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Not all frosts are equal. You can find out more about expected frost and freeze dates at your local cooperative extension website or by searching 'frost dates' along with your town and state or zip code. You can match that information with the 10-day forecast on your phone's weather app. A light frost occurs when temperatures fall to between 29 and 32 degrees F. Some tender plants will die. A moderate freeze occurs when temperatures go from 25 to 28 degrees F. Temperatures that fall below 24 degree...

It is time to think about putting your garden to bed, harvesting your crops and preparing for next year’s garden. Here are some of my fall tips for the edible garden. Be Safe—The Society of American Hand Therapists recently announced that wearing gardening gloves was at the top of their list for preventing gardening injuries. Womanswork has a pair to suit every hand, task and season. In this month's Martha Stewart Living, she features the Womanswork Goatskin Glove as one of her "Finds" for fall ...

Here are 7 tips to help you with your garden now, as summer is winding down.  I follow every one of these practices in my garden. #1: Watering Tips: Remember to give your plants enough water. The water needs to reach the roots or it will lead to shallow root systems. This will prevent plants from absorbing and storing enough water to support them. For annuals, lawns and perennials, most roots are 4 to 6 inches below the soil surface. For trees they can be down as far as 18 to 24 inches.  Running the sp...

Traditionally it was considered good form to tidy up the garden before winter by cutting back just about everything to a few inches of the ground. Many horticulturists and naturalists now recommend that you leave some plants for winter interest and wildlife sustainability. But which ones? Here are Ruth Clausen’s tips for putting your garden to bed this fall. Be choosy about what needs to go. Observe which plants are diseased or pest-ridden and get rid of those. Put diseased plant material in a tra...

The steps I put in leading down to the pond and stream are made of wood.  I chose to make wood steps because the cost of a stone path would be prohibitively expensive. The stones themselves and the labor to move them into position, given the length of the hillside (40-50') and the inaccessability of the site to a delivery truck, made that approach very expensive. After installing the wood steps I was happy with the choice as I felt it achieved some important objectives, both functionally and from a desi...

Rebecca Webster is not your average attorney, teacher, activist, farmer and mom. She’s a proud citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin whose passion to reignite the traditions of her forebears is evident in everything she sets her mind to. Soft spoken and upbeat, Rebecca tells me in a phone interview that she grew up on the reservation but was bussed to public schools off the reservation. At that time there was not a lot of interest in understanding the culture of her tribe, on or off the reservation...

Stephanie Hall is part of a growing trend in the florist trade to source flowers locally and in season. Her farm in North Carolina, Sassafras Fork Farm, has a two- acre plot dedicated to approximately 70 different varieties of cut flowers. Says Hall about the farmer-florist movement, "It's a stark contrast to the conventionally grown, imported flowers of the commercial floral trade."  Stephanie grew up in Chapel Hill, the daughter of a UNC professor.  In 2011, she and her (just retired) father deci...

  Kiftsgate sits dramatically on the edge of the Cotswolds escarpment in Gloucestershire County, England, an hour’s drive from Oxford and 2 ½ from London. The name Kiftsgate is thought to be the name of an old saxon meeting place, marked by a stone that rests nearby to this day. [caption id="attachment_3014" align="alignright" width="300"] Four Squares at Kiftsgate Court[/caption] When Anne Chambers, the present owner, was raising her 3 children in London they would visit Kiftsgate, her chi...

Smith College, my alma mater, has a vibrant and lush botanical garden that attracts people from all around the world. It features a collection of over 10,000 living plants on the campus as well as 60,000 pressed specimens. If you ever find yourself around the Northampton, Massachusetts area, you should stop and visit. It's free and offers a chance to see a spectacular arrangement of trees, flowers and plant life. To learn more about the Botanic Garden of Smith College, keep reading. How The Botanic Garden ...

When is a shrub not a plant? When it’s in your hand as the ingredient in a thirst-quenching  beverage. In this context, think of a shrub as a pre-made drink mixer to which you can add tonic water, ginger beer or soda water for a non-alcoholic version, or gin, vodka, bourbon or prosecco for an alcoholic beverage. Today’s craft cocktails have taken the concept, which has its origins in colonial times, to a new level of popularity. Many shrubs get their distinction from herbs that are easily grown i...