barn space for the animals. There’s an open exhibition space. … We bring in a lot of partners to hold their events within our bigger event. The Dark Horse Lumberjack Show will go off on Friday. We’ll have the Wildlife Heritage Foundation’s ‘Forever Locked’ display there — that’s the two big taxidermied moose that are engaged in battle.”

Each exhibit or demonstration at the Farm, Forest & Garden Expo will be centered around New Hampshire’s agriculture, Bryer said, from general themes to very specific topics.

“For instance,” she said, “Concord Tractor is doing [a presentation] about safe loading of tractors, which is really fascinating. … We’ll have a chainsaw maintenance and sharpening workshop. We’ll have cider making for kids and maple sugaring for beginners. Averill House Vineyard is coming to talk about growing grapes and vine management.”

“[The Department of Transportation] will have their big trucks there. We’ll have lots of different types of machinery. Kids can sit on the tractors. We have a ‘Playpen’ running so you can actually try out a tractor,” she said.

The Expo will also showcase larger issues in modern agriculture, Bryer said. “Another really popular session that always fills up quickly is the homestead food rules, so if you want to make and sell your own products.”

Other organizations will make presentations of different rural skills, Bryer said. “We have demonstrators coming in. We have rug braiders and some spinners and some chair caners who will be coming in. The Guild of New Hampshire Woodworkers will put on some demonstrations, and they’ll have an opportunity for people to join in. There will be beekeepers. And they usually bring bees with them.”

“We are jam-packed,” she said.

The New Hampshire Farm, Forest & Garden Expo
When: Friday, May 1, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday, May 2, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Deerfield Fairgrounds, 34 Stage Road, Deerfield, 463-7421.
Tickets will be on sale at Gate E. Admission is $10 per person, free for children 12 and younger. Visit nhfarmandforestexpo.org.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Kiddie Pool 26/04/30

Family fun for whenever

Fest fun

• Register now for the Woolly Wonder Fest at the Joppa Hill Educational Farm, 174 Joppa Hill Road in Bedford, on Saturday, May 2, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event will feature hands-on wool skirting, washing, carding and spinning; live fiber demonstrations, an opportunity to meet the sheep, music and more, according to the farm’s Facebook page. See jhef.org/events-at-the-farm.

On stage

• You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown will be presented by the Manchester Community Theatre Players on Fridays, May 1; Saturday, May 2; Friday, May 8, and Saturday, May 9, at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays, May 3 and May 10, at 2 p.m. at the MCTP Theatre, the North End Montessori School, 698 Beech St. in Manchester. Described as an all-ages-friendly show, the play “explores life through the eyes of Charlie Brown and his friends in the Peanuts gang. This revue of songs and vignettes, based on the beloved Charles Schulz comic strip, is the ideal first show for those who would like to do a musical. Musical numbers include ‘My Blanket and Me,’ ‘The Kite,’ ‘The Baseball Game,’ ‘Little Known Facts,’ ‘Suppertime’ and ‘Happiness,’” according to a press release. See manchestercommunitytheatre.com for tickets.

• Shrek The Musical will be presented by Actorsingers on Friday, May 1, and Saturday, May 2, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 3, at 2 p.m. at the Keefe Center for the Arts, 117 Elm St. in Nashua, according to actorsingers.org, where you can purchase tickets.

• The Magician’s Elephant, based on the book by Kate DiCamillo, will be presented by the Powerhouse Theatre Collaborative in its New Hampshire premiere on Friday, May 1, at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, May 2, and Sunday, May 3, at 2 p.m. at Colonial Theatre, 609 Main St. in Laconia, according to powerhousenh.org, where you can purchase tickets.

On stage, canine edition

• Mutts Gone Nuts, described as “eight world-class stunt dogs in a hilarious comedy show” by muttsgonenuts.com, will perform Friday, May 1, at 7 p.m. at the Dana Center at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. See tickets.anselm.edu for tickets. See the Mutts Gone Nuts website for video clips from previous shows.

Stay in the loop!

Get FREE weekly briefs on local food, music,

arts, and more across southern New Hampshire!