Month: October 2015

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…

Fig trees are easy to grow in warm climates. They produce their best fruit in Mediterranean climates with hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. Mature fig trees are fully cold hardy to 20 degrees F. The trees can be grown outside their normal climate range if they are planted in lightweight, easy to move containers. In climates where winter temperatures fall below 20 degrees F, the potted plants should be moved indoors to a sunny location until spring. Fig…

In Vermont they take their wood piles seriously. Last winter my son-in-law Nate built the holz hausen shown here at Eve and Nate's house outside of Woodstock, VT. Typically he stacks their wood in a long straight woodpile (also visible in photo), and finds it to be meditative work. Last year after building the straight wall he found that he still had a pretty sizeable amount of wood left that wasn't going to fit, so he decided to try something…

The Monarch Butterfly, like the bee, has become the poster child for pollinators in trouble.  The sharp decline in Monarch populations in recent years has gotten the attention of scientists and ordinary citizens alike. It has spawned a movement of citizen scientists who are taking action! Read below to learn what efforts are being made to bring back monarchs. Project Native and Monarch Waystations Project Native in Housatonic, Massachussetts, is a non-profit grower of native plants and a learning center.…

I visited the farm, Dingle Hill Flowers & Herbs, on a sultry August day, my car bumping up a hilly, mile-long stretch of gravel road leading to the former dairy farm, now herb sanctuary, in the Catskill Mountains of NY.  Finally I took a sharp turn and headed towards the main farmhouse and the "Heart" of the enterprise, where I met owners Daphne Boss Ayalon and her husband Jerome. Liz Scholl, Womanswork's master herbalist, who sources herbs from Daphne for our…